Customer Reviews

Men's Lives, Sixth Edition

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The fourth edition of Kimmel and Messner's Men's Lives is an engaging anthology accessing the forefront of scholarship about diverse men and masculinities. Going beyond earlier texts and collections, Men's Lives now reflects the development of greater theoretical sophistication and coherence in a field once often represented as anecdote and generalization. It is not simply "good men's studies," it is good gender studies. An instructor's resource manual is available and provides relevant summaries, experiential learning exercises, and examination questions, plus key terms, films, and internet resources.

While some reviewers seem to state that Kimmel and Messner are painting men in a particularly bad light, these reviews seem to miss the key points that the authors are trying to make: the problem is masculinity and the way men perform masculinity, not males themselves. Kimmel and Messner critique gender and all the stereotypes surrounding it to present a manual for understanding masculinity as a social construction. Some articles in this reader are less helpful than others but overall it is a great introduction to masculinity studies and I highly recommend it. The book presents a variety of men's voices while sadly leaving out men with disabilities and trans men. The book cities arenas of oppression and explains how men AND women contribute to a culture where oppressive masculinity is allowed to reign.

Received on time and as described. I am very happy with my purchase!! It is exactly what I needed...
Product was in great condition!

Received it right away and was in the condition the seller described. I would recommend this seller.

I had this book for SOC381, Men and Masculinity.

great read, some of the articles are hard to read (just a tonne of quotes and statistics... no depth)

I reccomend it

Don't let the fact that this book is edited by two men fool you. This book treats white, heterosexual men as sadistic oppressors and is driven by a women's studies/feminist and sometimes Marxist agenda.

You can get the complete summary of the book from this quote contained in it: "Heterosexual men maintain their status by the oppression of gay men; middle-aged men can maintain their dominance over older and younger men; upper-class men can exploit working-class men,; and white men can enjoy priviledges at the expense of men of color."

(I am not sure here whether a middle aged gay man dominates a young heterosexual, but I digress...)

If you want to find a positive image of (non-gay) men it is not here.

Articles include (with a quote from each article):

Men on Rape , "Rape may be America's fastest growing violent crime; no one can be certain because it is not clear whether more rapes are being committed or reported." (uh, so therefore let's just assume it is true as a basis for the article...)

Getting Off on Feminism, "There has to be a difference between being straight and being a breeder. And breeding is just one of the many assumptions that our culture applies to male heterosexuality." (Written by a feminist male who is really much too worried about what all his feminist pals think of him)

Life Styles of Gay Husbands and Fathers, no quote. A balanced article about the experiences of males who figure out they're gay after being married and having children. This book has a very high gay to straight ratio in articles however that overstates the prevalence of homosexuality among men.

Fraternities and the College Rape Culture, "A rape culture is strengthened by rules that permit alcohol only at fraternity parties. Under this system, men control the parties and dominate the men as well as the women that attend." (This actually was an evenly balanced article that focused on how to structure organizations and events to reduce the potentiality of rape)

The Fathers' Rights Movement: Contradictions in Rhetoric and Practice, "Indeed, fathers want to play a role in their children's lives, but for most, that role is merely a continuation of their predivorce role of the traditional father who exercises his power and control." (the "but for most" helps the authors dismiss my anecdotal evidence of being a single parent. Note we can say "single mother" easily and understandably but "single father" requires explanation so we have to resort to "single parent".)

The grammatical errors in the quotes are from the book and are not typos.

Some articles use made up statistics, gross generalities, and outright distortions to make their point. Many of the articles are balanced in and of themselves but, taken as a whole collection in this book, present a distorted view of "Men's Lives."

It would be nice if when you are offered to "look inside" the book, the copy you are looking through is the edition that you are buying instead of one ten years older. This "look inside" option is not helpful if it is an old edition.

Kimmel and Messner are acomplished researchers, yet I find no reason for the "cute" little additions such as average male size charts and sarcastic quizes revolving around the "gay or straight" issues. We are saturated with sexuality in our day and age, we don't need it from our scholars as well.

I have stumbled upon one of Michael Kimmel's articles regarding men's behaviors. I emailed him and asked some hard questions regarding his feministic attitudes. He could not answer any of my questions. For example, I asked him why he is so focusd on "correcting" men's behaviors when society and feminists and many women today view men as doofus, murderers, rapists, etc, as evidence by movies, commericals, TVs... Basically men are not respected while at the same time, women only programs are popping up all the time! Furthermore, I commented that in order to finetune men's "bad behaviors", one must also addresses women's attitudes toward men! He failed to answer and only ask me to be openminded and attend one of the women's courses and called me angry!