Manhood in America: A Cultural History

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Oxford University Press, 2006 - 322 pages
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For more than three decades, the women's movement and its scholars have exhaustively studied women's complex history, roles, and struggles. In Manhood in America, Second Edition, author Michael S. Kimmel--a leading authority in gender studies--argues that it is time for men to rediscover their
own evolution. Drawing on a myriad of sources, including advice books, magazine columns, political pamphlets, and popular novels and films, he demonstrates that American men have been eternally frustrated by their efforts to keep up with constantly changing standards. Kimmel contends that men must
follow the lead of the women's movement; it is only by mining their past for its best qualities and worst excesses that men will free themselves from the constraints of the masculine ideal.

Condensed and revised in this second edition, Manhood in America features updated chapters and examples that extend its coverage through the Bush administration. Touching on issues of masculinity as they pertain to current events, the book discusses such timely topics as post-9/11 politics,
"self-made" masculinities (including those of Internet entrepreneurs), presidential campaigns, and gender politics. It also covers contemporary debates about fatherlessness, the biology of male aggression, and pop psychologists like John Gray and Dr. Laura. Outlining the various ways in which
manhood has been constructed and portrayed in America, this engaging history is ideal as a main text for courses on masculinity or as a supplementary text for courses in gender studies and cultural history.

From inside the book

 

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Page 69
By the 1880s the term had become a derisive description for spineless boys and men and by 1900 had become clearly associated with effeminacy , cowardice , and lack of aggression . Heterosexual men had begun to define themselves in ...
Page 98
McTeague is double - edged tragedy : His own tragic flaw - his animality that he cannot completely contain — becomes enmeshed with the tragic flaw of social life at the turn of the century , an unbridled greed which destroys all human ...
Page 114
By the end of the century , fraternities had become an important part of collegiate life , with over 140,000 members by 1898.40 Men's Rites a But what would become of these boys when they grew up to be men , away from their college ...

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Contents

The Birth of the SelfMade Man
11
SelfControl and Fantasies of Escape
30
Captains of Industry White Collars and
57
Copyright

8 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

American appeared argued Artisan became become believed body boys called celebrated century Christian cited City Civil claimed course critic cultural decades earlier economic efforts emotional equality example experience expressed father fear feel female feminism frontier gender George girls groups hero Heroic homosexuality increasingly industrial John labor less liberation lives look magazine male man's manhood manly masculinity meaning men's middle-class moral mother movement nature never observed offered organization parents percent perhaps physical play political popular problem prove race responsibility role seemed Self-Made sense sexual social society sons success things traditional transformed turn University Press virtue woman women workers workplace writes wrote York young

References to this book

About the author (2006)

Michael Kimmel is at SUNY at Stony Brook.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Manhood in America
TitleManhood in America: A Cultural History
AuthorMichael S. Kimmel
Edition2, illustrated
PublisherOxford University Press, 2006
Original fromthe University of Virginia
Digitized9 Jul 2008
ISBN0195181131, 9780195181135
Length322 pages
  
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