Michael Kimmel, one of the world’s foremost experts on masculinity, examines its role in men’s adherence to – and departure from – far-right movements.
By J. Oliver Conroy
The Guardian (2/27/17)
During the Obama years, various commentators made wild predictions about the death of the white male as a politically relevant demographic. Then came Trump, propelled to power by a wave of angry white men.
The sociologist Michael Kimmel is one of the world’s foremost experts on the phenomenon. As the director of Stony Brook University’s Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, he’s a leader in the emerging field of masculinity studies. His recent research has looked at topics including spree killers (who are overwhelmingly male and white), as well as the relationship between masculinity and political extremism. He’s also just wrapped up a new book studying why men join hate groups – and how they leave.
In a recent interview, Kimmel discussed the election of Trump, domestic terrorism, the men’s rights movement, and the “alt-right”. …
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Donald Trump’s Victory Is A Disaster For Modern Masculinity
Nostalgia for simplistic sexual certainties won the election. But it’s just as oppressive for men as it is for women.
By Jacquelyn Rose
The Guardian (11/15/16)
As the reality of the US election sinks in, perhaps our biggest mistake was to see simplicity in the crass figure who will now “lead” the free world. In fact he tapped into the deepest, most disturbing strata of the human mind. And men, as well as women, will be the casualties.
One of the most important achievements of feminism over the last half-century, as even Donald Trump must somewhere know, has been to get men, or at least some men, to think critically about, even to reject, the crassest version of masculinity on offer. To ask themselves what they in fact have to gain from a way of being a man in the world that harms women, but which also – since it is as ridiculous as it is cocksure – leaves all men vulnerable to exposure. (Trump will surely go down in history as the first presidential candidate to boast of his penis size).
When Trump parades his assaults on the dignity of women as a source of pride, it is therefore disastrous for women, but no less so for any man who has come to see this caricature of masculinity as a travesty. Where do such men turn now? What are they, and their sons, meant to make of the strutting, grimacing Trump, who will grace all of our TV screens and the front pages of newspapers by the day? How do men and women relate to one another, and how do men relate to other men, if the man who gets the biggest prize of all regards women as subhuman? …