Michael Kimmel is the author of GUYLAND: THE PERILOUS WORLD WHERE BOYS BECOME MEN and MANHOOD IN AMERICA. He teaches sociology at SUNY Stony Brook.

Blog Entries by Michael Kimmel

Meet the Lamberts: Elizabeth and Adam Expose Sexism and Homophobia

Posted December 10, 2009 | 07:00 PM (EST)


Meet the Lamberts, Elizabeth and Adam. No, they're not really related - at least by blood. But they are related socially. Both are the victims of gender and sex discrimination and the galloping double standard.

To review, ladies first. Elizabeth Lambert, a defender on the University of New Mexico...

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From "That's So Gay" to "No Homo": A Small Sign of Progress

3 Comments | Posted November 5, 2009 | 05:22 PM (EST)


Ask any teenager in America what is the most common put down in middle school or high school? The answer: "That's so gay." It's said about anything and everything -- their clothes, their books, the music or TV shows they like, the sports figures they admire. "That's so gay" has...

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Pink Taxis, Quotas, and Global Gender Equality

1 Comments | Posted October 28, 2009 | 02:09 PM (EST)


Two items in the International Herald Tribune this past week caught my eye. I was thinking about the best strategies to engage young people in initiatives to promote gender equality, which is open of the major issues of my political life.

A fleet of 35 bright pink taxis...

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Double Fault: Serenas's Loss of Serenity Reveals Both Race and Gender Bias

244 Comments | Posted September 14, 2009 | 11:57 AM (EST)


Can anyone still recall the hazy afterglow following the presidential election -- that orgy of premature self-congratulation about suddenly becoming a "post racial" society?

That prematurity was on full display the other night in the women's semifinal match at the U.S. Open between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters. Clijsters's...

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The Bigotry of the Binary: The Case of Caster Semenya

2 Comments | Posted August 24, 2009 | 08:56 PM (EST)


Who today remembers the 1965 song from those one-hit wonders, The Barbarians -- a little anti-hippie ditty called "Are you a Boy, or Are you a Girl?" "Well you may be a boy," they sang, "but you look like a girl," capturing the cultural anxiety about the androgynous blurring of...

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The Current Glorification of Michael Jackson Ignores His Darker Side

170 Comments | Posted July 14, 2009 | 04:21 PM (EST)


The lionization of Michael Jackson now seems complete following the cathartic outpouring of grief and the celebration of his life at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Hundreds of millions of people, worldwide, tuned in to watch on Jumbotrons and TVs at home. Calls for national days of mourning just...

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