Table of Contents

Men and Masculinities
Men and Masculinities
Essentialist Retreats
The Mythopoetic Men′s Movement and the Christian Promise Keepers
The Limits of `The Male Sex Role′
The Men′s Liberation and Men′s Rights Movements
Profeminist Engagements
Radical and Socialist Feminist Men′s Movements
Racial and Sexual Identity Politics
Racialized Masculinity Politics and Gay Male Liberation
Backlash or Social Justice?

Reviews

This is a timely and lively book that illuminates not only what different groups of men think about gender but how they actually perform gender in their daily lives.....
*Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society*

It stands out from a good deal of the sociological work on masculinity.
*British Journal of Sociology*

&ltPolitics of Masculinities: Men in Movements is an insightful and progressive sociological analysis of the wide range of men's movement discourse and practice in the contemporary United States. As such it serves as an excellent introduction of its subject for students and scholars, and it will likely become a standard text in undergraduate courses on critical studies of masculinities....
*American Studies*

Messner (sociology, Univ. of Southern California) describes eight recent men's movements in the U.S.: Christian Promise Keepers, Mythopoetic 'Iron John' masculinity, the Men's Liberation Movement, the Men's Rights Movement, Radical Feminist Men, Socialist Feminist Men, Racialized Masculinity Politics, and Gay Male Liberation. He positions the movements on different areas within a triangular-shaped diagram he calls 'the terrain of masculinity politics.' The three angles of the diagram represent institutionalized male privileges; the costs to men of masculinity; and the differences and inequalities among men. He later places his hoped-for future men's movement (which he perceives as a multicultural feminism) in an extension of this triangle and perceptively probes the strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions within and between the movements. A lucid, jargon-free overview of recent American men's reactions to feminism. All levels..
*CHOICE*

Messner (sociology, Univ. of Southern California) describes eight recent men's movements in the
U.S.: Christian Promise Keepers, Mythopoetic 'Iron John' masculinity, the Men's Liberation
Movement, the Men's Rights Movement, Radical Feminist Men, Socialist Feminist Men, Racialized
Masculinity Politics, and Gay Male Liberation. He positions the movements on different areas within
a triangular-shaped diagram he calls 'the terrain of masculinity politics.' The three angles of the
diagram represent institutionalized male privileges; the costs to men of masculinity; and the
differences and inequalities among men. He later places his hoped-for future men's movement (which
he perceives as a multicultural feminism) in an extension of this triangle and perceptively probes the

strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions within and between the movements. A lucid, jargon-free
overview of recent American men's reactions to feminism. All levels.
*CHOICE*

This is a timely and lively book that illuminates not only what different groups of men think about
gender but how they actually perform gender in their daily lives.
*Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society*

is an insightful and progressive sociological analysis of the wide range of men's movement discourse and practice in the contemporary United States. As such it serves as an excellent introduction of its subject for students and scholars, and it will likely become a standard text in undergraduate courses on critical studies of masculinities.
*American Studies*