Leaders of colleges for traditional-age students spend a lot of time worrying about the behavior of male undergraduates — and specifically the misbehavior of many through excessive drinking, hazing, and abusive behavior toward women. A leading sociologist and gender scholar, Michael Kimmel, has just published a new book that offers an inside look at this young male culture, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (HarperCollins). The book covers male development fromRead the complete interview.ages 16 through 26, and features extensive discussion of campus life. Kimmel responded via e-mail to questions about his work.
Q: As colleges welcome a new crop of freshmen, what should they be aware of about their new male students that perhaps they aren’t aware of now?
A: What I call “Guyland” is both a developmental stage and a social space. Young adults, age 16-26, are taking about a decade longer to complete the transition to adulthood than did their parents and especially their grandparents. 30 is really the new 20. Guyland is also the world that young people — male and female — inhabit. After growing up with helicopter parents micromanaging every nanosecond, they enter a world in which colleges have backed away from the old “in loco parentis” model, so that young people increasingly define themselves through media images and peer groups. And on campus, guys rule.
Learn more about Guyland and the author at the official Guyland website.
The Page 99 Test: Guyland.
--Marshal Zeringue