Guyland

I am reading Michael Kimmel's Guyland as news comes across that an 18 year old Rutgers student committed suicide by jumping of the George Washington Bridge the other day because of action that his roommate and another classmate took--using a webcam came to stream live over the internet the dead boy's private sexual encounter. An eighth grader in Houston took his life also this week because of anti-gay bullying. A 13 year old California boy who has been in a coma for the past 9 nine days since hanging himself to escape from the hell that is anti-gay bullying died this week, too.
Three deaths attributable to anti-gay bullying in half a week. "Homophobia is ubiquitous. . .And sometimes gay baiting takes an ugly turn and becomes gay-bashing" states Kimmel on page 9. Guyland is about masculinity, about how boys become men... and anything or anyone that challenges their concept of masculinity is fair game.

Our book group is reading this book to get some insight into how to grow feminist men. So far, I am getting insight into the misogyny that guys in guyland exude--they like girls, but seem to hate women. And, why young women buy into the the guyland world--females' social status is still determined by their relationship to men (p.245) (Simone de Beauvoir was so on the mark in her Second Sex as were-The Radicalesbians who penned the 1970 "Woman Identified Women" and defined heterosexism.

Our book group will meet at 7 p.m. on Thursday Oct 14th to discuss the book, and we will go hear Dr. Kimmel deliver the keynote address at Marist the evening of October 22.