Ebook: The Men and the Boys

In recent years, questions about men and boys have aroused remarkable media interest, public concern and controversy. Across the world, health services are noticing the relevance of men's gender to problems as diverse as road accidents, diet and sexually transmitted disease. Teachers are increasingly preoccupied with the poor educational performance of boys, and criminologists have begun to explore why men and boys continue to dominate the crime statistics. In this timely new volume, one of the world's leading authorities on masculinity helps us to understand these developments, and make sense of the multiplying issues about men and boys. Five years on from the publication of the seminal study Masculinities, this book reflects on the growing social scientific research in this area. Connell assesses its strengths and weaknesses and explores its implications for contemporary problems from boys' education and men's health to international peacemaking. Written in a lively and accessible way, this book will be essential reading for all students of sociology, politics and gender studies, as well as anyone interested in the future of gender relations.;Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- PART 1 EXAMINING MASCULINITIES -- 1 Debates about men, new research on masculinities -- Issues about men and boys -- The new social research on masculinity -- Key conclusions of recent research -- 2 New directions in theory and research -- Current debate: Concepts of gender and approaches to masculinity -- The gender relations approach -- Conceptualizing masculinities -- Agenda for research -- PART 2 GLOBALIZATION -- 3 Masculinities and globalization -- The world gender order -- The repositioning of men and the remaking of masculinities -- Globalizing masculinities -- Masculinity politics on a world scale -- 4 Globalization and men's bodies -- Understanding men's bodies -- Imperialism and men's bodies -- Contemporary globalization and men's bodies -- Implications for gender reform -- PART 3 BODIES AND DESIRES -- 5 An iron man -- Being a champion -- Soft path, hard goal -- The body and the self -- Wanting to win: The ideology of competitive sport -- Reflections -- 6 'I threw it like a girl': Some difficulties with male bodies -- Looking at jelly: Adam Singer -- Burning up the body: Tip Southern -- Reflections -- 7 Man to man: Homosexual desire and practice among working-class men (written with M.D. Davis and G.W. Dowsett) -- The working-class setting -- The social framework of male-to-male sex -- Sexual practice -- Desire and identity -- The HIV/AIDS epidemic -- Reflections -- PART 4 PRACTICALITIES -- 8 Cool guys, swots and wimps -- Getting into trouble -- Knowing where you stand -- Over the hump -- Dry sciences -- Reading feminism -- Reflections -- 9 Teaching the boys -- Schools and gender -- Schools as agents in the making of masculinities -- Pupils as agents, school as setting -- Educational strategies in work with boys -- The process of change -- 10 Men's health.