They’re not boys anymore, but they certainly aren’t men. Welcome to Guyland.
Kick back, crack a few brews, and after a few hours of online gaming, take in a televised ball game with your bros, tell some lies about women, and laugh a lot. It doesn’t get better, right?
Well, actually, it does, but too many young men seem to think that there is little more to manhood than turning a baseball cap from backwards to forward.
Welcome to Guyland, where a generation of mostly white, mostly college-educated men are mired in adolescence for as much as a full decade after their teen years. According to Dr. Michael Kimmel, a sociologist at SUNY-Stonybrook, “The traditional map for becoming a man has vanished.”
Kimmel’s 2008 book, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, identifies a new class of men—guys—who are scared of assuming adult roles in their careers and love life. It’s not that they don’t want to grow up—they don’t know how.
Ask any college professor who teaches in the humanities, as I do, and you’ll get the same observation. Though women undergo the transition to adulthood during the same stage of development, because of what Kimmel calls “a smaller window of fertility,” the female map of what to do and when to do it is far more clear for women. Guys, on the other hand, seem good-naturedly purposeless, and since the window on life-options seems to stay forever open, why worry?
Some of this new gender gap is biological; for young women, there are no years available to sit around and shoot the 
shit—not if they want children and a career. With not much time to waste, young women develop clear ideas about how to get from now to next.
Chat with a twenty-something woman, she can describe her career plans, when she will marry, the hoped for date her children will arrive, their names, and quite possibly their sex. Women today are not shy about creating concrete life goals and peering into the future to see how she will accomplish them.
But if you chat with her male counterpart, there’s a good chance he’ll shrug the conversation off and dismiss the future with a vague “whatever.”
That vagueness of vision may not apply to your average business major in school to learn to fill a wheelbarrow with money—and over in the sciences the boys are not vague about studying hard to become professional, well-paid geeks. But in the liberal arts, the traditional refuge for a generalist college degree, the place where those Big Questions get asked and never answered, youthful ambition is as rare as rainbows: not impossible, but hardly something you see every day.
Kimmel identifies three forces that shape Guyland. “First, the longevity revolution has diminished the pressure to marry in a man’s early twenties.”
“Second, the instability of the economy makes identification with a specific career perilous.” He adds, “So why commit to a job?”
Finally, Kimmel believes cultural forces make Guyland a kind of perpetual DisneyWorld on a testosterone buzz.
“Sports and trash talk are ways to exclude women,” he says, “and in the modern consumer economy, where consumption creates identity, guys pursue masculinity by buying what they think they need to feel like men.” That would be beer, video games, expensive equipment for weekend warrior games, and maybe more beer.
And then there’s the ubiquity of internet pornography, creating the illusion of an infinite pool of willing and adventurous partners forever young and forever available.
Why commit to real life when the fantasy is so perfect?
♦♦♦
“Guys are terrified,” Kimmel explains, partly because of a generation’s gains by women. “Guys see gender competition as a zero-sum game as the traditional male prerogatives from the 50s and 60s have vanished.” Kimmel notes that in a world where 70 percent of high school valedictorians are female, men simply withdraw from the competition, rather than fail.
Having helicopter parents only makes the situation worse. According to Kimmel, even college presidents get phone calls from concerned, insecure Boomer parents defending their wonder-kids, parents unwilling to accept that little Timmy may have actually earned that C+ on his last term paper.
Except for binge drinking and extreme sports, young men have become risk averse, especially for the things that matter, like love and work. Guyland is filled with easy classes, easy professors, and nary a challenge in sight.
What can grown men do to help their younger counterparts achieve manhood?
Age and experience used to confer a quality called wisdom, but Kimmel points out that in Guyland, social education goes from peer to peer. Where most cultures have transition rituals run by older men that conducted a boy to manhood, we have text messaging, Twitter, and Facebook.
“Today, a 16-year-old who wants to learn to be mature will ask a twenty-one year old,” Kimmel says. Fathers who want a richer life for their boys—without hovering—need to stay connected to their sons. Kimmel advises, “Dads who say, ‘I’m done’ when their boys reach 18 need to think again.”
—Perry Glasser
—Perry Glasser is also a contributor to The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood.
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About Perry Glasser
Vocalyze
I guess this is why males are in trouble economically, academically and professionally when compared to their female counterparts.
Benjamin R. Barber of U Maryland has talked about this extensively in his book ‘Consumed’. He lables the market driven extended adolescense as ‘infantilization of the consumer’. The rituals of boy to adult man are ignored for many men, since this kills the ‘fantasy’ that you accurately label. However, though we bemoan the sea change, the deeper question is what to do about it. Is a directed reversal needed, or is the guy the inevetiable standard from now on? Is this really any different than before (we still had Dandys in 1900), does the internet just highlight this? Or is this actually a different rule-set for males? It remains to be seen, but up and comming middle classes in China and India will tell us if this is a human-economic or American trend.
Dr. Barber’s book is:
http://www.amazon.com/Consumed-Markets-Children-Infantilize-Citizens/dp/0393049612
in case you were interested.
This is a dangerous trend that seems to not only be increasing in popularity but it has become alarmingly acceptable. In a generation where role models were difficult to find and where Dad’s were for the most part absent, boys have stayed in that limbo between boyhood and manhood, remaining as weak-guys and have skipped the stage of being a young-man that would naturally lead to them becoming strong-man.
Though it is as always easier to blame everyone else for what goes wrong, it is in this case obviously clear that we guys need to complete the maturing process on our own. Otherwise we are bound to be just another guy who does mediocre things to lead an average life, not achieving anything meaningful or worth remembering.
It used to be that men had passion, that they stood for something, that they created, that they had an opinion with force-to-act behind it. Credit-sponsored contentment has become our Achilles’ heel as we buy the next set of gadgets/toys/tools for that weekend project/hobby.
This is not to say that we don’t do anything, because indeed we do a lot, and this is obvious from the vast amount of consumable information and other distractions available for purchase. But we don’t have that balance where most things are great, we don’t know what we want in large meaningful ways, we are crowding gyms, standing in line ups to see what’s inside this new place, we go from leadership summit to motivational speaker and only feel good for a couple of days.
These are my two cents on the topic if anyone has found that kit to take you from A to B I’d love to hear more about it…
Francisco
I’m well beyond Guyland age but I remember it well. My Guyland period was dominated about what I would do with my life, how I would succeed, how far I would or could go…
Maybe it’s that I was ambitious (a word only recently used to describe me by an old friend and one that, frankly, shocked me like a static electricity snap) or that I was somewhat, all right, totally, turned off by jocks and their churlish behavior. (Let’s face it, the roots of Guyland grow deepest in the stilted soil of jocks or wannabe jocks. Their sense of entitlement is legendary and it includes the right to do nothing and act like boors)
I have taught college students and spent a decent chunk of time around men about the age of Guyland or approaching Guyland and I see far more men willing to have a go at adulthood than I do the “men” featured in this article.
We’re just a few short years after the flurry of the “The Lazy Gen Y” stories and how we were all going to hell because of the generation of self absorbed punks coming down the pike that were going to demand time off without warning, refuse to work hard and expect raises and bonuses without merit.
I doubted the basis of those stories then, and still do today. It seems that each generation that is in charge has to bitch about those coming up behind them. I’ve never really understood why that is but it seems more rooted in tradition rather than reality.
Gen Y is doing fine like inventing things like Facebook. I still can’t bring myself to believe that Gen Y was nothing but a bunch of whining punks waiting for their mommy to call in sick for them.
I know plenty of men in the time frame of Guyland but very, very few of them are the losers depicted in this article. The vast majority are dedicated to their lives, their loved ones, their futures and to making a difference.
If I’m to believe the POV taken by the author and some of his sources, the world is replete with couch potatoes whose only decision they have to make that day is whether or not to play C.O.D. 4 all day or simply sleep.
I couldn’t disagree more.
Hi. This article is not opinion or personal observation, so Midwest Matt whose indignation about how every generation seems to have a gripe about youth seems misplaced. Dr. Michael Kimmel’s book is the conclusion of research, not an idiosyncratic generational swipe. He and other readers can learn more at http://www.guyland.net/.
As to whether inventing Facebook is progress or ought to be pointed to as the emblematic accomplishments of a generation, or is the accomplishment of a few individuals, I will leave to wiser folks than I, but that seems like claiming the invention of radio is the accomplishment of everyone who lived at the time of Marconi.
Fact is, people are getting married later. Fact is, people are living longer. Fact is, parenting and work is emblematic of adult life. Fact is, the window of opportunity for men is open far wider than it is for women, and fact is commercial forces, like video games, Internet pornography, and extended seasons for professional sports, have made delaying accepting adult life easier and attractive, and the fact is that many of these behaviors are loutish.
Is every man at 22 a lout? Of course not. Dr. Kimmel reports on trends, and denial of such trends only worsens the situation for the young men who lack a map on how to grow up.
The research may be accurate, but I have a hard time relating. My friends and I were simply never like that. We had a great time in our twenties, but even if we didn’t know exactly what we wanted to do we still got jobs and went to work.
I am 41. Is there really that much difference between the 20 somethings of today and my generation. Hard to fathom, just doesn’t look that way to me.
Nicely written, Perry!
Glasser writes that “this [his own] article is not opinion or personal observation.” Elaborating, he adds that “Dr. Michael Kimmel’s book is the conclusion of research, not an idiosyncratic generational swipe.” Neither statement is true. Glasser, like Kimmel, does not rely on personal opinion, to be sure, because he relies instead on feminist ideology (which is something other than scientific or even social scientific research). Glasser, like Kimmel, does not indulge in a generational swipe, moreover, because he relies instead on a sexist swipe–that is, a misandric one against men. I say this, because I’ve read Guyland (and other works by Kimmel) very carefully.
Kimmel includes a few quotations from his informants, both boys and girls. He refers to a few social-scientific studies, moreover, and provides a few bibliographic citations, in the endnotes, to academic works. But this is a trade book, not an academic treatise. There is nothing wrong with his ostensible goal: summarizing many years of working on sociological surveys, interviewing men, teaching, and so on. But his research is very problematic all the same. Sometimes, he presents his own opinions as facts. At other times, he interprets facts in ways that reveal a strong bias against, well, “guys,” usually because he relies heavily on half-truths and double standards. The subtitle of his book is in fact a ruse. It describes Guyland as The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, which would seem to evoke compassion for those at risk. Nothing could be less true, however, of Kimmel’s cynical attitude toward them. The point here is not that Kimmel is an idiot – on the contrary, he is very clever – but rather that he is profoundly and perhaps subconsciously biased against his subjects.
I can hardly discuss the many examples of Kimmel’s bias here. I will, however, mention his fundamental assumptions: (a) that all or almost all American boys and young men are “guys” and therefore contemptible; (b) that their lives revolve around hatred and fear; (c) that these originate in a sense of entitlement; (d) that girls and women bear no responsibility for this state of affairs; and (e) that we can solve the problem through a combination of personal therapy, institutional vigilance and collective conversion to feminism.
I have room here for only one of those assumptions. Kimmel’s main thesis is that young men have an illegitimate sense of entitlement, which they express as rage against those–that is, women–who have usurped their privileges (including, one must presume, the privilege of being drafted into combat). This is a standard assumption of feminists, not only ideological feminists but also egalitarian ones. But these young men were born long after any entitlement that they might have enjoyed merely by virtue of male genes vanished. They live in a world that denies them not only privilege (which is as it should be) but also identity (which is definitely not). As I’ve said elsewhere with Katherine K. Young, no one can have a healthy personal or collective identity without the ability to make at least one contribution to society that is (a) distinctive), (b) necessary, and (c) publicly valued. Egalitarian feminists argue with the best of intentions that women can do everything that men can do (even though they now admit that women can do one thing that men cannot do). This means that men can make no distinctive contribution to society as men. Ideological feminists argue with the worst of intentions that men do make distinctive contributions, but these are evil ones. This means that men can make no necessary contributions to society as men. No wonder, then, that society ascribes no value to men per se. This is true even on occasions such as Father’s Day,.which represents the only possible source of a healthy identity for men. Hallmark cards notwithstanding, the public perception of fatherhood is very dismal. In popular culture (and often in academic culture as well), fathers are luxuries at best (as assistant mothers) or liabilities at worst (as potential molesters). Ergo, Pamela Paul’s article, “Are Fathers Necessary” in the July issue of Atlantic Magazine. Ergo the fatherless family in The Kids Are All Right.
I conclude that young men do indeed feel a sense of lost entitlement–not the loss of illegitimate privilege, however, but the loss of any possibility for creating a healthy identity.
sigh…Readers should judge for themselves, but be cautioned that academic infighting is so vicious because so little is at stake.
According to Wikipedia, Mr. Nathanson’s credential’s are largely in religious studies, and that he often works as an expert witness for the right, meaning he has a financial interest in “refuting” ideas, as well as publishing reactive books of his own.
His testimony has been thrown our of court. “Paul Nathanson is a Canadian religious studies academic and professional expert witness. He has a BA in art history (1968); an MLS (library service, 1971); a BTh (Christianity, 1978); an MA in religious studies (Judaism and Islam); and a PhD (1989). …Nathanson is currently working as a senior researcher in the McGill University department of Religious Studies, while testifying as a paid expert on behalf of social conservatives opposing legal recognition of same-sex marriages. In Varnum v. Brien Nathanson’s testimony concerning purported social effects of recognizing same-sex marriages was stricken by the trial court, which explained that the opinions Nathanson expressed were “not based on observation supported by scientific methodology or . . . on empirical research in any sense.”
So this is where the politicization of scholarship has led us. And yet Glasser believes that “academic infighting” is a tempest in a teapot. But if “so little is at stake,” why bother to attack me on personal grounds? Glasser claims that I have a “financial interest” in testifying against gay marriage, for instance, as if those who testify for gay marriage could have no such interest. How cynical can you get? The truth is that people on both sides are sincere in the belief that they ought to be heard in the public square.
Instead of actually arguing with my ideas, at any rate, Glasser resorts to an argument from authority: his authority versus my authority. As someone who has testified for “conservative” causes, presumably, I have no authority. To put it another way, Glasser resorts to character assassination. Merely associating me with one side of the political continuum is supposed to indicate that I have less scholarly integrity than someone from the other side and therefore that no one should take my ideas seriously. That’s amounts to silencing those who disagree with you.
For the record, I am indeed conservative in the sense of prudence, or caution. I urge people to think carefully before promoting social experiments. I have no affinity whatsoever for what Americans have come to associate with conservative positions: hostility to government intervention in big business, rejection of universal health care, resistance to gun control, and so on. If I were American, I’d be a strong supporter of Barack Obama.
For the record, the Iowa court in Barnum v. Brien acknowledged that it had made a mistake and re-admitted my report.
For the record, moreover, I’m gay. Unlike those who advocate “identity politics,” however, I see no reason to evaluate every argument in connection with what’s good for me or my group. I have no problem at all with gay civil rights, let alone gay relationships. I just think that there’s more at stake than gay civil rights in the current debate over marriage. I see it as a conflict between the legitimate civil rights of two vulnerable groups: gay adults and children.
For the record, my field is religious studies–that is, comparative religion–not theology; I neither belong to nor represent any religious organization or religious movement.
Michael Kimmel does not need me to defend his ideas; nor are he and I engaged in some feminist conspiracy. We’ve never met. I called; he consented to an interview.
Readers can decide for themselves if our culture is posing unique challenges to a new generation of boys who are having difficulty becoming men. Kimmel’s book contains much food for thought, is far from being a diatribe, and can be read without having the feeling one is being kicked in the face for reading.
I am not at all surprised that Limbaugh is challenged by this, it is just too real for him!
Hey Perry,
Thank you so much for this article, very insightful. I’m 25, and I know many guys that fit the exact description you write about. They have ideas of what they want to do with their lives, but they’re ill defined and frankly, there’s no hurry to define them. Not exactly an inspiring group to be around.
I’m not saying that I have years of wisdom, maturity, and have my life together… it’s actually been hard to do since no one really pushes you to answer the hard questions — you have to do it for yourself. The people I look up to for guidance? 30-40 year olds that are able to relate to me, but also have a few years of life experience.
Also, I’m shocked by how many women are ‘OK’ with the bro/guy types. I think they have as much responsibility for perpetuating Guyland as parents or the guys themselves do. They even try to join in so they can relate. I’d like to see more women demanding more out of men rather than just putting up with it.
Anyways, spot on, and thank you so much for the article.
Is it the habit of the Good Men site bloggers to personally attack their critics? Doesn’t
seem like the mature masculine from my perspective. Seems better to debate the issues straight up.
Nathanson had some powerful and fascinating ideas. Those seem to have disappeared due to the attacks on his character. I for one would be interested to hear what Perry Glasser might have to say to counter those comments rather then to deflect and ignore by making things personal.
Many others have found the work of Kimmell to be lacking. If you want an example read a lengthy and detailed review on amazon for Guyland written by Peter Allemano. So far 80 of 113 people have found the review helpful. Here’s how it starts:
“Michael Kimmel’s GUYLAND is a masterpiece — of manipulation and deceit.”
Check it out and see what you think. You will have to scroll through the reviews to find it:
http://www.amazon.com/Guyland-Perilous-World-Where-Become/dp/0060831359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281028226&sr=8-1
Paul Nathanson is a man I admire and respect. He is loving and fair and takes his science seriously as you can see from his post above. His contributions to men’s issues have been huge. His many books include “Spreading Misandry” and “Legalizing Misandry” which are ground breaking works that are a must read for anyone involved in men’s issues.
…. back to the topic at hand…My friend Jack Kammer talks about how we have had 40 years of pep rallies for girls but have ignored the needs, dreams, and development of boys. Now, after ignoring them for that period and not blessing them for their own uniqueness we point at them and criticize them for not being as motivated and directed as girls? That’s insanity.
It has been announced in the blurb for the next meeting of the American Men’s Studies Association (membership 150) that its keynote speaker’s book is optioned to become a movie. That book would be GUYLAND. The author is Michael Kimmel. The optioning suggests that one is correct in assuming GUYLAND is a work of fiction. I invite readers of the exchange between Paul Nathanson and Perry Glasser (above) to study GUYLAND, as Dr. Nathanson has. The book has been widely noted and reviewed. Its appeal lies in confirming a misperception about who 16-26 year-old males are. This misperception is based on focusing entirely on what some of them do. Overall, it is the product of the media, which like to promote ideas such as dumb blonds, promiscuous gay males, drop-out dads, pie-baking moms–the list will be as long as your memory of stereotypes that have captured the attention of the public. There are many more that are far more cruel, hateful and damaging, and do not deserve mention. Borrow a copy of Professor Kimmel’s book from you local library and read it closely. You will find that the 400 young males interviewed are not identified by age, specific demographics, length and setting of the interviews, protocol of the interview, and so on–all staples of research which undergraduate social science majors are taught. Then read the three volumes co-authored by Dr. Nathanson with Professor Katherine Young, both of McGill University, on their central topic of interest: misandry: SPREADING MISANDRY, LEGALIZING MISANDRY and (forthcoming) TRANSCENDING MISANDRY. These books have NOT been widely noted or reviewed. The are heavily documented and cautious in their conclusions. They are works of scholarship and will not be made into movies. Your readers should know that the portrayal of “guys” in GUYLAND simply does not match the reality out there. I speak as a teacher of the modal age group of this cohort for more than 35 years, and as a psychotherapist with hundreds of them. Even if the one-dimensionally negative portrait of young males Professor Kimmel presents were accurate, he omits any reference to the psychological sources of the behavior he claims he sees. Sociologists deal with behavior. What motivates behavior is not their concern. The reality of 16-26 year-old males’ lives–who they are–has to do with their having been abandoned in elementary school, often medicated for their liveliness, raised without fathers (more than half), and often depicted as not worth much more than entertainment on the football playing field or basketball court. The four-times greater suicide rate among this age group, the undiagnosed depression and the ways which this age group have been forming to raise themselves deserve our attention, not selected symptoms of their often shattered self-esteem and neglect. The preparation for studying misandry that Dr. Nathanson brings to his work could not be better. It is firmly rooted in the humanities, including ethics and moral philosophy. Study of aesthetics and the popular media have also prepared him for his work. Awareness of the deep spirituality of young males comes from his sensitivity to the limitations of the secular society in which we live. Again, readers, read the books, not reviews of them. The young men who have been pegged as “guys” are far more complex than many assume. The image of them that is being promulgated is unfair. We should be ashamed to have so little respect for our boys and young males. These are our sons. They will be the fathers of boys and girls. They will be partners and friends of men and women. They will also be the ones building and repairing your roads and houses, collecting your garbage and clearing your sewerage system, installing your air-conditioner, and repairing your computer.
Thanks for these reflections. Becoming a dad is one of those guyland milestones when text messages and facebook fall short. So do the by moms for moms baby books it’s a time begging for some ritual of passing theintergenerationl wisdom. Getting ready to be a dad I was freaked out. But a gathering of dads young and old over chili and beers and hearing their stories I finally felt ready. Then arrival of kids and the knocking of everyone up a generational peg is enough to make you think I must be an adult now, right?
Hi Stefan:
I think perhaps being an adult is a matter of self-regard, like deciding you are a Republican, or an artist, or a writer. There are external certifications possible–things like chronological age and kids–but we’ve all known 15-year-olds who are men because of the force of circumstance, and we’ve all know men, even Dads, who at 40 act like children. Age is a matter of legality, but the truth of the heart is more powerful. In the end, we all are whomever we believe we are.
Congrats on that child! Being a Dad is one of the great adventures.
Thanks for writing.
I’ve taught college for three years now and I can tell you that my experience fits what Guyland says to a T. Many – though certainly not all – of the young men in my classes are unmotivated and don’t seem to have any long-term goals. I don’t think for a minute that it’s because the male gene is inferior. I think it’s a cultural thing, heavily promoted by Madison Ave. – an infantilized consumer is a marketer’s dream. With few good role models and shitty job prospects, reveling in “playtime” makes a lot of sense.
Young gay men can stay in this guyland phase, without the moderating influence of women to pull them along into the world of responsibilities and commitment. Without the societal pressure to have kids, many gay men wake up in their early 40s to realize they are no longer “players” in the gay party and social scene.
That’s it. I’ve trolled around this “magazine” since being linked from reddit. Any magazine that is purportedly about “good men” that links Kimmel – is shit.
I’m outta here.