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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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.
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.
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.
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.… Read more »
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?
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
I am not at all surprised that Limbaugh is challenged by this, it is just too real for him!
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.
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
Nicely written, Perry!
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.
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
I guess this is why males are in trouble economically, academically and professionally when compared to their female counterparts.