The Man in the Mirror has established itself as a cornerstone in men's literature since its 1989 release. Winner of the prestigious Gold Medallion Award and appearing on the bestseller list eighteen times, it has helped thousands of men understand the person who stares back at them from the glass each morning and know what to do about his twenty-four most difficult problems.

Written by a foremost Christian men's leader, this powerful book invites men to take a probing look at their identities, relationships, finances, time, temperament, and most important, the means to bring about lasting change. If life's demands are constantly pressuring you to run faster and jump higher, this book is for you.

Rich in anecdotes, thought-provoking questions, biblical insights, and featuring focus questions in each chapter suitable for personal or group use, The Man in the Mirror offers a penetrating, pragmatic, and life-changing look at how to trade the rat race for the rewards of godly manhood.

Life for too many African American men is a battle with extreme disadvantage, a fight for survival, and a struggle for dignity in a society which labels them a "problem." For more than thirty years, most of the effort put toward addressing the crisis of black men has centered on what they must do to improve their condition. Without neglecting that perspective, Are Black Men Doomed? radically shifts the focus. This urgent intervention explores how a damning portrait of Black men as incorrigibly pernicious has been built and persists, and how the voice of these men themselves has been ignored. It astutely argues that improving prospects for Black men requires that society fully come to terms with the narrow and incomplete vision it has sustained about these men. It then shows us the means to hear, understand, and value them, offering a new vision rooted in reinterpretation and redemption.

"A book that should be read . . . Smith brings an alchemic talent to describing physical labor." -The New York Times Book Review "Beautiful, funny, and harrowing." - Sarah Smarsh, The Atlantic "Remarkable . . . this is the book that Hillbilly Elegy should have been." -Kirkus Reviews A vivid window into the world of working class men set during the Bakken fracking boom in North Dakota Like thousands of restless men left unmoored in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, Michael Patrick Smith arrived in the fracking boomtown of Williston, North Dakota five years later homeless, unemployed, and desperate for a job. Renting a mattress on a dirty flophouse floor, he slept boot to beard with migrant men who came from all across America and as far away as Jamaica, Africa and the Philippines. They ate together, drank together, argued like crows and searched for jobs they couldn't get back home. Smith's goal was to find the hardest work he could do--to find out if he could do it. He hired on in the oil patch where he toiled fourteen hour shifts from summer's 100 degree dog days to deep into winter's bracing whiteouts, all the while wrestling with the demons of a turbulent past, his broken relationships with women, and the haunted memories of a family riven by violence. The Good Hand is a saga of fear, danger, exhaustion, suffering, loneliness, and grit that explores the struggles of America's marginalized boomtown workers-the rough-hewn, castoff, seemingly disposable men who do an indispensable job that few would exalt: oil field hands who, in the age of climate change, put the gas in our tanks and the food in our homes. Smith, who had pursued theater and played guitar in New York, observes this world with a critical eye; yet he comes to love his coworkers, forming close bonds with Huck, a goofy giant of a young man whose lead foot and quick fists get him into trouble with the law, and The Wildebeest, a foul-mouthed, dip-spitting truck driver who torments him but also trains him up, and helps Smith "make a hand." The Good Hand is ultimately a book about transformation--a classic American story of one man's attempt to burn himself clean through hard work, to reconcile himself to himself, to find community, and to become whole.

This innovative collection offers a wide-ranging palette of psychological, public health, and sociopolitical approaches toward addressing the multi-level prevention needs of gay men living with HIV and AIDS. This book advances our understanding of comprehensive health care, risk and preventive behaviors, sources of mental distress and resilience, treatment adherence, and the experiences of gay men's communities such as communities of color, youth, faith communities, and the house ball community. Interventions span biomedical, behavioral, structural, and technological approaches toward critical goals, including bolstering the immune system, promoting safer sexual practices, reducing HIV-related stigma and discrimination, and eliminating barriers to care. The emphasis throughout these diverse chapters is on evidence-based, client-centered practice, coordination of care, and inclusive, culturally responsive services. Included in the coverage: Comprehensive primary health care for HIV positive gay men From pathology to resiliency: understanding the mental health of HIV positive gay men Emerging and innovative prevention strategies for HIV positive gay men Understanding the developmental and psychosocial needs of HIV positive gay adolescent males Social networks of HIV positive gay men: their role and importance in HIV prevention HIV positive gay men, health care, legal rights, and policy issues Understanding Prevention for HIV Positive Gay Men will interest academics, researchers, prevention experts, practitioners, and policymakers in public health. It will also be important to research organizations, nonprofit organizations, and clinical agencies, as well as graduate programs related to public health, consultation, and advocacy.

What do Pablo Picasso, Prince and Martin Luther King Jr have in common? All have been described as having been highly sensitive boys and all grew up to be outstanding, sensitive men. Too often, adults think of sensitive boys as shy, anxious and inhibited. They are measured against society's ideas about 'manliness' -- that all boys are sociable, resilient and have endless supplies of energy. This highly readable guide is for any adult wanting to know how to understand and celebrate sensitive boys. It describes how thinking about boys in such old-fashioned ways can cause great harm, and make a difficult childhood all the more painful. The book highlights the real strengths shared by many sensitive boys - of being compassionate, highly creative, thoughtful, fiercely intelligent and witty. It also flips common negative cliches about sensitive boys being shy, anxious and prone to bullying to ask instead: what we can do to create a supportive environment in which they will flourish? Full of simple yet sage advice, this book will help you to encourage boys to embrace their individuality, find their own place in the world, and to be the best they can be.

How are men reacting to, perceiving, and behaving in light of the changes in gender roles. Here is an important volume that provides new and interesting reading about contemporary husbands and fathers. Men's Changing Roles in the Family, offers an overview of the causes and consequences of changes in men's family roles in recent decades. Experts introduce you to the issues, problems, and methods on the cutting edge of those disciplines that study men in the context of their families. Until now relatively little has been known empirically about men in contemporary families, and even less has been known about husbands and fathers from direct reports of the men themselves.This groundbreaking volume successfully closes this gap in the literature with an examination of the effects that fathers'growing involvement with their children have on their wives and themselves; a clinical assessment of some men's angry reactions to separation and divorce and those special therapeutic goals and strategies that may help reduce their distress; examinations of the conflicting demands of the work world and the family upon some contemporary husbands and fathers and the negative effects of nonstandard work schedules upon men's family life; and an examination of factors that make many men unhappy in patriarchal family structures. Men's Changing Roles in the Family also contributes toward breaking new ground by examining family roles now performed by special groups of men. Finally, this important volume reports empirical findings about men in family-like relationships, illustrating evidence for the unique roles that male caregivers can offer children in day-care centers and reviewing current empirical studies of men's friendships and their development.

In recent years, shrimpers on the Louisiana coast have faced a historically dire shrimp season, with the price of shrimp barely high enough to justify trawling. Yet, many of them wouldn't consider leaving shrimping behind, despite having transferrable skills that could land them jobs in the oil and gas industry. Since 2001, shrimpers have faced increasing challenges to their trade: an influx of shrimp from southeast Asia, several traumatic hurricane seasons, and the largest oil spill at sea in American history. In Last Stand of the Louisiana Shrimpers, author Emma Christopher Lirette traces how Louisiana Gulf Coast shrimpers negotiate land and blood, sea and freedom, and economic security and networks of control. This book explores what ties shrimpers to their boats and nets. Despite feeling trapped by finances and circumstances, they have created a world in which they have agency. Lirette provides a richly textured view of the shrimpers of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, calling upon ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, interdisciplinary scholarship, and critical theory. With evocative, lyrical prose, she argues that in persisting to trawl in places that increasingly restrict their way of life, shrimpers build fragile, quietly defiant worlds, adapting to a constantly changing environment. In these flickering worlds, shrimpers reimagine what it means to work and what it means to make a living.

Young, Disabled and LGBT+ brings together the work of an international team interested in exploring the intersection of sexuality, gender identity, and disability in the lives of young people and aims to further develop this area as a distinct area of study. This volume features original research and writing into lives that are often misunderstood, marginalised and under-represented in research. It is framed with artwork, poetry and writing from young disabled LGBT+ people, and centralises the voices and lives of young disabled LGBT+ people throughout. Drawing from disciplines including: sociology, psychology, disability and youth studies, and with contributions from practitioners, it examines experiences and research from a number of perspectives, such as education, personal lives and activism. Featuring work from the UK, Canada, United States, India and Australia, it is a timely and topical book which will appeal to scholars particularly interested in sexuality, gender, disability and youth studies; professionals within health, education, social work and youth work who aim to understand and support young disabled LGBT+ people; and young people themselves.

This book provides an in-depth investigation of two Japanese men's magazines, ChokiChoki and Men's egg, analysed as representative examples of the genre of Japanese lifestyle magazines for young men. Employing both qualitative and quantitative content analysis, focusing on topics ranging from everyday life activities up to partnerships and sexuality, it examines how these magazines discursively renegotiate norms of Japanese masculinity. By scrutinizing the way these magazines convey ideas of gendered behavior within different contexts, the book demonstrates how Japanese lifestyle magazines discursively create new ideas of gender and masculinities in particular. It argues that hegemonic gender norms of Japan's society are both altered and reconstructed at the same time and that while altering parts of the gendered habitus in order to adjust to changing social circumstances and perceptions of gender, magazines (un)consciously reproduce core values of the hegemonic gender regime and thus revalidate them as legitimate. A key read for scholars and students of contemporary Japan, Japanese studies, gender studies, and anyone interested in Japanese popular culture and media, this book provides new insights into a segment of the Japanese media market that has received little scholarly attention.

This book examines fatherhood politics, the most prominent fatherhood organizations, and, in the author's opinion, it's fragmentation into two wings--the fragile family wing and the pro-marriage wing. Are fathers being marginalized in the contemporary family? Responding to fears that they are, the self-proclaimed fatherhood responsibility movement (FRM) has worked since the mid-1990s to put fatherhood at the center of U.S. national politics. processes, reveals the internal struggles, and traces the myths that drive this powerful movement. Unlike previous investigations that rely on literary or other secondary sources, Fatherhood Politics works from primary ethnographic material to represent a wider range of voices and actors. Interacting with and interviewing members of the most powerful and well-known national fatherhood organizations, Gavanas observed Promise Keeper rallies, men's workshops, and conferences on masculinity, fatherhood, and marriage. Providing a detailed overview of the different organizations involved and their various rhetorical strategies, Gavanas breaks down the FRM into two major wings. The pro-marriage wing sees marriage as the key to solving all social problems, while the fragile family organizations worry about unemployment, racism, and discrimination. Gavanas uses her extensive anthropological fieldwork as the basis for discussions of gender, sexuality, and race in her analysis of these competing voices. of the FRM, Gavanas offers a behind-the-scenes look at a movement having real impact on current social policy. Fatherhood Politics is an essential work for anyone interested in the politics of masculinity, parenthood, marriage, race, and sexuality.

We hear them on talk radio airwaves bellowing about minorities. We watch them organize anti-immigration demonstrations on the border. We read their opinions regarding the demise of white male privilege. And sometimes, tragically, we witness their aggression through vigilante violence, as in the cases of Wade Michael Page, James Eagan Holmes, Elliot Rodger, George Zimmerman, and many more. They are America's angry white men, including "men's rights" activists who think white men are the victims of discrimination, as well as members of the "white wing" of the rightward fringes of the American political spectrum. Why are they so angry? Sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the leading writers on men and masculinity in the world today, has spent hundreds of hours in the company of America's angry white men in pursuit of an answer. Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them. In Angry White Men, Kimmel presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage.

In Every Home a Fortress, Thomas Bishop details the remarkable cultural history and personal stories behind an iconic figure of Cold War masculinity -- the fallout shelter father, who, with spade in hand and the canned goods he has amassed, sought to save his family from atomic warfare. Putting policy documents and presidential addresses into conversation with previously unmined personal letters, diaries, local media coverage, and antinuclear ephemera, Bishop demonstrates that the nuclear crisis years of 1957 to 1963 were not just pivotal for the history of international relations but were also a transitional moment in the social histories of the white middle class and American fatherhood. During this era, public concerns surrounding civil defense shaped private family conversations, and the fallout shelter emerged as a site at which ideas of nationhood, national security, and masculinity collided with the complex reality of trying to raise and protect a family in the nuclear age.

A book about understanding men's lives in the modern world

Wide-ranging, detailed content and relies on sound educational research Up to date, relevant, modern approach which will replace older, discredited research Written by two teachers with experience in teaching boys, both of whom run successful education/teaching blogs Appealing to a wide readership: secondary school teachers, leaders, pastoral positions; education students; trainee teachers

This book will touch on all of the hot topic issues of masculinity and violence, including gun violence, sexual assault and the #MeToo movement, violence against women, LGBT people, and people of color. Its unique approach will add to many conversations that should, as Sumerau explains, be focused on masculinity, and are far too often focused on something else. Taking the approach of talking with young college men who are privileged provides a unique look at how manhood and masculinity may not be progressing like many people hope and provides insights from all angles to critically examine the ways men construct and explain relationships between violence, manhood, and inequality in society.

Building on comparative research in the U.K. and the U.S.A., this is the first book focused specifically on transgender experiences within policing. It examines the issues faced by the transgender community within policing and explores how gender, and the non-conformity of it, is perceived within police cultures. Moreover, it provides an on-going critique of the queer criminology movement and why it is crucial to policing studies, emphasising the specific importance of transgender issues therein. This empirical book provides qualitative data from American officers and English and Welsh constables on transgender police. The following research questions are addressed: What are the perceptions of cisgender officers towards transgender officers, and what are the consequences of these perceptions? What are the occupational experiences and perceptions of officers who identify as transgender within policing? Finally, what are the reported positive and negative administrative issues that transgender individuals face within policing? The author concludes by discussing the empirical, theoretical and policy contributions of this research and offers some final thoughts on policy recommendations and directions for future research. A strong contribution to the literature in critical criminology and queer criminology, this book will also be of interest to those in the fields of gender studies, sociology, public administration, management studies and policing studies.

London may have Savile Row and Paris its luxury houses, but nowhere can compete with the essence of Italy's nonchalant elegance: sprezzatura. This book presents the most in-depth look at the designers, tailors and artisans who for generations have defined the very notion of Italian style. From such fabled names as Rubinacci and Kiton to highly sought-after global brands like Zegna, more than fifty iconic Italian menswear houses are featured for their individual style and commitment to upholding the values of quality and timelessness. Featuring lavish photographs, with close-ups of subtle, exquisite details, most taken specially for this publication, The Italian Gentleman explores the world behind the finished garments - the ateliers and hidden shops where legends are born. Including iconic brands alongside fabric mills, shirting, accessories and shoemaking, this timely publication is a tribute to true Italian style with today's modern man in mind.

The emergence of "male-centered serials" such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons Of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiating modern masculinities. From the meth-dealing but devoted family man Walter White of AMC's Breaking Bad, to the part-time basketball coach, part-time gigolo Ray Drecker of HBO's Hung, depictions of male characters perplexed by societal expectations of men and anxious about changing American masculinity have become standard across the television landscape. Engaging with a wide variety of shows, including The League, Dexter, and Nip/Tuck, among many others, Amanda D. Lotz identifies the gradual incorporation of second-wave feminism into prevailing gender norms as the catalyst for the contested masculinities on display in contemporary cable dramas. Examining the emergence of "male-centered serials" such as The Shield, Rescue Me, and Sons of Anarchy and the challenges these characters face in negotiating modern masculinities, Lotz analyzes how these shows combine feminist approaches to fatherhood and marriage with more traditional constructions of masculine identity that emphasize men's role as providers. She explores the dynamics of close male friendships both in groups, as in Entourage and Men of a Certain Age, wherein characters test the boundaries between the homosocial and homosexual in their relationships with each other, and in the dyadic intimacy depicted in Boston Legal and Scrubs. Cable Guys provides a much needed look into the under-considered subject of how constructions of masculinity continue to evolve on television.

1) This book critically engages with the theory of sexuality from the global south. 2) It also contains empirical case studies from across South Asia and South Asian diaspora on gender and sexuality. 3) It will be of interest to departments of South Asian studies, gender studies, sexuality studies, sociology and social anthropology, political studies, diaspora studies, postcolonial and global south studies.

Ever wondered what to do in polite society if you find an insect in your food? Or how a gentleman should ask a lady to dance? And what on earth is the etiquette for smoking cigars? First published in 1860, Cecil B. Hartley's classic guide to gentlemanly behaviour is a veritable mine of information and indispensable advice for aspiring gentlemen. No matter if a man finds himself at a party, meeting someone new or travelling abroad, he has but to leaf through this book to learn how best to behave, and indeed how not to behave. And if he can find time between his numerous invitations to balls and hunting parties, he could benefit from a perusal of the sections on gentlemanly deportment and conversational technique. Not forgetting, of course, the all-important advice on how to treat ladies, surely an integral part of any true gentleman's training. Published here in a stunning edition alongside The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, this is the perfect gift for the would-be gentleman in your life. While it's an excellent volume for dipping into for hilarious nuggets of outdated advice, this guide also contains advice on all manner of topics, from beard-keeping to chivalry, that are just as relevant today as they were in Cecil B. Hartley's time. As he says himself: 'Once a gentleman always a gentleman' and be sure that you can so carry out the rule, that in your most careless, joyous moments, when freest from the restraints of etiquette, you can still be recognizable as a gentleman by every act, word, or look.

Victorian demons provides the first extensive exploration of largely middle-class masculinities in crisis at the fin de siecle. It analyses how ostensibly controlling models of masculinity became demonised in a variety of literary and medical contexts, revealing the period to be much more ideologically complex than has hitherto been understood, and makes a significant contribution to Gothic scholarship. Andrew Smith demonstrates how a Gothic language of monstrosity, drawn from narratives such as 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'Dracula', increasingly influenced a range of medical and cultural contexts, destabilising these apparently dominant masculine scripts. He provides a coherent analysis of a range of examples relating to masculinity drawn from literary, medical, legal and sociological contexts, including Joseph Merrick ('The Elephant Man'), the Whitechapel murders of 1888, Sherlock Holmes's London, the writings and trials of Oscar Wilde, theories of degeneration and medical textbooks on syphilis. -- .

This book is about ways to understand masculinity as systemic and corporeal, structural and performative all at once. It argues that the tension between an understanding of "masculinity" in the singular and "masculinities" in the plural poses a problem that can better be understood in relation to a concomitant tension: between systems on the one hand, and bodies on the other - between abstract structures such as patriarchy, kinship or even language, and the various concrete forms taken by gendered, individuated corporeality. The contributions collected here investigate how masculinities become apparent, how they take shape and what systemic functions they have. What, they ask, are the relations between the abstract and corporeal, metaphorical and metonymic manifestations of masculinity? How are we to understand masculinity as a simultaneously systemic and corporeal, performative concept?

Modern roller derby has been theorised as a gendered leisure context, offering women opportunities for empowerment and growth, and enabling them to carve a space for themselves in sport. No longer a women-only sport, roller derby is now played by all genders and has been heralded as a model of inclusivity within sport. Identity, Belonging, and Community in Men's Roller Derby offers an insight into how men's roller derby culture is created and maintained, how members forge an identity for themselves and their team, and how they create feelings of belonging and inclusivity. Through in-depth ethnographic study of a specific, localised roller derby community, this book examines how practices of skills capital intersect with different configurations of masculinity in a continual struggle between traditional and inclusive models of sport. An interrogation of the ways a DIY sport can be seen to be achieved, experienced, and understood in everyday practice, this book will appeal to scholars of men, masculinities, and sport. Additionally, the methodological discussions will be of value to ethnographers and researchers who have had to deal with a disruptive presence.

This book explores the ways in which linguistic variation and complex social practices interact toward the formation of male interactional identities in a sports club in Dublin, illustrating the affordances of studying sporting contexts in contributing to advancing sociolinguistic theory. Adopting a participant-informed ethnographic approach, the book examines both the social interactional contexts within the club and the sociopragmatic and sociophonetic features which contribute to the different performances of masculinity in and outside the club. The volume focuses particularly on the linguistic analysis of humor and its multifunctional uses as a means of establishing solidarity and social ties but also aggression, competitiveness, and status within the social world of this club as well as similar such clubs across Ireland. The book's unique approach is intended to complement and build on existing sociolinguistic studies looking at linguistic variation in groups by supporting quantitative data with ethnographically informed insights to look at social meaning in interaction from micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. This book will be of particular interesting to graduate students and scholars in sociolinguistics, language, gender, and sexuality, and language and identity.

Bisexuality in Europe offers an accessible and diverse overview of research on bisexuality and bi+ people in Europe, providing a foundation for theorising and empirical work on plurisexual orientations and identities, and the experiences and realities of people who desire more than one sex or gender Counteracting the predominance of work on bisexuality based in Ango-American contexts, this collection of fifteen contributions from both early-career and more senior academics reflects the current state of research in Europe on bisexuality and people who desire more than one sex or gender. The book is structured around three interlinked themes that resonate well with the international research frontiers of bisexual theorising: bisexual citizenship, intimate relationships, and bisexual+ identities. This book is the first of its kind in bringing together research from various European countries including Austria, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries, as well as from Europe as a wider geographical region.. Topics include pansexual identity, non-monogomies, asylum seekers and youth cultures. This is an essential collection for students, early career researchers, and more senior academics in Gender Studies, LGBTQI Studies and Sexuality Studies.