Essay On Guyland Michael Kimmel

Guyland was written by Michael Kimmel as a guide to the middle class Caucasian male’s life between the ages of 16 to 26. The novel utilizes over 400 interviews to create a better understanding during this time period, which he calls “Guyland.” The males during this period of time normally are not full grown adults, but are no longer boys either. He discusses how some of them still live in places with multiple other men and when finding jobs they normally do not pick ones that they will make a career out of. He goes over their viewpoints on woman and the sexual assaults that happen on college campuses. He goes over masculinity and how men have been taught growing out what it means to be a man. The purpose of the novel is just to create a guide …show more content…
He conducted at least 400 interviews with males and picked quotes that he felt best represented the topic that he was covering during that section. Interviews are an effective research technique because it gives the researcher more information rather than just doing a survey. In a survey people answer the question, but the researcher does not really know the story behind why a person made the choices they made when picking that particular answer. In an interview Kimmel is able to get more detailed information that he may not be able to get utilizing a different method. He also is able to obtain the feelings and reactions that the men have to particular events rather than just making an observation and recording what he saw. The downfall to interviews though is the fact that some people tend to tell stories differently then what may have actually happen. People may do this to make themselves look better in a situation or maybe to make it seem more savory than the story actually is. Overall, the research decision he made was really effective in the message he was trying to convey because the reader is reading direct quotes from the men, who are living or have lived these