Michael Kimmel's Guyland

As the years pass by boys seem to become men later and later in life. Through out the book GuyLand, Michael Kimmel examines the multiple reasons he believes boys are getting stuck in this middle ground of “Guy land”. He touches on many topics in an extreme sense in order to get his point about the stigmas of manliness across. It goes into detail on the expectations that modern day boys are expected to abide by in order to reach manhood, or to be considered manly by other boys. It also addresses how this stigma of “being a man” starts as young as the age of three and how it progresses with every year. The section of the book I found to be most interesting and truthful is “Guy code”. This is a section where Kimmel goes into detail on the “guy code” and what boys must do to live up to it. “Boys don’t cry, it is better to be mad than sad, don’t get mad- get even, take it like a man, he who has the most toys when he dies wins, just do it, ride or die, size matters, don’t stop to ask for directions, nice guys finish last, and it’s all good” (Kimmel, …show more content…
I agreed with many of the points he was making in a general sense. There is this expectation of boys to “man up” or never to back down and I found all of what he said in those few chapters to be true. Because of my gender, I was not offended by anything he wrote, however many men that did read it felt he was telling them how they think they need to act. They also felt that he was putting a negative idea in the minds of all readers to have a sense of fear of men and to expect the worst out of them. Kimmel was also a little harsh while discussing the topic of men growing up. Not all men are lazy or looking to move back home, but are hard working, have clear goals, and plan on reaching them. Guyland was a very extreme version of what men are living like between adolescence and adulthood, but non the less got the reader thinking and that is the goal of every