Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era (Paperback)

America's leading expert on men and masculinity explains why America's white men are furious. With the demographics of the nation rapidly changing and the levers of political power ostensibly slipping from their hands, white men are angrier than ever before in our recent history. "[W]e can't come off as a bunch of angry white men."Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican PartyOne of the enduring legacies of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night, after Obama was announced the winner, a distressed Bill O'Reilly lamented that he didn't live in a traditional America anymore." He was joined by others who bellowed their grief on the talk radio airwaves, the traditional redoubt of angry white men. Why were 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 - from white supremacists to men's rights activists to young students -in pursuit of an answer. Angry White Men presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage.Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. 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. Angry White Men discusses, among others, the sons of small town America, scarred by underemployment and wage stagnation. When America's white men feel they've lived their lives the'right' way - worked hard and stayed out of trouble - and still do not get economic rewards, then they have to blame somebody else. Even more terrifying is the phenomenon of angry young boys. School shootings in the United States are not just the work of misguided youth" or troubled teens",they're all committed by boys. These alienated young men are transformed into mass murderers by a sense that using violence against others is their right.The future of America is more inclusive and diverse. The choice for angry white men is not whether or not they can stem the tide of history: they cannot. Their choice is whether or not they will be dragged kicking and screaming into that inevitable future, or whether they will walk openly and honorably - far happier and healthier incidentally - alongside those they've spent so long trying to exclude.

"[W]e can't come off as a bunch of angry white men."Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican PartyOne of the enduring legacies of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night, after Obama was announced the winner, a distressed Bill O'Reilly lamented that he didn't live in a traditional America anymore." He was joined by others who bellowed their grief on the talk radio airwaves, the traditional redoubt of angry white men. Why were 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 - from white supremacists to men's rights activists to young students -in pursuit of an answer. Angry White Men presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage.Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. 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. Angry White Men discusses, among others, the sons of small town America, scarred by underemployment and wage stagnation. When America's white men feel they've lived their lives the'right' way - worked hard and stayed out of trouble - and still do not get economic rewards, then they have to blame somebody else. Even more terrifying is the phenomenon of angry young boys. School shootings in the United States are not just the work of misguided youth" or troubled teens",they're all committed by boys. These alienated young men are transformed into mass murderers by a sense that using violence against others is their right.The future of America is more inclusive and diverse. The choice for angry white men is not whether or not they can stem the tide of history: they cannot. Their choice is whether or not they will be dragged kicking and screaming into that inevitable future, or whether they will walk openly and honorably - far happier and healthier incidentally - alongside those they've spent so long trying to exclude.

Die Supermacht USA befindet sich in einer tiefen Identitatskrise. Einst beruhmt fur ihre pragmatische Kompromissbereitschaft stehen sich Republikaner und Demokraten unversohnlich gegenuber, gewinnen ehemals politische Randgruppen wie die Tea Party enormen politischen und gesellschaftlichen Einfluss. Das Land radikalisiert sich und die weiße mannliche Bevolkerung spielt dabei eine entscheidende Rolle. Wer sind die zornigen weißen Amerikaner, die ihren "Way of Life" so gefahrdet sehen, dass sie zum radikalen Widerstand gegen jeden bereit sind, der ihre Anschauungen nicht teilt? Woher ruhrt die Wut auf Frauenemanzipation und Immigranten, auf Farbige und Homosexuelle, auf die Gleichstellung der Geschlechter und generell auf "die im Weißen Haus"? Dieses Buch zeichnet das beklemmende Portrat einer vorrangig mannlichen Bewegung, deren Angst vor dem eigenen Bedeutungsverlust, vor dem Verlust amerikanischer Mannlichkeit und Dominanz nicht nur die kommenden Prasidentschaftswahlen bestimmen wird, sondern daruber hinaus auch die amerikanische Außenpolitik - also uns.