Kaleidoscope of Identities

James W. Messerschmidt is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Sociology, who previously taught for 35 years in the Criminology Department at the University of Southern Maine, USA. In addition to over eighty research articles and book chapters, he has authored fifteen books, most recently, Hegemonic Masculinity: Formulation, Reformulation, and Amplification and Gender Reckonings: New Social Theory and Research co-edited with Patricia Yancey Martin, Michael Messner, and Raewyn Connell. His research interests focus on cognitive sociology; inequalities; the mutual constitution of identities; gender, masculinities, and sexualities; criminology, youth crime, and violence; and political sociology. Tristan Bridges is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is presently Co-Editor of the Sage journal, Men and Masculinities and Co-Editor of Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity, and Change (2016 Oxford University Press). His research is broadly concerned with shifts in gender and sexual identities and inequalities with a focus on masculinity. He has conducted research with bodybuilders, fathers’ rights activists, pro-feminist men, and bar regulars, as well as research on gendered demographic shifts in sexual minority identities in the U.S., the relationship between American masculinity and mass shootings, and gendered anxieties present in search data on Google.com. He lives in Goleta, California with his family.

James W. Messerschmidt and Tristan Bridges have done us a great service. Re-examining theories of gender, they identify a key problem and offer a new solution. Then with two remarkable case studies, they show how these ideas illuminate non-normative but still-gendered lives—and show the implications for gender justice.

• Preface1.The Past2.Theory and Method3.Identity Reminiscences4.The FutureReferences