Stephen Tomsen - Böcker

The binary model of sexuality can be devastating and even fatal for people left outside the category of heterosexuality. Essentialist categories of sexuality and gender are often enforced by harassment and violence, as is clear in the case of violence directed against sexual minorities such as homosexual men. This book investigates why men launch assaults on sexual minorities, why these attacks are so vicious and frequently irrational, the identities of perpetrators and their victims, and why such violence seems to have some acceptance in fields such as law, psychiatry, the media and popular opinion. Tomsen discusses the theoretical and research literatures on models of understanding human sexuality and gender and the nature of hate violence and prejudice in contemporary societies, and also provides an analysis from his own original research to draw out the contradictory nature of both sexual identity and violence and the significance of viewing both fields as linked domains. This text makes an important contribution to current and future discussions of the nature of social prejudice and its ties to legal rulings, collective beliefs and mainstream culture.

The binary model of sexuality can be devastating and even fatal for people left outside the category of heterosexuality. Essentialist categories of sexuality and gender are often enforced by harassment and violence, as is clear in the case of violence directed against sexual minorities such as homosexual men. This book investigates why men launch assaults on sexual minorities, why these attacks are so vicious and frequently irrational, the identities of perpetrators and their victims, and why such violence seems to have some acceptance in fields such as law, psychiatry, the media and popular opinion. Tomsen discusses the theoretical and research literatures on models of understanding human sexuality and gender and the nature of hate violence and prejudice in contemporary societies, and also provides an analysis from his own original research to draw out the contradictory nature of both sexual identity and violence and the significance of viewing both fields as linked domains. This text makes an important contribution to current and future discussions of the nature of social prejudice and its ties to legal rulings, collective beliefs and mainstream culture.

This volume features the leading contemporary articles that are part of, or related to, the 'new masculinities' approach in this sphere. These comprise an impressive range of theoretical and empirical work including important cultural and ethnographic analyses. They emphasise the relationship between masculinities, the causes and patterns of most criminal offending and victimisation and the broader workings of the wider criminal justice system of policing (public and private), criminal courts, corrections and prisons. All of the material has been selected from flagship international journals and was produced by a global mix of male and female researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. These scholars share the view that masculinities are plural, socially constructed, reproduced in the collective social practices of different men and embedded in institutional and occupational settings. Furthermore, masculinities are intricately linked with social struggles for power that occur between men and women and different men. Crime, criminal justice and their cultural representation are key terrain for these masculine contests and are always overlain with issues such as social class, age, race/ethnicity and sexuality.

Providing a detailed survey of the author’s work over three decades, this book chronicles Tomsen’s studies of interpersonal violence and masculinities, which initiated new approaches and topic areas and informed related theorising.These novel approaches in social science research sparked new pathways of understanding, which are outlined and evaluated in discussions of contemporary research and theoretical debates regarding masculinities and violence. The work reflects phases of study concerning (1) public (and related “private”) urban male violence; (2) anti-gay/anti-queer assaults and homicides, hate crimes, and the ambivalent official responses to these; (3) the ambiguous views of violence and different masculinities that are generated and circulate in criminal justice systems, and in popular (film and online) culture; and (4) frames of understanding masculine violence that have emerged in recent decades to further explain and address the apparent intractability of much offending, its relationship to related forms of social privilege or disadvantage, and preventive measures and programmes that are intended to counter this.Crime, Violence and Masculinities provides insight into the long-term production of knowledge about masculinity and gendered violence that will benefit readers engaged in researching these topics, as well as those with an interest in research results and their translation into related theory more broadly.

Providing a detailed survey of the author’s work over three decades, this book chronicles Tomsen’s studies of interpersonal violence and masculinities, which initiated new approaches and topic areas and informed related theorising.These novel approaches in social science research sparked new pathways of understanding, which are outlined and evaluated in discussions of contemporary research and theoretical debates regarding masculinities and violence. The work reflects phases of study concerning (1) public (and related “private”) urban male violence; (2) anti-gay/anti-queer assaults and homicides, hate crimes, and the ambivalent official responses to these; (3) the ambiguous views of violence and different masculinities that are generated and circulate in criminal justice systems, and in popular (film and online) culture; and (4) frames of understanding masculine violence that have emerged in recent decades to further explain and address the apparent intractability of much offending, its relationship to related forms of social privilege or disadvantage, and preventive measures and programmes that are intended to counter this.Crime, Violence and Masculinities provides insight into the long-term production of knowledge about masculinity and gendered violence that will benefit readers engaged in researching these topics, as well as those with an interest in research results and their translation into related theory more broadly.