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Michael Messner
Michael Alan Messner (born 1952) is an American sociologist. His main areas of research are gender (especially men's studies) and the sociology of sports. He is the author of several books, he gives public speeches and teaches on issues of gender-based violence, the lives of men and boys, and gender and sports.
Since 1987, Messner has worked as a professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California. He was head of the department, and still retains his dual faculty appointment. He was the president of the Pacific Sociological Association in 2010–2011, and in 2011 the California Women's Law Center presented him with the Pursuit of Justice Award.
Messner was born in Salinas, California.
Messner was educated from kindergarten to his Ph.D. in California's public schools. He has a bachelor's degree in social science and a master's degree in sociology from California State University, Chico. He obtained a Ph.D. in sociology in 1985 from the University of California, Berkeley with a dissertation titled Masculinity and Sports: An Exploration of the Changing Meaning of Male Identity in the Lifecourse of the Athlete.
In the late 1970s, he began to work with feminist theory and the construction of gender. He took part in one of the first ever classes about men and masculinity in the US, held by Bob Blauner in Berkeley.
In an article about a "fight club" in Menlo Park, California, Messner remarked that men involved in them "often carry bottled-up violent impulses learned in childhood from video games, cartoons and movies. [...] Boys have these warrior fantasies picked up from popular culture, and schools sort of force that out of them." In these fantasies: "The good guys always resort to violence, and they always get the glory and the women."
Messner establishes the emphasis society puts on sexuality and gender roles in various works upholding the notions that roles in society are predetermined by these categorizations. Gender role is the set of characteristics prescribed by a culture and expressed through direct communication and through media. These predetermined roles can lead to inequivalent advantages to people classified in certain categories over others. In many societies, this has become a systematic oppression. He discusses these ideas through various articles and explores different topics such as the participation of women in sports as well as what it means to be 100% straight.
Messner upholds the theory that sexuality is, "a constructed identity, a performance, and an institution". It is not necessary and it influences behaviors in society every day. He discusses this idea in depth in his article, "Becoming 100 percent Straight". In this article, he discusses how he as a teenager was influenced to become a jock because of his height and build and, as a result, repressed his sexual fluidity in fear of being outcast. He talks about his experience with basketball and his relationship with his friend because of his repressed romantic feelings for him. As a result of these feelings, he targets him as an external source of his frustrations and even goes as far as bullying him to express these frustrations. Although Messner does not identify as bisexual, he describes his experiences based on the Freudian model of bisexuality which states that most people go through a stage in life in which they are attracted to people of the same sex. Adult experiences eventually lead them to shift their sexual desires to people of the same sex. This suppression of sexual desires can lead to aggression and violence in order to clarify boundaries between one's self and others. His experience serves as an example of a new perspective on sexuality that others in dominant gender/sexuality categories can identify with: one that is not dominated by socially constructed values.
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Michael Messner
Michael Alan Messner (born 1952) is an American sociologist. His main areas of research are gender (especially men's studies) and the sociology of sports. He is the author of several books, he gives public speeches and teaches on issues of gender-based violence, the lives of men and boys, and gender and sports.
Since 1987, Messner has worked as a professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California. He was head of the department, and still retains his dual faculty appointment. He was the president of the Pacific Sociological Association in 2010–2011, and in 2011 the California Women's Law Center presented him with the Pursuit of Justice Award.
Messner was born in Salinas, California.
Messner was educated from kindergarten to his Ph.D. in California's public schools. He has a bachelor's degree in social science and a master's degree in sociology from California State University, Chico. He obtained a Ph.D. in sociology in 1985 from the University of California, Berkeley with a dissertation titled Masculinity and Sports: An Exploration of the Changing Meaning of Male Identity in the Lifecourse of the Athlete.
In the late 1970s, he began to work with feminist theory and the construction of gender. He took part in one of the first ever classes about men and masculinity in the US, held by Bob Blauner in Berkeley.
In an article about a "fight club" in Menlo Park, California, Messner remarked that men involved in them "often carry bottled-up violent impulses learned in childhood from video games, cartoons and movies. [...] Boys have these warrior fantasies picked up from popular culture, and schools sort of force that out of them." In these fantasies: "The good guys always resort to violence, and they always get the glory and the women."
Messner establishes the emphasis society puts on sexuality and gender roles in various works upholding the notions that roles in society are predetermined by these categorizations. Gender role is the set of characteristics prescribed by a culture and expressed through direct communication and through media. These predetermined roles can lead to inequivalent advantages to people classified in certain categories over others. In many societies, this has become a systematic oppression. He discusses these ideas through various articles and explores different topics such as the participation of women in sports as well as what it means to be 100% straight.
Messner upholds the theory that sexuality is, "a constructed identity, a performance, and an institution". It is not necessary and it influences behaviors in society every day. He discusses this idea in depth in his article, "Becoming 100 percent Straight". In this article, he discusses how he as a teenager was influenced to become a jock because of his height and build and, as a result, repressed his sexual fluidity in fear of being outcast. He talks about his experience with basketball and his relationship with his friend because of his repressed romantic feelings for him. As a result of these feelings, he targets him as an external source of his frustrations and even goes as far as bullying him to express these frustrations. Although Messner does not identify as bisexual, he describes his experiences based on the Freudian model of bisexuality which states that most people go through a stage in life in which they are attracted to people of the same sex. Adult experiences eventually lead them to shift their sexual desires to people of the same sex. This suppression of sexual desires can lead to aggression and violence in order to clarify boundaries between one's self and others. His experience serves as an example of a new perspective on sexuality that others in dominant gender/sexuality categories can identify with: one that is not dominated by socially constructed values.