Michael S. Kimmel, a SUNY Stony Brook sociologist and author who has received international recognition for his work on men and masculinity, gave a lecture on "Globalization and its Mal(e)contents: The Political Economy of Terrorism," on Thursday, March 6, in the Kirner-Johnson auditorium.
Kimmel's talk focused on the similarities in profile of white supremacists in the U.S., Scandinavia, and the terrorists of September 11. These tend to be men who feel that progress is moving over them, and that they have lost the place in society they are entitled to. They manage their situation by using masculinity in strategic ways--either by accusing their perceived enemies as hyper- or hypo-masculine and by pumping up their own masculinity. Thus, his research has shown that masculinity as well as class and race are crucial in the construction of the radical right.
