100 Books Like Brutes in Suits

Men, did you know that too little body hair or too much talkativeness could keep you from being admitted to the United States in the early 1900s? The Straight State will have readers shaking their heads at the outrageous presumptions that immigration inspectors applied to keep “degenerates” out of the country. This was the first time that federal officials had both the interest and power to create policies against homosexuality, and they were crassly influenced by the eugenics movement and hostility to the poor. Canaday also shows how early welfare policies perpetuated gender stereotypes and discrimination against sexual “deviants,” favoring the married over the single. I learned so much! 

This is another book that personally enlightened me to the core of my sister’s prosecution: misogyny. Before reading Kate Manne’s book, I had a broad and incomplete understanding of “misogyny,” despite it affecting every aspect of our society.

After reading this book—and understanding that misogyny is the way that women are controlled and punished in a patriarchal system—I couldn’t unsee the evidence of misogyny all around me. We cannot challenge gender-based violence without first understanding its fundamental building blocks.

What makes this book so exceptional and ground-breaking decades after its publication is embedded in the subtitle: Kristin Hoganson argues that gender politics “provoked” the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, through which the United States acquired most of its overseas colonies.

Hoganson connects domestic and foreign policy, analyzing correspondence, political speeches, and newspaper articles. When jingoes – people we would know now call hawks – depicted Cuba as a beautiful damsel in distress or accused the war-averse president McKinley of having “no more backbone than a chocolate eclair,” they were counting on associations of manhood with militarism. Ultimately, they were successful in pushing the United States to war with Spain over Cuba and locking the country in a bloody quagmire in the Philippines.

I love this book because it never flinches from its focus on gender, intersecting with race and class. Transcending its temporal and geographic focus, it works as a… show more.

I wept through the first chapter of this book. Again, it might not appear as a mental health book on its surface, but as I was invited into a deeper understanding of how culture, and specifically what we call ‘patriarchy,’ shapes us all, it shook me to my core.

This book helped me understand that this is a shared cultural burden and that while I might “benefit” from it, I am not strictly the ‘problem.’ As it relates to mental health, it helped me understand that the emotional castration our culture imposes on young boys who become men leads to anger, violence, and trauma, seen most evidently in the oppression of women. That trauma hurts us all and underlies almost all mental health issues. 

Gail Bederman expertly weaves together an analysis of the discourses of manliness and civilization at the turn of the century, highlighting the way ideas about gender and power are constructed with and through ideas about race. Her case study approach really shows how this discourse functioned in multiple ways at the same time, covering Theodore Roosevelt’s hugely impactful connections between race and manliness right alongside Ida B. Wells’ campaign to use civilization discourse against white southerners in a bid to end lynching.  These, along with chapters on G Stanley Hall and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ably demonstrate the way discourses can be constructed, used, and resisted.  Readers come away understanding how widely accepted notions of progress and national strength hinge on exploitative and damaging ideas about race and gender in American culture.

This writer wrote a series of delightful travel books, but I have found nothing new from her recently, sadly. This book starts wonderfully; the author passes her test to ride a full-size motorbike, which she can barely hold upright and decides (as you do) to test out her newly acquired skills by riding throughout New Zealand.

There is a good description here about a great country and humour too–all enhanced by the struggle to make progress with this, for her, a new form of transport.

(Spoiler alert: I appear in Ms. Stur’s book, albeit briefly)

Beyond Combat is one of the few books that examines the role of the more than 60,000 women who served in military and civilian capacities in Vietnam and the gender stereotypes that accompanied them. In addition to nurses, who formed the largest group of U.S. military women in Vietnam, Stur highlights those who served under the auspices of the Red Cross Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas program. These young college graduates were commonly known as “donut dollies” because of their girl-next-door appeal. “Our job was to lift the guys’ spirits,” recalls donut dollie Jeanne Christie. Music was one way the donut dollies did that. “Some of us DJ’d at various bases during our time in-country,” adds Bobbi McDaniel Stephens. “I took dedications from the guys,” a playlist she says included “Get Back,” “My Girl,” and “He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother,”… show more.

The author, R. W. Connell, is a fascinating person, originally a man, who became a woman, in the midst of a very successful career as a student of masculinity. Her work was among the earliest I’ve encountered to deal with that subject. And what a fascinating perspective! In this work, she posits four power-related configurations of masculinity: Hegemonic, complicit, subordinated, and marginalized. Although originally among those who emphasized mainly negative and unitary features of manhood – something I categorically reject – her views have broadened over the years, recognizing considerable diversity in values. This work remains a classic in the field and provides readers with some excellent insights into one influential form of masculinity.

This book explores how ideas of manhood have evolved, from ancient ideals of dominance to modern-day uncertainties. While the Enlightenment challenged traditional masculinity, the 19th century brought it roaring back through nationalism. In the 20th century, pacifist, feminist, and LGBTQ+ movements chipped away at these old codes, revealing a more fragile, unsettled sense of virility.

Now, we’re seeing a sharp pushback. Trump’s rise, Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, and the global surge in populism all draw on a nostalgic, aggressive vision of masculinity. This book helps make sense of the cultural roots behind today’s political shifts, showing that the struggle over manhood is also a geopolitical struggle over power.

This is a solid edited volume that has contributions from leading scholars of Mexican history exploring straight and gay sexualities from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in different parts of the country. The chapters examine a wide range of interesting topics including cinema and movie going, public bathhouses, prostitution, elopement, and mariachi culture to untangle how masculinities are historically constructed and to interrogate the concepts of macho and machismo.