In the past, when sport simply excluded girls, the equation of males with active athletic power and of females with weakness and passivity seemed to come easily, almost naturally. Now, however, with girlsOCO and womenOCOs dramatic movement into sport, the process of exclusion has become a bit subtler, a bit more complicated-and yet, as Michael Messner shows us in this provocative book, no less effective. In "Taking the Field," Messner argues that despite profound changes, the world of sport largely retains and continues its longtime conservative role in gender relations.To explore the current...

What does it mean for men to join with women as allies in preventing sexual assault and domestic violence? Based on life history interviews with men and women anti-violence activists aged 22 to 70, Some Men explores the strains and tensions of men's work as feminist allies. When feminist women began to mobilize against rape and domestic violence, setting up shelters and rape crisis centers, a few men asked what they could do to help. They were directed "upstream," and told to "talk to the men" with the goal of preventing future acts of violence.

This is a book about men who took...