Abstract
Stephen Tomsen’s Crime, Violence and Masculinities: Research Paths and Understanding offers the latest edition to Routledge’s series, “Crime and Society.” In it, Tomsen offers a compilation of his extensive research career from 1996 to present day, interwoven with discussions on the state of the field of masculinities and critical criminology. The compilation offers a look at ways in which masculine status shapes men’s engagement of violence, particularly as they intersect with social class, race, and sexuality.
Crime, Violence and Masculinities is split into four parts, detailing each domain of Tomsen’s work in the field: (1) Drinking Violence and Night Leisure as a Masculine Domain; (2) The Masculinity of Hate Crime and the Legal Response; (3) Violent Masculinities in Criminal Justice and Culture; and (4) Structure, Identity, and Practice.
In Section 1: “Drinking Violence . . .,” Tomsen analyses men’s participation in drinking culture and night-time violence as sites for the production and shaping of aggressive masculinities. Through a mix of ethnography, focus groups, cultural commentary, and policy analysis, Tomsen uses a qualitative, critical lens to understand social class in analyses of masculinity. For example, in Chapters 1 and 2, Tomsen details men’s “. . . acts of violence and disorder as collective social processes” (p. 8) to project an empowered masculine identity while symbolically rejecting conventional or middle-class social values. In this way, Tomsen ties the individual-level behaviors of aggression and violence to structural-level resources of masculine status and male honor.
Section 2: “The Masculinity of Hate Crime . . .” extends Tomsen’s work on aggression and violence to examine the theorization of masculinity within hate crime research. In this section, he explores the intersections of gender with race, sexuality, and political ideology as they relate to victim-targeting (Chapters 5 and 6). Using interviews and homicide records, Tomsen interrogates the “masculinity of the law” in the normalization of such violence, particularly the use of the “homosexual advance defense” (p. 97) in anti-gay and anti-trans violence.
In Section 3: “Violent Masculinities . . .,” Tomsen explores the ways in which criminal law, policing, and media shape or mirror violent masculinity in the United States and Australia. For instance, Tomsen argues that the criminal justice system defines criminality along age and class lines, thereby reinforcing a system that inscribes violent masculinity “. . . on always aggressive male, classed, and raciali[z]ed bodies” (p. 131). By conflating the institutional power of ruling class men with the “machismo” of working-class and marginalized men, research has rendered moot “. . . the complexity of the relationship of the law to different sorts of masculinities which may be policed, punished, condoned, or created and reproduced on either side of the criminal/justice divide” (p. 136).
Finally, in Section 4: “Structure, Identity, and Practice,” Tomsen critiques the often group-level or individual-level applications of masculine identity within criminological research. Here he ties in applications of Connell’s (1995) “hegemonic masculinity” and Messerschmidt’s (2014) concept of structured action theory to men’s use of violence. Importantly, Tomsen challenges the simplistic notion that engaging in violence is solely used to attain a hegemonic position and identity. Using data from a series of focus groups, Tomsen demonstrates the sociological nuance to young men’s understanding and the use of violence. Young men resonate with the idea of using violence to protect social status and seek masculine power; however, unjust or uncontrolled violence was frowned upon.
Crime, Violence and Masculinities offers important insights into the current state of masculinity studies and critical criminology; detailing how these disciplines have developed in tandem, building on and contrasting one another. Importantly, the collection of Tomsen’s work offers insights into the discipline moving forward: “These contributions merit further expansion by scholars, and a merging with a queer critique of the masculine, classist, and racist origins of criminological discourse . . . Such an analysis would shed further light on the deep masculine symbolism and understandings of gender/sexuality, class, race, and ableism in repressive ‘justice’ . . .” (p. xii). That being said, this collection is best utilized by scholars within the specific intersection of masculinities studies and criminology. As a result, this book is theoretically rigorous, diving into debates likely only familiar to those within the field (e.g., the concept of “toxic masculinity,” application “slippage” of hegemonic masculinity, etc.).
In sum, this collection offers an in-depth look into Tomsen’s work in masculinities studies and critical criminology. Tomsen aims to challenge future scholars in the discipline to move beyond structure/agency debates, blanket definitions of criminality, reductionist applications of Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity, and the assumed objectivity of quantitative methods within criminology. As a pillar in the field, this collection allows readers to dive into Tomsen’s extensive theoretical and methodological contributions to the discipline.
