Messerschmidt, James W. Nine Lives: Adolescent Masculinities, the Body, and Violence

Adolescence, Spring, 2004

MESSERSCHMIDT, James W. Nine Lives: Adolescent Masculinities, the Body, and Violence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. 168pp. $25.00 (p).

Sociologists and criminologists have long known that there is a relationship between masculinity and crime, for gender has been advanced consistently as the strongest predictor of criminal involvement. Nine Lives provides an account of the connection among adolescent masculinities, the body, peer abuse in schools, and violence. Drawing on life-history interviews of nine white, working-class, teenage boys, Messerschmidt unravels some of the mysteries of teenage violence. This book is a comparative analysis of male sex offenders, assaultive offenders, and nonviolent boys, and has implications for understanding and preventing such national tragedies as the recent school shootings in the United States.