Men’s Issues: Overview

Men’s issues is a broad interdisciplinary field that has included scholarship from a variety of areas of academic inquiry since the latter half of the 20th century. The entries presented in this section reflect topics that have historically and contemporarily been relevant to psychology, sociology, medicine, law, and other fields. This overview primarily reviews men’s issues from a psychological perspective, including the origins of the psychology of men and masculinity and the formation of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM)—Division 51 of the American Psychological Association (APA). It also introduces several key concepts in the psychology of men and masculinity. These include a brief overview of the gender role socialization process that shapes men’s psychological development, correlates of traditional conceptualizations ...