James W. Messerschmidt is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Sociology, who previously taught for 35 years in the Criminology Department at the University of Southern Maine, USA. In addition to over eighty research articles and book chapters, he has authored fifteen books, most recently, Hegemonic Masculinity: Formulation, Reformulation, and Amplification and Gender Reckonings: New Social Theory and Research co-edited with Patricia Yancey Martin, Michael Messner, and Raewyn Connell. His research interests focus on cognitive sociology; inequalities; the mutual constitution of identities; gender, masculinities, and sexualities; criminology, youth crime, and violence; and political sociology.