Michael Halpin

Education

• BA, University of Calgary
• MA, University of British Columbia
• PhD, University of Wisconsin – Madison

I am a sociologist interested in gender, health, and social isolation. My research on gender focuses on misogyny in online communities, investigating how and why online communities justify and promote misogyny. My research on health examines how science (e.g., neurobiology and genetics) is changing how we define, treat, and experience illness. I am particularly interested in how scientists are identifying new types and phases of illness, and the consequences for ill individuals, physicians, and healthcare systems. My research on social isolation combines my interests in gender and health. Here, I am interested in the relationship between social isolation, masculinity, and health. My research is supported by SSHRC IDG and IG grants, and my findings have been discussed in various media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, Salon, and Newsweek. 

Selected Publications:

Halpin, M. & Cortez, D. (In Press). Rethinking medicalization: Unequal relations, hegemonic medicalization, and the medicalizing dividend. Theory & Society.

Halpin, M. Gosse, M., Yeo, K., Handlovsky, I. & Maguire, F. (In Press). When help is harm: Masculinity, self-improvement, and health in the looksmaxxing community, Sociology of Health & Illness.

Halpin, M., Richard, N., Preston, K., Gosse, M. & Maguire, F. (2023) Men who hate women. The misogyny of involuntarily celibate men. New Media + Society.

Halpin, M. (2022). “Weaponized subordination: How incels discredit themselves to degrade women.” Gender & Society, 36, 813-837.    

Halpin, M. (2022). “The brain and causality: How the brain becomes an individual-level cause of illness.” Social Problems, 69, 510-526.   

Halpin, M. & Richard, N. (2021) “An invitation to analytic abduction.” Methods in Psychology, 5, 100052.