CHAPTER ONE PART ONE
REAL BOYS
-1-
INSIDE THE WORLD OF BOYS:
BEHIND THE MASK OF
MASCULINITY
"I get a little down," Adam confessed, "but I'm very good at hiding
it. It's like I wear a mask. Even when the kids call me names or
taunt me, I never show them how much it crushes me inside.
I keep it all in."
THE BOY CODE: "EVERYTHING'S JUST FINE"
Adam is a fourteen-year-old boy whose mother sought me out after aworkshop I was leading on the subject of boys and families. Adam, she toldme, had been performing very well in school, but now she felt somethingwas wrong.
Adam had shown such promise that he had been selected to join aspecial program for talented students, and the program was available only ata different--and more academically prestigious--school than the one Adamhad attended. The new school was located in a well-to-do section of town,more affluent than Adam's own neighborhood. Adam's mother had beenpleased when her son had qualified for the program and even more delightedthat he would be given a scholarship to pay for it. And so Adam had set offon this new life.
At the time we talked, Mrs. Harrison's delight had turned to worry.Adam was not doing well at the new school. His grades were mediocre, andat midterm he had been given a warning that he might fail algebra. Yet Adamcontinued to insist, "I'm fine. Everything's just fine." He said this both athome and at school. Adam's mother was perplexed, as was theguidance counselor at his new school. "Adam seems cheerful and has nocomplaints," the counselor told her. "But something must be wrong." Hismother tried to talk to Adam, hoping to find out what was troubling him andcausing him to do so poorly in school. "But the more I questioned him aboutwhat was going on," she said, "the more he continued to deny anyproblems."
Adam was a quiet and rather shy boy, small for his age. In his bright blueeyes I detected an inner pain, a malaise whose cause I could not easilyfathom. I had seen a similar look on the faces of a number of boys of differentages, including many boys in the "Listening to Boys' Voices" study. Adamlooked wary, hurt, closed-in, self-protective. Most of all, he looked alone.
One day, his mother continued, Adam came home with a black eye. Sheasked him what had happened. "Just an accident," Adam had mumbled. He'dkept his eyes cast down, she remembered, as if he felt guilty or ashamed. Hismother probed more deeply. She told him that she knew something waswrong, something upsetting was going on, and that--whatever it was--theycould deal with it, they could face it together. Suddenly, Adam erupted intears, and the story he had been holding inside came pouring out.
Adam was being picked on at school, heckled on the bus, goaded intofights in the schoolyard. "Hey, White Trash!" the other boys shouted athim. "You don't belong here with us!" taunted a twelfth-grade bully. "Whydon't you go back to your own side of town!" The taunts often led tophysical attacks, and Adam found himself having to fight back in order todefend himself. "But I never throw the first punch," Adam explained to hismother. "I don't show them they can hurt me. I don't want to embarrassmyself in front of everybody."
I turned to Adam. "How do you feel about all this?" I asked. "How doyou handle your feelings of anger and frustration?" His answer was, I'm sadto say, a refrain I hear often when I am able to connect to the inner lives ofboys.
"I get a little down," Adam confessed, "but I'm very good at hiding it.It's like I wear a mask. Even when the kids call me names or taunt me, I nevershow them how much it crushes me inside. I keep it all in."
"What do you do with the sadness?" I asked.
"I tend to let it boil inside until I can't hold it any longer, and then itexplodes. It's like I have a breakdown, screaming and yelling. But I onlydo it inside my own room at home, where nobody can hear. Where nobodywill know about it." He paused a moment. "I think I got this from my dad,unfortunately."
Adam was doing what I find so many boys do: he was hiding behind amask, and using it to hide his deepest thoughts and feelings--his realself--from everyone, even the people closest to him. This mask of masculinityenabled Adam to make a bold (if inaccurate) statement to the world: "I canhandle it. Everything's fine. I am invincible."
Adam, like other boys, wore this mask as an invisible shield, a persona toshow the outside world a feigned self-confidence and bravado, and to hidethe shame he felt at his feelings of vulnerability, powerlessness, andisolation. He couldn't handle the school situation alone--very few boys orgirls of fourteen could--and he didn't know how to ask for help, even frompeople he knew loved him. As a result, Adam was unhappy and was fallingbehind in his academic performance.
Many of the boys I see today are like Adam, living behind a mask ofmasculine bravado that hides the genuine self to conform to our society'sexpectations; they feel it is necessary to cut themselves off from any feelingsthat society teaches them are unacceptable for men and boys--fear,uncertainty, feelings of loneliness and need.
Many boys, like Adam, also think it's necessary that they handle theirproblems alone. A boy is not expected to reach out--to his family, his friends,his counselors, or coaches--for help, comfort, understanding, and support.And so he is simply not as close as he could be to the people who love himand yearn to give him the human connections of love, caring, and affectionevery person needs.
The problem for those of us who want to help is that, on the outside, theboy who is having problems may seem cheerful and resilient while keepinginside the feelings that don't fit the male model--being troubled, lonely, afraid,desperate. Boys learn to wear the mask so skillfully--in fact, they don't evenknow they're doing it--that it can be difficult to detect what is really going onwhen they are suffering at school, when their friendships are not workingout, when they are being bullied, becoming depressed, even dangerously so,to the point of feeling suicidal. The problems below the surface becomeobvious only when boys go "over the edge" and get into trouble at school, startto fight with friends, take drugs or abuse alcohol, are diagnosed with clinicaldepression or attention deficit disorder, erupt into physical violence, or comehome with a black eye, as Adam did. Adam's mother, for example, did not knowfrom her son that anything was wrong until Adam came home with an eye swollenshut; all she knew was that he had those perplexingly poor grades.
THE GENDER STRAITJACKET
Many years ago, when I began my research into boys, I had assumed thatsince America was revising its ideas about girls and women, it must havealso been reevaluating its traditional ideas about boys, men, and masculinity.But over the years my research findings have shown that as far as boystoday are concerned, the old Boy Code--the outdated and constrictingassumptions, models, and rules about boys that our society has used sincethe nineteenth century--is still operating in force. I have been surprised tofind that even in the most progressive schools and the most politicallycorrect communities in every part of the country and in families of all types,the Boy Code continues to affect the behavior of all of us--the boysthemselves, their parents, their teachers, and society as a whole. None of usis immune--it is so ingrained. I have caught myself behaving in accordancewith the code, despite my awareness of its falseness--denying sometimesthat I'm emotionally in pain when in fact I am; insisting that everything is allright, when it is not.
The Boy Code puts boys and men into a gender straitjacket thatconstrains not only them but everyone else, reducing us all as humanbeings, and eventually making us strangers to ourselves and to oneanother--or, at least, not as strongly connected to one another as welong to be.
OPHELIA'S BROTHERS
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia is lover to the young prince of Denmark.Despondent over the death of his father, Hamlet turns away from Ophelia.She, in turn, is devastated and she eventually commits suicide. In recentyears, Mary Pipher's book on adolescent girls, Reviving Ophelia, has madeOphelia a symbolic figure for troubled, voiceless adolescent girls. But whatof Hamlet? What of Ophelia's brothers?
For Hamlet fared little better than Ophelia. Alienated from himself, aswell as from his mother and father, he was plagued by doubt and erupted inuncontrolled outbursts. He grew increasingly isolated, desolate, andalone, and those who loved him were never able to get through to him. Inthe end, he died a tragic and unnecessary death.
The boys we care for, much like the girls we cherish, often seem to feelthey must live semi-inauthentic lives, lives that conceal much of their trueselves and feelings, and studies show they do so in order to fit in and beloved. The boys I see--in the "Listening to Boys' Voices" study, in schools,and in private practice--often are hiding not only a wide range of theirfeelings but also some of their creativity and originality, showing in effectonly a handful of primary colors rather than a broad spectrum of colors andhues of the self.
The Boy Code is so strong, yet so subtle, in its influence that boys maynot even know they are living their lives in accordance with it. In fact, theymay not realize there is such a thing until they violate the code in some wayor try to ignore it. When they do, however, society tends to let themknow--swiftly and forcefully--in the form of a taunt by a sibling, a rebukeby a parent or a teacher, or ostracism by classmates.
But, it doesn't have to be this way. I know that Adam could have beensaved a great deal of pain if his parents and the well-meaning schoolauthorities had known how to help him, how to make him feel safe to expresshis real feelings, beginning with the entirely natural anxiety about starting ata new school. This could have eased the transition from one school to a newone, rather than leaving Adam to tough it out by himself--even though Adamwould have said, "Everything's all right."
HOW TO GET BEHIND THE MASK
As we'll discuss throughout this book, there are many ways that we canlearn how to understand a boy's deepest feelings and experience, to come toknow who he really is, and to help him love and feel comfortable with hisgenuine self. The starting place for parents--as well as for teachers and othermentors of our boys--is to become sensitive to the early signs of the maskingof feelings. These signs include everything from bad grades to rowdybehavior, from "seeming quiet" to manifesting symptoms of depression,from using drugs or alcohol to becoming a perpetrator or victim of violence;and sometimes, as in the case of Adam, the mask may accompany the mantrathat "everything is fine."
The second step to getting behind the mask is learning a new way totalk to boys so that they don't feel afraid or ashamed to share their truefeelings. For example, when a boy like Adam comes home with a black eye,rather than saying "Oh my God! Just what is happening to you at school?"or "What the heck happened to you?" less intimidating language can beused, such as "What is going on--can you tell me?" or "I've noticed thingsseem a little different for you lately--now I can see something's wrong. Let'stalk about it."
The third step is to learn how to accept a boy's own emotionalschedule. As we'll discuss more in this book, boys who do share theirfeelings often take longer to do so than girls do. Whereas a girl might shareher feelings as soon as she's asked what's going wrong, a boy will oftenrefuse (or ignore us) the first time he's approached. We have to learn how togive the boy the time he needs and how to recognize in his words andactions the signals that he is ready to talk.
A boy's need to be silent--and then his subsequent readiness to sharewhat he is feeling--is what we will call the timed silence syndrome. It'sthe boy who usually needs to set the clock himself--to determine how much timehe needs to remain silent before opening up to share his feelings. If we learnto become sensitive to each boy's unique timing, we become better atrespecting how he copes with emotions and make it more possible for him tobe honest about the feelings behind the mask.
The fourth step involves what I call connection through action. Thismeans that rather than nudging a boy to sit down and share his feelings withus, we begin by simply joining him in an activity that he enjoys. Often bysimply doing something with the boy--playing a game with him, joining himfor a duet on the piano, taking him to an amusement park--we forge aconnection that then enables him to open up. In the middle of the game, theduet, or the Ferris wheel ride, a boy may often feel close and safe enough toshare the feelings he'd otherwise keep hidden.
Finally, we can often help boys take off their masks by telling themstories about our own experiences. We can tell them "war stories" aboutwhen we were young and had to deal with life's ups and downs, or we canshare recent experiences that challenged us. Even if our boy groans or rollshis eyes when we begin to share our story, he almost always benefits fromthe empathy that telling the story inevitably conveys. By discovering that,yes, we too have felt scared, embarrassed, or disappointed, the boy beginsto feel less ashamed of his own vulnerable feelings. He feels our empathyand discovers that we understand, love, and respect the real boy in him.
For schools, getting behind the mask to help a boy like Adam requiresseveral specific additional steps. First, as we'll learn throughout this book,teachers, school administrators, guidance counselors, and others all need tolearn about how the Boy Code operates. They need to be actually trained tounderstand how this code restricts boys from being their true selves and howit pushes them to put on the mask. Second, I often suggest that schoolsassign to each boy an adult mentor who is sensitive and empathic to thatboy's unique personality and interests. For example, the mentor for a boywho loves sports might be one of the gym teachers, whereas the mentor forthe boy who loves poetry might be the English teacher. By assigning amentor whose interests mirror those of the boy, the boy gainsan adult friend with whom he can talk, somebody with whom he might feelcomfortable sharing his deepest feelings and thoughts. Third, schools needto monitor closely those areas where the Boy Code operates mostintensely. These include bus rides (where boys are often completelyunsupervised), gym class, recess, and extracurricular sports. In suchsituations, teachers and other supervisors need to be especially vigilant aboutmaking sure that each boy is doing all right. Fourth, when teachers or others dointervene to help a boy who seems to be hurting behind the mask, it'simportant that they use the kind of nonshaming approach I discussedabove. For example, when a boy seems to be the victim of a lot of teasing,rather than intervening suddenly by saying "Hey, what's going on here? Cutthat out!" the adult supervisor might take aside the boys involved,individually and at separate times, and investigate what's happening in theparticular situation. Finally, as I'll discuss more in this book, schools need togive boys a "report card" that covers not only their academic progress andclassroom conduct but also their social life. By keeping an eye on a boy'ssocial adjustment, schools are much better able to stay in touch with a boy'sgenuine emotional experience.
PREPARING A BOY FOR CHANGE
In addition to learning how to get to know the real boy, it's important for usas adults to anticipate situations such as important life changes--a move, adivorce, the birth of a new sibling--that are likely to bring up the kinds ofpainful feelings that force many boys to retreat behind the mask.For example, a new school, knowing that a boy like Adam was coming therefrom a less advantaged neighborhood, might have anticipated difficulties,assigned a buddy or mentor to Adam, an older boy who could teachhim the ropes, introduce him to other boys, help him to become an insiderrather than remain an outsider, and be a friend to ease him through the firstweeks of school. The school counselors might have been in contact withAdam's mother from the first sign of an academic dip. Adam's teachers, too,might have been encouraged to help him get acquainted. Adam's parents mighthave spent more time with Adam during the first few weeks, and also preparedhim in advance for his new experience, talking with him about what to expect,meeting with other parents and boys who had been involved in the sameprogram, looking for another parent with a boy in the new school who mightbefriend Adam or talk with that parent about the school, visiting the schoolwith Adam before his first day, and exploring the new neighborhood so hecould adjust to the scene. Once he began to experience academic difficulties,which was the first indication to them that something was amiss, his parentsmight have tried to create safe spaces or activities to do together in whichAdam might have felt able to open up and share his feelings; they might alsohave talked about their own memories of going away to college or feeling alonein a new experience.
A MOTHER'S INSTINCTS
One of the things I especially noticed in Adam's story is a hallmark of otherboys' stories too--the mother's instincts were accurate; she knew in her heartthat something was wrong. But she distrusted her own knowledge, and wentalong with the Boy Code and with Adam's saying, "Everything is all right." Inher denial of what she in fact knew, and in her acceptance of society's code forboys, she disconnected from her own instincts, not realizing she knew better;she didn't feel empowered to listen to her own intuitions about her son or takeaction that might have been outside the code but could have helped Adambefore the situation came to a crisis. With the very best of intentions, everyoneinvolved--the parents and authorities at both schools--had pushed Adam awayfrom help and connection, from the full range of expressing himself. Everyonebelieved that the special school program represented a great opportunity forhim, as indeed it did; but they failed to realize that it also represented a changein his social setting that needed to be handled for and with the boy.
Adam tried to tough it out on his own, the way boys do. It's part of thecode.
BEHIND THE MASK OF MASCULINITY: SHAMEAND THE TRAUMA OF SEPARATION
Just as Adam and his parents unwittingly adhered to the Boy Code, mostparents and schools do the same. It has been ingrained in our society for solong, we're unaware of it. One educational expert recently suggested that theway to achieve equality in schooling would be by "teaching girls to raise theirvoices and boys to develop their ears." Of course boys should learn to listen.They should also speak clearly, in their own personal voices. I believe,however, that it's not boys who cannot hear us--it is we who are unable to hearthem.
Researchers have found that at birth, and for several months afterward,male infants are actually more emotionally expressive than female babies.But by the time boys reach elementary school much of their emotionalexpressiveness has been lost or has gone underground. Boys at five or sixbecome less likely than girls to express hurt or distress, either to their teachersor to their own parents. Many parents have asked me what triggers thisremarkable transformation, this squelching of a boy's natural emotionalexpressiveness. What makes a boy who was open and exuberant unwilling toshow the whole range of his emotions?
Recent research points to two primary causes for this change, and both ofthem grow out of assumptions about and attitudes toward boys that are deeplyingrained in the codes of our society.
The first reason is the use of shame in the toughening-up process by whichit's assumed boys need to be raised. Little boys are made to feel ashamed oftheir feelings, guilty especially about feelings of weakness, vulnerability, fear,and despair.
The second reason is the separation process as it applies to boys, theemphasis society places on a boy's separating emotionally from his mother atan unnecessarily early age, usually by the time the boys are six years old andthen again in adolescence.
The use of shame to "control" boys is pervasive; it is so corrosive I willdevote a whole chapter to it in this book. Boys are made to feel shame over andover, in the midst of growing up, through what I call society's shame-hardeningprocess. The idea is that a boy needs to be disciplined, toughened up, made toact like a "real man," be independent, keep the emotions in check. A boy is toldthat "big boys don't cry," that he shouldn't be "a mama's boy." If these thingsaren't said directly, these messages dominate in subtle ways in how boys aretreated--and therefore how boys come to think of themselves. Shame is at theheart of how others behave toward boys on our playing fields, in schoolrooms,summer camps, and in our homes. A number of other societal factors contributeto this old-fashioned process of shame-hardening boys, and I'll have moreto say about shame in the next chapter.
The second reason we lose sight of the real boy behind a mask ofmasculinity, and ultimately lose the boy himself, is the premature separation ofa boy from his mother and all things maternal at the beginning of school.Mothers are encouraged to separate from their sons, and the act of forcedseparation is so common that it is generally considered to be "normal." But Ihave come to understand that this forcing of early separation is so acutelyhurtful to boys that it can only be called a trauma--an emotional blow ofdamaging proportions. I also believe that it is an unnecessary trauma. Boys, likegirls, will separate very naturally from their mothers, if allowed to do so at theirown pace.
As if the trauma of separation at age six were not wrenching enough, boysoften suffer a second separation trauma when they reach sexual maturity. As aboy enters adolescence, our society becomes concerned and confused aboutthe mother-son relationship. We feel unsure about how intimate a mothershould be with her sexually mature son. We worry that an intense and lovingrelationship between the two will somehow get in the way of the boy's ability toform friendships with girls his own age. As a result, parents--encouraged by thesociety around them--may once again push the boy away from the family and, inparticular, the nurturing female realm. Our society tells us this is "good" for theboy, that he needs to be pushed out of the nest or he will never fly. But Ibelieve that the opposite is true--that a boy will make the leap when he is ready,and he will do it better if he feels that there is someone there to catch him if hefalls.
This double trauma of boyhood contributes to the creation in boys of adeep wellspring of grief and sadness that may last throughout their lives.
MIXED MESSAGES: SOCIETY'S NEW EXPECTATIONS FOR BOYS
But there is another problem too: society's new expectations for boys today arein direct conflict with the teachings of the Boy Code--and we have done little toresolve the contradiction. We now say that we want boys to share theirvulnerable feelings, but at the same time we expect them tocover their need for dependency and hide their natural feelings of love andcaring behind the mask of masculine autonomy and strength. It's an impossibleassignment for any boy, or, for that matter, any human being.
THE SILENCE OF LOST BOYS
Often, the result of all this conflation of signals is that the boys decide to besilent. They learn to suffer quietly, in retreat behind the mask of masculinity.They cannot speak, and we cannot hear. It's this silence that is often confusingto those of us concerned about the well-being of boys because it fools us intothinking that all is well, when much may be awry--that a boy doesn't need us,when in fact he needs us very much.
The good news is that we now know of many ways that we can help boys,and they are based on various patterns we now understand about typical boybehavior. Understanding these patterns, these ways of a real boy's life, will, Ibelieve, help us raise boys of all ages in more successful and authentic ways.For the truth is that once we help boys shed the straitjacket of gender--once wehear and understand what a real boy says, feels, and sees--the silence is brokenand replaced by a lively roar of communication. The disconnection quicklybecomes reconnection. And once we reconnect with one boy, it can lead tostronger bonds with all the males in our lives--our brothers and fathers andhusbands and sons. It can also help boys to connect again with their deepestfeelings, their true selves.
LIVING WITH HALF A SELF--THE "HEROIC" HALF
Until now, many boys have been able to live out and express only half of theiremotional lives--they feel free to show their "heroic," tough, action-oriented side,their physical prowess, as well as their anger and rage. What the Boy Codedictates is that they should suppress all other emotions and cover up the moregentle, caring, vulnerable sides of themselves. In the "Listening to Boys'Voices" study, many boys told me that they feel frightened and yearn to make aconnection but can't. "At school, and even most times with my parents," oneboy explained, "you can't act like you're a weakling. If you start acting scared orfreaking out like a crybaby, my parents get mad, other kids punch you out orjust tell you to shut up and cut it out." One mother told me what she expectedof her nine-year-old son. "I don't mind it when Tony complains a little bit," she said,"but if he starts getting really teary-eyed and whiny I tell him to just put a lid on it.It's for his own good because if the other boys in the area hear him crying, they'll makeit tough for him. Plus, his father really hates that kind of thing!" Boys suppress feelings of rejection and loss also. One sixteen-year-oldboy was told by his first girlfriend, after months of going together, that shedidn't love him anymore. "You feel sick," confessed Cam. "But you just keep itinside. You don't tell anybody about it. And, then, maybe after a while, it justsort of goes away."
"It must feet like such a terrible burden, though, being so alone with it," Iremarked.
"Yep," Cam sighed, fighting off tears. "But that's what a guy has to do,isn't it?"
Jason, age fifteen, recently wrote the following in an essay aboutexpressing feelings:
If something happens to you, you have to say: "Yeah, no big deal," even when you're really hurting.... When it's a tragedy--like my friend's father died--you can go up to a guy and give him a hug. But if it's anything less ... you have to punch things and brush it off. I've punched so many lockers in my life, it's not even funny. When I get home, I'll cry about it.
I believe, and my studies indicate, that many boys are eager to be heardand that we, as parents and professionals, must use all our resources to reachout and help them. As adults, we have both the power and perspective to seethrough the boys' false front of machismo, especially when we know enough toexpect it and to understand it for what it is--a way to look in-charge and cool.
A four-year-old boy shrugs and tries to smile after he is hit in the eye witha baseball, while blinking back tears of pain. A ten-year-old boy whose parentshave just divorced behaves so boisterously and entertainingly in class he'sbranded the "class clown," but underneath that bravado is a lot of suffering;he longs for the days when his parents were together and he didn't need thatkind of attention. A fourteen-year-old flips listlessly through a sports magazinewhile his school counselor discusses the boy's poor conduct. When thecounselor warns the boy that his behavior may well lead to failure andsuspension from school--trying to discipline through shame, through a threat ofrejection--the boy retorts, "So what?"
Unfortunately, at times we all believe the mask because it fits so well and isworn so often it becomes more than just a barrier to genuine communication orintimacy. The tragedy is that the mask can actually become impossible toremove, leaving boys emotionally hollowed out and vulnerable to failure atschool, depression, substance abuse, violence, even suicide.
BOYS TODAY ARE FALLING BEHIND
While it may seem as if we live in a "man's world," at least in relation to powerand wealth in adult society we do not live in a "boy's world." Boys on the wholeare not faring well in our schools, especially in our public schools. It is in theclassroom that we see some of the most destructive effects of society'smisunderstanding of boys. Thrust into competition with their peers, some boysinvest so much energy into keeping up their emotional guard and disguisingtheir deepest and most vulnerable feelings, they often have little or no energyleft to apply themselves to their schoolwork. No doubt boys still show up assmall minorities at the top of a few academic lists, playing starring roles as someteachers' best students. But, most often, boys form the majority of the bottomof the class. Over the last decade we've been forced to confront somestaggering statistics. From elementary grades through high school, boysreceive lower grades than girls. Eighth-grade boys are held back 50 percentmore often than girls. By high school, boys account for two thirds of thestudents in special education classes. Fewer boys than girls now attend andgraduate from college. Fifty-nine percent of all master's degree candidates arenow women, and the percentage of men in graduate-level professionaleducation is shrinking each year.
So, there is a gender gap in academic performance, and boys are falling tothe bottom of the heap. The problem stems as much from boys' lack ofconfidence in their ability to perform at school as from their actual inability toperform.
When eighth-grade students are asked about their futures, girls are nowtwice as likely as boys to say they want to pursue a career in management, theprofessions, or business. Boys experience more difficulty adjusting to school,are up to ten times more likely to suffer from "hyperactivity" than girls, andaccount for 71 percent of all school suspensions. In recent years, girls havebeen making great strides in math and science. In the same period, boys havebeen severely lagging behind in reading and writing.
BOYS' SELF-ESTEEM--AND BRAGGING
The fact is that boys' self-esteem as learners is far more fragile than that ofmost girls. A recent North Carolina study of students in grades six to eightconcluded that "Boys have a much lower image of themselves as students thangirls do." Conducted by Dr. William Purkey, this study contradicts the myththat adolescent boys are more likely than girls to see themselves as smartenough to succeed in society. Boys tend to brag, according to Purkey, as a"shield to hide deep-seated lack of confidence." It is the mask at work onceagain, a facade of confidence and bravado that boys erect to hide what theyperceive as a shameful sense of vulnerability. Girls, on the other hand, bragless and do better in school. It is probably no surprise that a recent U.S.Department of Education study found that among high school seniors fewerboys than girls expect to pursue graduate studies, work toward a law degree, orgo to medical school.
What we really need for boys is the same upswing in self-esteem aslearners that we have begun to achieve for girls--to recognize the specializedacademic needs of boys and girls in order to turn us into a more gender-savvysociety.
Overwhelmingly, recent research indicates that girls not only outperformboys academically but also feel far more confident and capable. Indeed theboys in my study reported, over and over again, how it was not "cool" to betoo smart in class, for it could lead to being labeled a nerd, dork, wimp, or fag.As one boy put it, "I'm not stupid enough to sit in the front row and act likesome sort of teacher's pet. If I did, I'd end up with a head full of spitballs andthen get my butt kicked in." Just as girls in coeducational environments havebeen forced to suppress their voices of certainty and truth, boys feel pressuredto hide their yearnings for genuine relationships and their thirst for knowledge.To garner acceptance among their peers and protect themselves from beingshamed, boys often focus on maintaining their masks and on doing whateverthey can to avoid seeming interested in things creative or intellectual. Todistance themselves from the things that the stereotype identifies as"feminine," many boys sit through classes without contributing and teaseother boys who speak up and participate. Others pull pranks during class, startfights, skip classes, or even drop out of school entirely.
SCHOOLS AND THE NEED FOR GENDER UNDERSTANDING
Regrettably, instead of working with boys to convince them it is desirable andeven "cool" to perform well at school, teachers, too, are often fooled by themask and believe the stereotype; and this helps to make the lack of achievementself-fulfilling. If a teacher believes that boys who are not doing well are simplyuninterested, incapable, or delinquent, and signals this, it helps to make it so.Indeed when boys feel pain at school, they sometimes put on the mask andthen "act out." Teachers, rather than exploring the emotional reasons behind aboy's misconduct, may instead apply behavioral control techniques that areintended somehow to better "civilize" boys.
Sal, a third-grader, arrived home with a note from his teacher. "Sal had to bedisciplined today for his disruptive behavior," the teacher had written. "Usuallyhe is a very cooperative student, and I hope this behavior does not repeatitself."
Sal's mother, Audrey, asked her son what he had done.
"I was talking out of turn in class," he said.
"That's it?" she asked. "And how did your teacher discipline you?"
"She made me stay in during recess. She made me write an essay aboutwhy talking in class is disruptive and inconsiderate." Sal hung his head.
"I was appalled," recalls Audrey. "If the teacher had spent one minutewith my child, trying to figure out why he was behaving badly, this wholething could have been avoided." The teacher had known Sal to be "a verycooperative student." It seems that, the night before, Sal had learned that afavorite uncle had been killed in a car crash. "I told my son that I understoodthat he was having a really hard day because of his uncle, but that,even so, it's wrong to disrupt class. He was very relieved that I wasn'tmad," Audrey said. "The episode made me think about how boys gettreated in school. I think the teacher assumed that Sal was just `being aboy.' And so, although what he really needed was a little understandingand extra attention instead she humiliated him. It reminded me to thinkabout how Sal must be feeling when something like this happens, becausehe often won't talk about what's bothering him unless we prompt him to."
As a frequent guest in schools across the country, I have observed apractice I consider to be inappropriate, even dangerous--and based on amisunderstanding of boys. Elementary school teachers will offer the boys intheir class a special "reward"--such as a better grade, an early recess, or anextra star on their good-behavior tally sheet--if the boys will not raisetheir hand more than once per class period. They find that some boys are soeager to talk and so boisterous in clamoring to be called on that their behaviordisrupts the order of the classroom.
High school teachers sometimes adopt the same practice with theiradolescent boy students, particularly those who act up or talk out of turn inclass. The teachers will let the boys leave early or take a short break from classif they demonstrate that they can keep quiet and "behave." In other words,instead of trying to look behind the behavior to the real boy, to what is goingon inside him, teachers assume a negative, and ask these boys to makethemselves even more invisible and to suppress their genuine selves further.Ironically, they're asking boys to act more like the old stereotype of thepassive, "feminine" girl. The teachers may get what they want--a quietclassroom--but at what cost? Such approaches silence boys' voices ofresistance and struggle and individuality, and serve to perpetuate boys'attention-seeking acts of irreverence.
We need to develop a new code for real boys, gender-informed schools,and a more gender-savvy so
