

Real Boys
Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood
Author: William Pollack
Narrator: William Pollack
Abridged: 2 hr 56 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published: 05/03/2011
Synopsis
Much has been written about the plight of girls in adolescence--their decreased self-esteem, increased emphasis on appearance, gender bias in the classroom, and the confusion about what it means to be feminine. Boys, Pollack discovered, suffer a similar gender identity crisis even before adolescence. Reasearch shows that male infants are more emotionally expressive than female infants. However, as a boy ages, his emotional expressiveness decreases. Why? Because 'The Boy Code'--society's definition of what it means to be a boy--demands that boys suppress or cover up their emotions. As a result, boys develop a "mask of masculinity" to hide their shame, vulnerability and the other feelings they cannot express publicly. The inability to show true emotions hardens a boy until, ultimately, he loses touch with them. Today's boys, Pollack writes, are "only allowed to lead half their emotional lives."