William PollackÆs (1998) study on young males, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, has as its aim the creation of a theoretical foundation for social engineering that advocates a particular style of parenting that undermines what the author views as the pathology underlying traditional concepts of masculinity. Absent such reengineering, Pollack believes we are dooming generations of young boys to emotional and behavioral problems.
PollackÆs book provides support for his theories in the form of results from a study conducted on 150 northeastern boys that made the author believe boys will communicate when they experience a supportive environment. The book provides PollackÆs assessment of conventional codes of masculinity, the problematic nature of boys faced with acknowledgement of their homosexuality, the separation of mothers from sons due to social stereotypes and other pressures, and frightening statistics on the number of boys who are suspended in school, fail to go to college, and commit crimes. Adolescent boys are at risk for these and other problems because of low self-esteem developed in learning environments not conducive to meeting the special needs of young boys, from considerations of less developed motor skills than females to too early entrance into the school system. All of this arises from what Pollack (p. 6) labels ôgender straitjacketing.ö Pollack (1998, p. 391) ends his work by explaining how we need to modify the ôboy codeö into a ôreal boy codeö in ways that keep parents connected to their sons.
PollackÆs work focuses on what the author labels the ôBoy Code,ö a rigid code of conduct imposed on boys that serves to lower self-esteem, limit expression, dampen emotion, and results in aggression from suppressed feelings and emotional turmoil. Thd boy code leads to adolescent boys who act in a stoic and uncommunicative manner, adopting an invulnerable attitude that is such
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