That’s What I’m Talking About
May 22nd, 2008 by Edward Keenan in Act Like A Man
CBC Radio Ideas producer Richard Handler summarizes Dr. Leonard Sax’s book, Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men:
But then he bucks up and gives us five reasons for this epidemic. Many are familiar but Sax puts them all together like a brick thrown through your window:
- Video games. These addictive activities disengage boys from the world. Some young men even seem to prefer online porno to the prospect of sex with another human being.
- Teaching methods. Girls develop intellectually up to two years ahead of boys. Boys in grade school are naturally rambunctious. They need ways to express their native energy. They are being taught to read and write too early. Their mostly female teachers prefer compliant, dutiful girls.
- Prescription drugs. Hyperactive, frustrated boys are increasingly being medicated. This we all know. What Sax claims is that these drugs shrink the motivational centres of the brain and that the effect of this lasts years, well after these kids stop taking their meds. I hadn’t heard this before but if it’s true, it is truly frightening.
- Endocrine disruptors. Chemicals from plastic bottles, canned food linings and some shampoos mimic natural estrogen, the female hormone. Boys’ testosterone levels are half of what they were in their grandfathers’ day. Also, their bones are significantly more brittle.
- The devaluation of masculinity. Boys don’t know how to become men. They no longer have appropriate rights of passage. Once Father Knows Best was the paternalistic model but now he has been replaced (and mocked) by a dopey Homer Simpson. Sax likes the old virtues of courage and temperance, with a good measure of intelligence.
Sounds familiar. Not sure whether I agree with all the elements of his diagnosis. Another book to add to the pile.
Tags: books, male condition, masculinity
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Posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 10:03 pm. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am
There have been a couple of studies over the last few years that show that the so-called “boys crisis” in education is pretty much imaginary. The gap between boys and girls is quickly closing, which some find alarming, but it’s a question of girls doing better, not testosterone-starved boys doing worse. And, as always, the best indicators of academic achievement remain class and race.
http://www.educationsector.org/analysis/analysis_show.htm?doc_id=378705
Unmotivated, porn-addicted, GTA4-playing twenty-somethings, however, are obviously a different matter.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:26 am
No.
Leonard Sac is an awful human being who is doing more to hurt boys than anyone else I can think of.
Would the men of antiquity that you admire so much accept this total lack of personal responsibility? Would the soldiers and pioneers blame everybody (including those man-hating, evil, teachers) and produce some big conspiracy in order to justify failure on their own part? That’s the same attitude that is leading to nonsense like afro-centric schools and constant self-esteem blathering. You decry those, so why are you accepting Sax’s thesis that it’s those evil feminazi teachers. Seriously, who the hell picks on teachers? Back in the good old days when men were men, there were female teachers as well. And in those days, talking out of turn or fidgeting meant you were sent to the principal’s office for the strap. Suggesting that it’s better to let boys express their natural, rambunctious spirit and not be contained would have gotten you laughed at by those men you claim to admire for their masculinity.
The person doing the most damage to boys’ futures is Sax. Just because he never got over his college Holden Caulfield phase he’s taking it out on innocent children? Do you want to know why boys perform worse than girls? Because boys (especially white, middle class boys) are told constantly through our culture that being polite and paying attention and doing what you’re told is for wimps. Far better to be the dangerous rebel whose spirit can’t be contained by by a phony society that doesn’t understand you. Look at James Frey, and every famous athlete and musician. No one ever says “I practiced guitar chords for hours every day and paid for lessons,” it’s always, “I have a heroin addiction because no one understand how special I am.” This attitude will continue to hurt boys, but I really doubt Sax cares.
Why do so many people seem to believe that if men/women succeed, that means women/men have to fail. To me that’s just as logical as saying than only blonds, or brunettes can do will in life, but not both.