Family+-+'Save+the+Males'

Family: "Save the Males"

According to William Pollack, there is a sort of identity crisis among today's male population. My personal rebuttal, in metaphoric form, is that yes, males are on their own little island of emotion, isolated from everyone ... just like everyone else. Christina Sommers also offered a rebuttal to Pollack's thesis by stating that the male population is healthy mentally and emotionally. I applaud Sommer's fact checking and own research to prove that a piece of false information is indeed false, I don't know that she offers any actual evidence to the contrary either, but that's okay because it's part of the teenaged-condition, if not the human-condition. Now what I mean by that involves looking at the cultural dictations of the day, and days prior, of gender identity. People are used to a set definition of what it means to be a boy or a girl, but the reality is completely different; much like how the definition of the 1950s family is based on given expectations, despite that it was harldy representative. In both scenarios, the groups are seeking answers. Now, in light of progressive gains in gender equality, it stands to reason that some people would see this as a gender shift. Researchers, like Pollack, may take this and say that now sexism is being reversed, so essentially his entire argument is "hey, look at the guys; don't forget the guys!" On the other hand, feminists would argue that society is still too hard on the girls, which leaves everyone in a fairly confused state. The girls are off feeling alone and overwhelmed by the thin actresses and fashion models, contantly being told that theye're not good enough. Then right next to them are the boys, who are also feeling alone and overwhelmed by the mascular body builders and movie stars, constantly being told that they too aren't good enough. So yes, "As boys mature, they feel increased pressure to conform to an agressive dominant male stereotype, which leads to low self-esteem and high incidence of depression (526)", but the same is also true for girls and the nuturing stereotype. Then there's the stereotype that girls can better express their feelings versus boys who just can't. I think this is ridiculous; girls simply appear to be more sociable, again because of stereotypes developed over a large time period. Boys, as well as girls, can talk for hours on end, but over different things: sports gossip versus social gossip. To me, the difference is that sports gossip can only go on for so long before it's finally decided to go out and play, which requires very little talking, versus social gossip which can last for hours without actually going anywhere; but both are still trivial subjects nonetheless. In my personal experience, guys and girls only spill their guts to certain people, and it's dependent on the amount of trust between the people involved. Perhaps guys refusing to divulge personal information is simply because they don't trust you. The other possibility is that we're all the same, meaning we all experience our same problems and trials, and we, being either gender really, just realize that our problems sound as insignificant to you as yours do to us, or at least it we think they would be insignificant to you, the listener. I think the media aspect to all of this is a key factor to Sommer's argument that there's nothing wrong with the male population. Pollack's research was released by McLean "based on the "news value" of the study (530)." Even before discussing "The Media Blitz", Sommers is dropping a huge indication as to why the the whole idea of troubled boys was going around in the first place: it would make for a great news story. Now the media is at least thought to have had a period where a news-worthy story was actually about information and an acurate non-fiction narrative about the events transpiring around the general population, whereas today, much of the "news" is political trash-talking or over-blown emotion stirrers. Especially in the areas of medical news, which psycology just happens to sit under to the public eye, stories are made simply to boost ratings and attract attention, after all, I'm sure that if half of what the media claimed was true about this stuff, we'd be in a crippling world of death as far as the eye can see. So then, to me, and I'm sure to Sommers as well, Pollack's immediate claim on television talk shows and news programs was really nothing more than a way to get his name out there and be known. From there, as these news stories are wont to do, things spiraled. Although I think Sommers brings up an interesting point when claiming that this kind of media buzz "would be inconceivable if the children under discussion were girls (532)." Sommers points out that male criminals are seen as a type of representative of the male population, but female criminals are simply the anomalies.To me, the question becomes "where did that thinking come from?" And unfortunately, I think I know the answer.

The answer undoubtedly given by Sommers's article is the Columbine shootings. "[Pollack] had been moderately successful before the Columbine HIgh School shootings in April 1999, but [his thesis] really took off when a startled public [wanted to know] what was wrong with the nation's boys (525)." Pollack then went on to become a major component to the discussion, or war if we want to be sarcastic, on school violence, something that may've been a step in the wrong dirrection. First off, Pollack essentially stated that boys have "split in their sense of what it means to become a man (528)", and are embedded with a subconscious feeling of isolation and abandonment, which Pollack arrived at using a questionable writing assignment - I would argue there are just common themes in our story-telling abilities - both of which lead to the conclusion that any boy is "suicidal and homocidal." Allow me to take a few seconds to laugh at the clear slippery slope here; and I'm back. The reason I left was because, while such a finding may sound logical as the results of a few select individuals, "Pollack is not talking about a small percentage of boys (527)", which essentially means every boy, no matter how good the home, can go off the deep end for no reason at all. Of course, media and the other groups had no problem filling the gap for reasons: music, video games, and such can turn anyone into the kinds of kids that were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Oh, but wait because according to this lovely article: [] everything assumed about the Columbine killers is wrong, including all the hype over video games and bullying. The truth of the matter was that these were two very different kids, one was a meglomaniac, the other was more of an emo kid. The point is that they were from the opposite ends of the spectrum, killing for completely different reasons, and not the Pollack's universal answer. Both genders can produce extreme criminals, much like any belief system can produce extremists, but that doesn't mean anyone needs saving; if anything, people of both genders just want answers.