Janice Wallace (jwallace@oise.utoronto.ca)
Thu, 14 Jan 1999 12:35:25 -0500 (EST)
Although I think Dr. Pollack makes some interesting and useful points in
his book "Real Boys", the point needs to be made that, in general, it was
not "society" that directed energy towards making educational (and other)
opportunities for girls more equitable, it was WOMEN who made those
efforts. As a mother of a son, I have been concerned about many of the
issues addressed by Pollack regarding the ways we raise sons, but change
cannot occur unless MEN take up the challenge of doing the difficult, and
sometimes lonely work of rethinking and reworking the ways men and boys
hold other men and boys to gendered stereotypes that are often quite
destructive for both women and men--as well as boys in schools. Of
course, the ideal is that both women and men will take up these issues,
but using gender neutral language is not helpful in telling the story of
how women have made the advances (as vulnerable and tenuous as they often
are) that they have.
Janice Wallace
Faculty of Education
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada
jwallace@oise.utoronto.ca
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