I learned a lot about boys, which is good since I have two. Another must for parents, educators and those interested by being male or having to deal with those who are.

Really long so felt like I had to pick up & reread sections to refresh my memory when trying to read in-between other books. Challenges societal norms. A great book to read in tandem with other parenting books to broaden & deepen your thoughts on raising sons. Books on raising boys all seem pretty strong in their opinions, and ultimately you have to find where your style & common ground are going to be.

Ran accross it at half price books, flipped it open, and the page caught my interest. It was all about seperation, we have serious seperation issues. So far (20 pages) it's to be taken with a grain of salt but has definitely gotten me thinking about how we could do things differently.

Stopped reading at page 168, would rather be reading about Mexico right now.

I read this book YEARS ago when my son was going into the tween stage. Since we homeschool, I couldn't identify much with what the author said, but....I could really identify with his points from a former public school teacher's perspective. When Columbine happened...my first thought was, "I bet those boys were bullied unmercifully growing up." Not condoning what they did, but acknowledging their pain, also. Then this book came out. I thought it had some really good points. I do believe we need to call our sons on their behavior and talk about the pain behind their actions.
Why is it as a society we seem to tolerate unkind behavior from our sons and then chalk it up to "that's the way men behave...it'll make them stronger."? I don't buy it. I think it perpetuates more pain. I am game for any book that dispels the myths of "manhood".

Anyway, I thought this book was very interesting. One thing I really got from it was to just spend time "being" with our boys. He is right...eventually they do open up.

A must read for anyone working with kids, or who have their own kids.

If you can get over the fact that the author is borderline misogynistic with little understanding of what girls actually experience in life—even now in 2021–and dated references and terms, there are some good nuggets and reassurances in this book.
It was recommended to me by my therapist and I found it helpful, but also a little redundant and longer than necessary.

I am still in the process of reading. most of the books i read about are the struggle of women and their relationship with men. but, in teaching little boys and watching them strggle to communicate or embarrassed to express themselves, i became curious as to what we are teaching our youth and young men. i know society has certainly done a number on young women.....but what about the boys???

When we treat boys and girls with the same sensitivity in order to enhance learning the outcome is positive for both genders. This should be required reading for teachers and everyone that works with children.

As with many academic books, it would be more accurate to say I skimmed this book. It's an interesting beginning, albeit somewhat outdated, to the understanding of the intersection of psychology, socialization, and masculinity. I highly recommend balancing the content of this book with more current writings on masculinity.

I'm not sure... maybe my expectations were just too high. I was expecting this to be "Reviving Ophelia" (which I loved) but for boys... But as one who was once a boy myself, I just couldn't relate to any of the stories... it didn't feel authentic or "real" to me.

I gave this book a fair shake. 100 pages in, and I'm signing out.

Generally speaking, I'm incredibly interested in the broad themes that the author discusses in this book. I'm a feminist and I was a women studies major, and the way that patriarchy binds and silences all of us is an interesting subject to me. Nevertheless, I'm out on this book. Main problems:

1. I really thought that this author would be able to explore these concepts in a new way for me. I'm raising a son, and I appreciate perspective, and I was, in fact, incredibly eager to learn more to help me as a mother. However, the author has basically just dumbed down the material in a significant way, and in 100 pages, I didn't learn a thing I didn't already know. All I could think was, "yes, and...?" I kept waiting for more info, more tips, more anything. I already do all of this stuff with my son, and so does my husband.

2. So on a related note, I also think that this book is hugely outdated. This would've been a GREAT book for my parents to read when it first came out, nearly twenty years ago. GREAT for exboyfriends' parents to read then. However, it's just not written for this time, and just not written for this new generation of parents. Great book for Boomer parents in the 90s and early 2000s, though.

3. It's not well written. As another reviewer stated, this book is both literally and thematically repetitive. This is the main reason I'm giving up. The author could've stated the 100 pages I've read in 25, but he didn't. If this book was less than 250 pages, I'd just finish it. But 400? When he's just saying the same shit over and over again? It's a fast read, but even so, I just don't have it in me to read these same themes and poorly written examples over and over.

Yes, there are people I think this book should be read by--men and some women I know who totally go with the "boys will be boys" and "boys can't wear pink" mantra. However, I would never recommend this book to those people. It's too unjustifiably long, too clunky, and too hokey to recommend to someone skeptical of feminism. They'd never read it, and if they did, they'd use it to confirm their opinion about feminist scholars spewing bullshit. Hell, I know this stuff is real (I'm a fully bought-in, card-carrying feminist), and some of those examples made me cringe like, oh, jesus, what are you complaining about, seriously? And that's completely because the author had significant problems framing the examples, his suggested "parenting tips", and every other thing in this book. Yet another problem. This book is about patriarchy, and it's about feminism, and the author doesn't use either of those words. In the first 100 pages.

If you already have any familiarity with feminism or literature re how patriarchy silences men, then you don't need this book--because you already know everything in this book. Or, to be fair--at least you already know everything in the first 100 pages of this book.

If anyone knows of a book that discusses how patriarchy silences boys/parenting tips re raising non-asshole boys amidst patriarchy, I'd love to hear about that book. This isn't it.

Although parts of this book would now be considered out of date (the chapter about homosexuality comes to mind), I feel this is still an important read for anyone to better understand how society is failing boys & men, with suggestions as to how to provide better support as family members, teachers, and friends.