There is no real conflict between having good programs in schools for boys and girls.
Any apparent conflict comes from settling for too little.
It is well understood that to assist girls the key elements of the current cultures' pressure on females, the lack of power and privilege needs to be addressed. Encouragement needs to be given to girls to help them get past the societies limits on girls. If the goal is limited to helping girls compete, it is easy to see an apparent conflict with boys. The society wide glass ceiling over everyone of competition needs to be broken through to give our children the tools for a chance at a good life. The major life skill needed for a good life is the skill of building cooperation around ones self.
The needs of boys can't be seen clearly through the needs of the girls. As soon as attention is placed on the effects of boy's perpetration the way boys get victimized can't be seen. It is the way that boys get victimized that leads to inappropriate behaviour and then compounds that behaviour. Attempting to give boys less power and privilege is a traditional way of attempting to control boys behaviour. It leads to the further formation of traditional masculinity.
The key elements of the situation of boys in schools can be most easily seen as a development of the general situation for males in this society. The following is an overview of the socialization of males over all ages. While much of the pressure on boys is common to girls because of being young, pressure is experienced by boys as a male inside of the social expectations of males.
In general terms males do well in an atmosphere of friendship and safety. It is also a specific reversal of the traditional socialization of boys. Every person likes friendship and safety but these play a key role for males and need to be specifically addressed. Males' culture in its common form does not contain friendship and safety to any significant level and males don't get to develop skills in the area personal health, well-being or relationships because of this. Any program that has safety and encouraging friendship as part of the program can make a major change in the life of a boy.
The general procedure of males building safety by sharing and allowing and encouraging others to do the same as a way of giving males the resources to change learn and develop is not widely documented. The standard social process for handling stress by coping does not allow an in depth understanding for why this is needed for males in particular. You are seen as a wimp if you need a friend or safety.Introduction To Males Socialization
Because of the action of stereotypes across society all identifiable groups get blamed for the group experience as though it was a personality flaw. As males we get blamed for having any tension, as though having a difficulty in any way makes us less of a male. We are supposed to prove we are male enough to stand mistreatment. A key part of working with males is the lifting of the blame, shame, guilt, criticism, rejection, isolation and scapegoating that surrounds much of males history and instead giving it a social context.
From what I have seen in my own support groups, I am proud of males. There is not a male that I can think of that I am not proud of as a male and as a person. This is not the general attitude that is presented to males. We are supposed to be the gender that has all the power and privilege in this society. However in terms of deep humanness, we are given nothing. If we are lucky, we may have some friends that think about us with pride and caring. Many males by the time they are adults would give everything that they had to have just one person truly like them.
Males, Society and Social History
We cannot see what a males place is in terms of his emotions until we take a step back and look at society historically. Until modern times the human condition has been focused on survival. Men's role has been to provide that material survival. Most of human history has been hard and mean. Humans are the first species on the planet to have invented and organised societies which have enormously increased our ability to survive but we have not yet learned how to organize societies in a way that respects free choice, allows mutual support between humans and protections the environment. In particular we have not learned how to care about males at a social level. The hard mean tone of human societies still focuses in a particular way on males. This state of things is at the heart of how we feel about ourselves. Much of what we feel is a result what of what fell on us because we were male. Most current societies have been built upon and reflect the damage men carry not our inherent masculinity. For the first time in human history we are able to look at men with generosity towards the past and care. Considering everything that has happened, every man has done the very best that he possibly could and does not deserve any blame or criticism from anyone, including himself.
Males' Conditioning as Males
An easy way to look at males' conditioning is to ask any group of people what they love and hate about males. A list emerges that portrays the stereotyped male . What they love (and also sometimes what they hate) about males are qualities of being strong, powerful, in-charge, courageous, intelligent. What they hate are who males are, violent, addicted to sex, dominating, uncaring, craving power, crude, untrustworthy. Not every male displays every type of negative stereotyped behaviour but every male past school age displays some of it. What is interesting is that the list generated by men is about the same as the one by women. Nobody likes the effects that the conditioning has on males. However if you look at the list you also see that the qualities listed are what society holds up to males as how males are really "supposed" to be. Males get a double message that they are to be these ways to be a male, and at the same time nobody really likes it or wants it. Everybody seems desperate that males change and hopeless that they ever will.
It must be emphasized that these negative traits are just males' conditioning, certainly not males real nature as humans. These behaviours are not inherent at all - not hormonal or genetic or natural - but are the effects of socialization. One only has to look at new-born un-socialised humans to see that there is little difference in our humanness between individuals or genders.
It is illuminating to remember that the first question that is asked about any new baby is "what is it, a boy or a girl?". People who have investigated this in hospitals have found that people just don't know how to be with a baby if they don't know its sex.
There are three main parts to our inherent nature. They are: an ability to be conditioned, an ability to heal this conditioning and an underlying general human nature common to all humans. These human qualities can be covered over by conditioning but are none-the-less permanent and always reachable.
The worse we feel about ourselves as a male or female, the more we tend to act from our role conditioning in order to feel better. Society (the conditioning) tells males what "real males" are supposed to do. However when we act as society tells us, we are not behaving in accord with our nature as humans and we lose ourselves more, which has us feeling even worse about ourselves. The way out of the bind is to act according to one's innate humanness.
Developmental Stages in Males' Conditioning
To understand how males are coerced into gender roles and blocked from rational humanity, we can look at the developmental stages in males' conditioning.
Birth - Gender conditioning begins at birth. Studies with babies show that little boys get less attention than little girls, with the boys more often being held so they are pointed away from the person they are with. Many men don't know what to do if they get someone's complete attention. The feeling of isolation can often be traced to this early training.
Weaning - After weaning, boys are trained to be little men - not to cry, but to go off and handle things alone. When a boy's ability to feel or express feelings is interfered with not only is his understanding of himself taken away but also his ability to understand and empathize with others.
Primary School - The great lie in the area of gender is that it is better to be male than female. Little boys have to prove that they are better than others as a matter of survival. At the start of school, boys find themselves in a `beat or be beaten' culture where little boys are beaten up until they can beat others up. Boys are beaten up for not being `male' enough. The two categories of not-male-enough are: girls, and "sissies" ("mummies boys", "poofters", "sickoes etc. The names vary with every place and culture, but you'll hear the current version in every school playground at every break. Girls are hated and abused at this stage with names like "girls germs."
The anti-homosexual or wimp abuse in society limits the kind of boy you can be. Boys are abused and abused and abused until anything resembling qualities associated with girls, "poofters" "wimps", etc. is hidden. These include the qualities needed for an easy emotional life and for interaction with other human beings. It is a choice that every male makes to survive the culture. Later on, anytime a man leaves the traditional conditioned male role he is subject to anti-gay abuse irrespective of his sexual preference or he is attacked for being a wimp. It is not surprising that men feel their lives are threatened if their manhood is called into question, since it was fear of death that conditioned this version of manhood in the first place. The men's movement is often labelled as "queer", "strange", etc. due to its questioning of the male role. Most people still only see males as the stereotype and if they are not the stereotype "they must be personally flawed in some way".
High School Sexual Conditioning - After having being isolated first from girls, in high school it is no longer permitted for boys to be close to other boys. It is it is at this stage that sexual conditioning begins. Adolescent boys are supposed to "get laid" to prove their manhood. A boy's sexuality is supposed to be: compulsive, impersonal, objectifying, coercive, active, driven to orgasm (his), proving his manhood, and with a female. If you look at what these constitute if taken together- legally, emotionally, and psychologically - it's rape. Not every man displays all of these behaviours. Yet this is the dominant mainstream model of male sexuality in which women have been conditioned to act out the matching role. Either you don't have enough of this men's sexual conditioning and you must be a "poof", or you have too much and you're a rapist and a monster. It's little wonder that men are confused about their sexuality. To work against rape is to work primarily against ordinary sexual conditioning , not some kind of unusual aberration. All men have some of the pieces of this sexual conditioning. Rapists are ordinary men with more ordinary men's conditioning than usual. Facing that society is to blame not any man is at the hart of men's work in this area.
Working and Fighting - On leaving school most men go through the hardest and loneliest time of their lives. You have be consumed by work to "be a man". The beat-or-be-beaten culture of boys becomes kill-or-be-killed, dog- eat-dog. After leaving school men just work. Life is about work. All the priorities in a man's life are distorted so that work comes first. "You're a man because of your work." Health, relationships, well-being all come second. The conditioning feels like you have to work like this in order to survive. The way society is organised fits this feeling exactly. It can be very difficult for men to really rest.
Young men are the "group of choice" taken into the military. The male conditioning to "kill or be killed" is completed by the brutality of the basic training of new recruits. It is not surprising that military training recruitment ads have stated such things as "the army will make a man of you".
For at least some of the time most men at this age (18 to 25) would give everything that they had if someone would just pretend to like them which would allow them to "go on" a bit longer. This is the time of the highest death rates from accidents, suicide, drugs, fights, wars etc. Men at this age get the heaviest dose of abuse and isolation. The pressure is immense on them to fit into the oppressive mold, conform and go numb, and work.
At the same time, all men are subject to the threat of being bashed to death for being Gay-like. Two heterosexual men can get killed for holding hands in some streets. Gay bashing happens to any male that does not appear to fit into the stereotype of how men are supposed to be.
Retiring - When the role as "work objects" is over many men are just "disposed of". Many men either seize up or drop dead soon after retiring. The tensions of a life time all catch up. For the survivors, life often has no meaning and little real contact with others. At a time when the richest life experience and wisdom is available to others old men are seen as less than men as they are no longer available to work or fight.
Leaving Isolation
At every point, at every stages the way out to elegant human functioning is to leave the isolation that keeps males trapped in the confusion of the conditioning. The key to males' liberation is ending isolation. Every struggle for liberation that men and boys must make becomes possible to win when there is real human contact and safety. These are the struggles against exhaustion, over-work, over-responsibility, violence, fear, addictions, depression, blame, desperation, self-hate, numbness, competition, rejection, war and militarism the rape and sexual abuse mentality. They are the struggles with fathering, unemployment, prostitution, pornography, pretense, oppressor roles. Males have acquired layer upon layer of isolation- isolation from oneself, other men, women, and children. It is ending of isolation that makes it possible In males' struggles to reclaim their inherent maleness, to play, to listen, to reclaim the natural healing process, to love, to be close, to get the addictions off sex, to have time for relationships and family, to get justice, to rest, to unite with boys, men and other groups, to lead males.
Telling Ones Story
When males first join males' groups and start telling their story and get to hear other males' stories, there is a stunned relief. Other males have just the same kind of issues. After a life-time of hiding how bad each of us feels about ourselves, especially as a male, it's a huge relief to find that it's not oneself that's the problem it's the isolation and oppression. We don't have to keep trying to be "more of a male". When it gets obvious just how impossible it has been to be male, to stay close, to feel, to really live, the feelings come and the healing begins. When you get to real listen to any males' story you can only be proud of him.
Ending Oppression
Social institutions in their use of rewards and punishment to organize people are contributing to the problem. As humans we have simply not yet discovered how to organize the whole of society on friendship. Struggles for freedom and justice in the world today need to be based on building relationships of respect, and support as the basis of organisation. Change must take place on both a personal level to heal the conditioning, make relationships and on an institutional or cultural level to organize to end each form of humans harming humans.