The Real Way Schools are Falling Boys

Many have raised concerns about a crisis among boys and men, ushering in a “manosphere” cultural wave. After decades of dominance, boys have begun to fall behind girls in school. Today, girls are better readers, earn better grades, and are more likely to graduate from high school. But the issue isn’t that we need more “boy-friendly” reforms. It’s that boys are still socialized to compete only with boys and to read girls’ success as illegitimate or emasculating. The result is dissonance, resentment, and disengagement for boys—and hostile climates for girls.  If we really want boys to succeed, we need to ensure that they know how to both beat—and lose—to girls.  Too often, competitiveness is culturally-coded as masculine, and for boys it becomes a pillar of identity. From childhood play to college sports, boys learn that “real” competition is male-against-male—the arena where status is earned and manhood confirmed. But these rigid gender ideals don’t leave room for boys to compete with girls as equals in the classroom, or later, as adults, the workplace. As a result, boys often experience cross-gender competition as confusing, shameful, or as a test of masculinity rather than a test of skill. When girls compete—and win, as they are bound to at least occasionally do—boys tend to respond in three ways. Some boys recalibrate, softening overt bravado. Others detach, underperforming or withdrawing to avoid the appearance of “losing to a girl.” And others escalate aggression—interrupting, dismissing ideas, excluding girls from groups or partnerships, and resorting to sexualized, relational hostility. This anxiety also spills onto women teachers, who increasingly encounter open intersectional misogyny: gendered slurs, intimidation, and sexualization which can undermine teachers’ authority and student learning. Girls face a different bind. They are frequently explicitly encouraged to emulate “masculine” traits—assertiveness, confidence, dominance—to succeed in STEM, sports, work, and beyond. That expectation means that girls frequently struggle to balance aggressive competitiveness with norms of deferential femininity, a double standard boys don’t encounter.  These dynamics are bad for everyone. Classrooms become more hostile for girls; boys’ motivation and achievement suffer. The problem isn’t girls’ gains—it’s a competitive culture that equates boys’ worth with dominance over other boys and offers no workable script for competing with girls as peers. Either way—detachment or aggression—boys’ inability to compete directly and as equals with girls is having negative outcomes for all, including boys whose academic motivation, engagement, and achievement are suffering.  If we want healthier classrooms and better outcomes, we need to de-gender the competitive script: teach mixed-gender collaboration and rivalry as normal, interrupt status policing, and evaluate excellence beyond dominance. Boys shouldn’t need to win to be masculine; they need a way to compete that doesn’t make girls’ success feel like their failure or emasculation. How did we get here?  From preschool on, sex segregation shapes children’s lives. They are divided into “boys” and “girls” for teams, bathrooms, uniforms, and even book bins. Decades of research indicates that unnecessary segregation encourages children to think in stereotypes, narrows their self-expression and exploration, and fails to teach boys how to compete. In rigid gender-binary systems, known as separate spheres, competition between two sexes is all but impossible because the entire framework understands men and women as complementary and unequal. If men are assumed to be “naturally” more capable and rational, stronger, and better suited for leadership, and women are “naturally” nurturing, emotional, and designed for care and support roles, how can boys and men honorably compete with them?  For many boys trying to learn how to be men and still trying to conform to provide and protect ideals, competing with girls can feel like they are like punching down or that they have one hand tied behind their backs. Either way, it can feel wrong because they have been told that good men protect girls and women; they don’t compete with them. There is very little room for a boy to “win” when competing with a girl in this framework because, win or lose, boys stand a high chance of feeling emotional dissonance and shame. This is the bind boys face, and it is causing resentment and fostering boys’ hostility toward girls as rivals.   In gaming, for instance, researchers have found that when boys lose to other boys, they are more likely to be gracious compared to when they lose to girls. The later is seen as shameful. In classrooms, similar dynamics are also evident. Faced with girls’ academic skills, many boys try to prove themselves in gender-stereotypical ways by labeling academic effort as feminine, or finding ways to ignore, undermine, or minimize girls’ academic success. And this dynamic hurts girls as well. In this belief system, how can women legitimately compete fairly? We can’t. So, when we do, and when we win, it is perceived as illogical, a flaw, an unfairness. ‘Boy friendly’ solutions There are many reasons why boys are disengaging from education, but this one—male status anxiety in the face of direct competition and possible loss to girls—is grossly underestimated. If it were given the attention it is due, then making schools more “boy-friendly” would not be the center of suggested solutions as it is today.  Advocates are pressing, for instance, for boys to have more male teachers and mentors and for subject matter that reflects their interests, both ideas that seem helpful. The premise of these approaches, however, is that boys need to learn from and find pride and comfort in the company of other men—and that they cannot be engaged in learning through the experiences of others. It is, essentially, a fraternal model based on traditional ideas meant to offset the dubious claim that feminized schools are hurting boys.  Making schools less “female-dominated” and boy-friendly will almost certainly backfire by quietly sanctioning harmful norms, deepening gender divides, and moving boys even farther away from learning how to compete with girls as equals. Such “re-masculinizing” approaches to academic backsliding will worsen the issues boys face—rather than fostering mutual respect. For instance, boys most likely to struggle with girls as competitors are those who adhere most closely to traditional gender ideals. The more gender traditional they are, the more aggressive their behaviors towards girls. “Boy-centric” policies won’t help boys succeed in the world. Instead, they will re-entrench the hierarchies that drive boys to check out of learning and collaboration. Parents, teachers, and coaches can better prepare children to compete by adopting several evidence-based strategies that encourage co-educational engagement and foster mutual respect. More gender egalitarian approaches are associated not only with greater self-esteem and confidence for girls and non-binary children but with improved engagement and performance for boys. Building mixed-gender team activities, academic collaborations, and sports is a good way to normalize competitiveness and reduce gender stereotypes and performance pressures. For instance, physical play that includes mixed genders, for instance, reduces cross-gender aggression. And researchers have also found that encouraging boys to have women role models, in much the same way that girls have always had male role models, reduces their sense of gender difference, hierarchies, and superiority. Ending unnecessary binary sex categorizations in toys, books, sports, and other areas of learning, and instead focusing on where children share interests, experience, and skills, helps them learn to view each other as equals capable of working together and celebrating each other’s achievements and capacities.  All children deserve to be celebrated for their achievements. But boys simply cannot succeed if they aren’t taught that winning and losing are a natural part of any fair competition—including with girls.