When Boys Become Boys - Development, Relationships, and Masculinity

Based on a two-year study that followed boys from pre-kindergarten through first grade, When Boys Become Boys offers a new way of thinking about boys- development. Through focusing on a critical moment of transition in boys- lives, Judy Y. Chu reveals boys- early ability to be emotionally perceptive, articulate, and responsive in their relationships, and how these -feminine- qualities become less apparent as boys learn to prove that they are boys primarily by showing that they are not girls. Chu finds that behaviors typically viewed as -natural- for boys reflect an adaptation to cultures that require boys to be stoic, competitive, and aggressive if they are to be accepted as -real boys.- Yet even as boys begin to reap the social benefits of aligning with norms of masculine behavior, they pay a psychological and relational price for renouncing parts of their humanity. Chu documents boys- perceptions of the obstacles they face and the pressures they feel to conform, showing that complian