The Boy Code By William Pollack

In the last decade, girls have made incredible strides with education and in today’s workforce, while boys seem to be falling further behind. William Pollack created the term “Boy Code”. The Boy Code is a set of rules, assumptions, models and expectations that our society has used since the nineteenth century, for boys to adhere to. This includes the code of silence, hiding your deepest thoughts and feelings, showing vulnerability is a sign of weakness and you may be teased, and that it’s unacceptable for men and boys to display “feminine” qualities, fear, uncertainty, or loneliness. Boys learn the Boy Code on playgrounds, in classrooms, at church, and from their peers, and teachers. Even toddler boys are expected to be self-reliant and tough! …show more content…
By adhering to these rules, boys comprehend how they are expected to behave. The social learning theory is very similar. One social learning theory is behaviorism, or basic principles that come from a particular thought. One idea of behaviorism is that a behavior consistently followed by a reward will likely happen again on the other hand, a behavior followed by punishment will likely not happen again. This is also used in modeling or imitating. It takes the same form as behaviorism being that you will be rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad or inappropriate behavior. You learn and model the Boy Code through the behaviors of parent’s, peers, and teachers just as you follow the principles of the social learning theory through the behaviors of parent’s, peers, and teachers. Both are essential pieces to a boys future success and