Dear Dr. Wes & Julia: Do you think boys are suffering from a society that seeks to feminize them? Do you think we are allowing our sons to fall behind in deference to making sure girls advance?

Wes: This question leans toward the sociological, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I think this is essentially what the authors of “The Dangerous Book for Boys” argue, using a different language. Author Conn Iggulden notes, “the whole ‘health and safety’ overprotective culture isn’t doing our sons any favors. Boys need to learn about risk. They need to fall off things occasionally, or : they’ll take worse risks on their own. If we do away with challenging playgrounds and cancel school trips for fear of being sued, we don’t end up with safer boys – we end up with them walking on train tracks.” I don’t know that I would call this “feminization” as much as a legitimate concern about how much we try to sanitize our culture and avoid risk.

That said, I’m not sure I see either “feminization” or excess risk management on a regular basis in my clinical work, and I don’t recall any research that supports these hypotheses. For example, very intense sports for boys and girls are a fixture in our world in ways they were not when we were kids. I find a lot of competition even in early elementary school, and it’s not always in good fun.

I don’t see any societal shift. Any change just reflects how we choose to spend time with sons (and daughters) and what values we convey to them. I’d suggest teaching girls how to shoot rifles and boys how to cook. Everyone should know how to work on a car, diaper a baby and paint a house. All of these skills come in handy in life, and none have any necessary connection to gender.

I haven’t seen boys falling behind in anything either, or girls advancing at their expense. These things aren’t really a zero-sum game. It isn’t necessary for boys to lose something because girls gain. Again, the example of school sports is a fine one. Have the Kansas University or area high school teams lost anything because of Title IX? They all look like they’re plugging along pretty well these days, and any female athlete can tell you where the big money and emphasis is still spent and earned.

I would hope that the real lesson of the women’s movement over the years is not how to make boys more like girls or vice versa, but how each of us can find value in our traditional roles while mastering some new ones. For example, I think there is evidence that men have become more nurturing, involved and active parents over the last 40 years. One could argue that this makes them more like mothers – or you could argue that it simply makes them more effective dads. I’d go for the latter. Moreover, that increased involvement of fathers argues against the idea of “feminization” as more dads spend more time with their kids doing more things than in past history.

It’s an interesting thought – but not one I’m losing any sleep over in my little boys’ life.

Julia: In the wave of female suffrage, rights and empowerment that has hit society so hard, it is easy to ignore any side effects said feminization may have. There are still typical, ideal roles that media assign to boys and girls. For girls, this differs from the once happy-homemaker status because it pressures young girls and women alike to be more assertive in getting what they want and supposedly deserve. This attitude can lend itself to the bitchy factor preteens and adolescents display – not only believing they should get want they want, but that they are entitled to it because of their femininity. Boys are forced to respond with a collective backing off lest they be crushed in the path of ambitious, successful girls headed right into their workplace, homes and high schools.

I don’t think that society so much is feminizing boys but that it is overempowering girls. You rarely hear about severe cases of anorexia, body image or Facebook catfights among adolescent boys. To try to counteract such self-esteem issues, the media and culture in general overcompensate by building up the female experience and its awesomeness.

Thus you are faced with children’s commercials touting dolls that have “attitude,” the constant reassurance that your weight is not to be obsessed about and, of course, the ever-present image of the new age power-woman. Rather than being the passive maternal figure who keeps up the house, she is the multitasking, overscheduled, get-what-I-want-because-I-want-it superhero that females seem satisfied holding up as their role model.

Men suddenly have to comply with their lady’s needs, and any show of dominance is either in the female’s favor or cast off as a “sexist remark.” The need that culture and society show to fawn all over the female is not bad in its original intents, but when it comes to a dominant figure, men are pushed completely out of the picture instead of being equally included.

Next week: What not to do with your digital camera. Hint: Clothes should remain on at all times.

– Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Julia Davidson is a Bishop Seabury Academy junior. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues (limited to 200 words) to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.