Cover Story piece on how boys might gain from girls\u27 progress. Statistics rel

Cover Story piece on how boys might gain from girls\u27 progress. Statistics released by the National Center for Student Aspirations at the University of Maine show adolescent boys score lower than girls on eight conditions affecting academic performance. In other areas--literacy rates, suicide, high-risk behaviors, and learning disorders--boys also fare worse. Feminist awareness of the marginalization of girls has given rise to programs that could serve as models for boys, such as the Camden-based Mainely Girls, the Old Town-based mentoring program GirlTalk, and Camp Aspirations, run by Husson College in Bangor. Boys, constrained by the cultural straitjacket of the Boy Code, frequently act out and fall behind in school, but few programs in Maine address their needs, largely because of a dearth of men willing to develop them. In conjunction with this article, author Meg Haskell talks to seven seventh- and eighth-grade boys about their issues