Apart from his own vague interviews of 150 boys, there did not seem to be any scientific basis for his study. The Harvard authorities were reluctant to discuss the work, but allowed it to be publicized in order to get media attention, Hoff-Sommers discovered. Pollack himself did not return her calls. Not only is his work anecdotal, it takes the worst anecdotes and claims that they are typical of boys. The psychopathic killers in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and at Columbine are taken as merely extreme examples of common male traits.
Most therapists take outside criticism badly.
One of the most important psychologists to write on gender issues is Carol Gilligan of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The education profession has also contributed to the boys crisis. British educators have successfully responded to the drop in male academic achievement by instituting such traditional methods. But these are not the only choices. Both, in fact, are responses to twentieth century cultural breakdown.