Thank you Andrew.
After practicing the Dharma of Buddhism, reading Jung, and Gabor Maté, among others, I see boys who are deeply ashamed of their sometimes violent and uncaring outbursts, run-of-the-mill temper tantrums.
"Mama! It's just too hard to think about all of that! I want to just run wild, free and unfettered by any concern for others! I want to rage!"
We women sometimes feel that way too, but many less of us actually do it.
Women, especially young, frustrated with restrictions women, "inexplicably go for bad boys".
It's easily explainable. Being attached to a man who tends to run wild gives them liscense to do it with him, releasing their frustrations.
Being expected, as a woman, to be small, quiet and subservient is, arguably, much more frustrating than the frustration of a boy restrained from running wild.
Witness a first grade class released from the classroom for recess. They burst out of the door screaming, running full-tilt with arms spread wide.
Some girls do the same, but most, and a boy or two, come out smiling, but cautious...

Seems obvious to me that these attitudes are carried, in deep places, into adulthood.

At the risk of sounding Freudian, the boys are feeling shame just thinking about their mother’s disappointment in their rowdy, unthinking, selfish behavior. They, deep down, must acknowledge the need for that love and concern, most especially the understanding, but feel compelled to rebel against it as “stifling”, the standards of patriarchy insisting that they be independent and dominant.

It’s quite a sticky wicket.

They want to be the hero, saving the damsel and thereby earning her approval, but in mundane times, they resent her ability to, by only the thought of her, remind them of their “weakness” of needing love and approval.
Wow! You sparked something in me. Thanks again.
--weezi--