Over recent years there has been widespread concern for masculinity and the education of boys in Australia. In the policy arena, this has involved a federal parliamentary inquiry into the education of boys ("Boys: Getting it Right: Report on the inquiry into the education of boys", October 2002) and a federal government response to this inquiry (June 2003). This was followed by a review of the current education policy directed at gender, the Gender Equity Framework, and the development of strategies to increase the number of men going into teacher training. The way in which "Getting it Right" and the federal government talk about boys and disadvantage is important. This paper argues that there is a particular understanding of disadvantage at work in this policy arena. It is an understanding of disadvantage extracted from a wider gendered power order. The paper argues that "Getting it Right's" particular understanding of disadvantage as outside of power differentials is achieved by two policy approaches. First, the Report compares some indicators of both girls' and boys' situations, but in a selective way. I call this a "selective comparative approach". Second, the Report emphasises the importance of focusing on the separate needs of boys and girls, just when the indicators of girls' position in society cannot be ignored. I call this a "mere difference approach". These policy approaches assume particular understandings of boys, girls and gender which, I argue, underpins a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem with deleterious results for boys and girls. (Contains 7 endnotes.)