The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men Paperback – September 1, 2015

The author writes (p. 199): "The public has given no one a mandate to pursue a policy of privileging girls." And yet, as Christina Hoff Sommers repeats in the revised edition of her 2000 book, a small group of ideological feminists have claimed that Americans should do that, and from many quarters there is evidence that they have. This "New and Revised Edition" of "THE WAR AGAINST BOYS" is a welcome return of an important book. Sommers, a philosopher by education and a mother of two boys, shows that the trend she identified in the late 1990s to see boys as defective girls and therefore somehow in need of retooling has continued, and its effects have spread. The importance of Sommers' book lies especially in pointing out the misrepresentations of fact by leading advocates of making over boyhood. She takes to task the reputation of a major research institution for having missed oversight of assertions presumably based on scientific investigation that are, in fact, wishful thinking on the part of high-profile faculty. Her target is Carol Gilligan in particular, who managed to convince important activists, journalists and others in the media about the presumed defectiveness of boys that results from the dominance of patriarchy in American society. Go to this book if you are a parent. Take it to school administrators especially if your children are in grade school but realize that contempt for men and masculinity is now pervasive in higher education as well. If you are paying $50,000+ a year for a son's education, check out what courses are being taught that are disparage the young men in class. Sommers is a feminist in the way anyone who is clear-thinking is a feminist: someone who supports women in having access to education and employment opportunities of every kind. She is, however, a potent opponent of ideological feminists (contemporary "gender equity" feminists). As Sommers points out, regardless of the claims of social constructivists, boys and girls are different, and they cannot be refashioned to feel and experience and act in ways that are not part of their disposition (her word). There are biobehavioral realities that are well-documented but simply ignored by a small group of feminists (male and female) who insist loudly that even the possibility of basic differences between the sexes exist. She is a fan of masculinity in the traditional sense. It is pretty obvious that so are MOST women, too. Sommers provides examples of schools that harm boys and schools that support them. She points out that federal government opposes many initiatives in public and private schooling that would support boys in their growing up. She notes that in Australia and the UK such efforts to do better by boys are under way, but they are nipped in the bud in the States, mostly by virtue of the threat of law suits. She points to the complicity of all three branches of the federal government in standing in the way of even trying boy-friendly practices in school. Finally, she repeats that the tendency of thinking of boys as somehow psychologically ill as a result of being raised as their bodies tell them they must experience the world must be distinguished from the consequence of real harm suffered by boys in an environment that tells them there is something wrong with them for being boys. This is an important book for speaking out on behalf of boys and cutting through the rhetoric and false claims of so-called gender specialists who have taken over academe and whose pronouncements resound in the echo chamber (her metaphor) of the media.

A well-researched book that was originally subtitled "How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men." Despite the political incorrectness of the original subtitle, Sommers' claims are hard to dispute as they are backed up by empirical data published in peer-reviewed journals. Essentially, Sommers dismantles the popular perception that girls need help in our educational system because they are being held back by a patriarchal society that favors boys and men. On the contrary, that kind of ideology, lacking empirical evidence as Sommers shows, is directly responsible for the rapid decline in the academic performance of boys over the last few decades. Girls are thriving. Boys are not. Yet, very little is being done to help boys because such help is viewed as part of a zero sum game that would deprive girls. It is high time that gender politics are excised from our educational system. We should focus on helping all children, not just girls. We need to reevaluate what is best for society. In today's gender climate, many boys are being pathologized for exhibiting typical boy behavior. Despite what some ideologues believe, innate gender differences exist. It would be truly remarkable that, in evolutionary terms, selective pressures would shape and mold every part of human anatomy except one organ - the brain. Given that each sex has its own reproductive strategy, it stands to reason that the brain, which governs behavior, should have acquired behavioral instincts that support each evolved reproductive strategy. Each gender makes unique contributions that historically has allowed our species, as a whole, to thrive. It is time to accept and embrace gender differences in an effort to discover what works best for all children. Ideologies that privilege one sex over another or pathologize normal behavior need to be met with skepticism.