What's Happening to Boys?

Young Women These Days Are Driven -- but Guys Lack Direction

By Leonard Sax

Friday, March 31, 2006; Page A19

The romantic comedy "Failure to Launch," which opened as the No. 1 movie in the nation this month, has substantially exceeded pre-launch predictions, taking in more than $64 million in its first three weeks.

Matthew McConaughey plays a young man who is affable, intelligent, good-looking -- and completely unmotivated. He's still living at home and seems to have no ambitions beyond playing video games, hanging out with his buddies (two young men who are also still living with their parents) and having sex. In desperation, his parents hire a professional motivation consultant, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who pretends to fall in love with McConaughey's character in the hope that a romantic relationship will motivate him to move out of his parents' home and get a life.

The movie has received mixed reviews, though The Post's Stephen Hunter praised it as "the best comedy since I don't know when." But putting aside the movie's artistic merits or lack thereof, I was struck by how well its central idea resonates with what I'm seeing in my office with greater and greater frequency. Justin goes off to college for a year or two, wastes thousands of dollars of his parents' money, then gets bored and comes home to take up residence in his old room, the same bedroom where he lived when he was in high school. Now he's working 16 hours a week at Kinko's or part time at Starbucks.

His parents are pulling their hair out. "For God's sake, Justin, you're 26 years old. You're not in school. You don't have a career. You don't even have a girlfriend. What's the plan? When are you going to get a life?"

"What's the problem?" Justin asks. "I haven't gotten arrested for anything, I haven't asked you guys for money. Why can't you just chill?"

This phenomenon cuts across all demographics. You'll find it in families both rich and poor; black, white, Asian and Hispanic; urban, suburban and rural. According to the Census Bureau, fully one-third of young men ages 22 to 34 are still living at home with their parents -- a roughly 100 percent increase in the past 20 years. No such change has occurred with regard to young women. Why?

My friend and colleague Judy Kleinfeld, a professor at the University of Alaska, has spent many years studying this growing phenomenon. She points out that many young women are living at home nowadays as well. But those young women usually have a definite plan. They're working toward a college degree, or they're saving money to open their own business. And when you come back three or four years later, you'll find that in most cases those young women have achieved their goal, or something like it. They've earned that degree. They've opened their business.

But not the boys. "The girls are driven; the boys have no direction," is the way Kleinfeld summarizes her findings. Kleinfeld is organizing a national Boys Project, with a board composed of leading researchers and writers such as Sandra Stotsky, Michael Thompson and Richard Whitmire, to figure out what's going wrong with boys. The project is only a few weeks old, it has called no news conferences and its Web site ( http://www.boysproject.net ) has just been launched.

So far we've just been asking one another the question: What's happening to boys? We've batted around lots of ideas. Maybe the problem has to do with the way the school curriculum has changed. Maybe it has to do with environmental toxins that affect boys differently than girls (not as crazy an idea as it sounds). Maybe it has to do with changes in the workforce, with fewer blue-collar jobs and more emphasis on the service industry. Maybe it's some combination of all of the above, or other factors we haven't yet identified.

In Ayn Rand's humorless apocalyptic novel "Atlas Shrugged," the central characters ask: What would happen if someone turned off the motor that drives the world? We may be living in such a time, a time when the motor that drives the world is running down or stuck in neutral -- but only for boys.

Leonard Sax, a family physician and psychologist in Montgomery County, is the author of "Boys Adrift: What's Really Behind the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys," to be published next year. He will take questions at noon today athttp://www.washingtonpost.com.

 

 

Dr. Sax is the founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. His first book, Why Gender Matters: what parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences was published in hardcover by Doubleday (2005) and in an expanded softcover edition by Random House (2006). His second book, Boys Adrift: The five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys, will be published by Basic Books in the summer of 2007. At this website, you can:

read a summary of Why Gender Matters

read an excerpt from Why Gender Matters

Get more information about Dr. Sax:

Dr. Sax's education and experience
Dr. Sax's publications
 Dr. Sax's events for 2005
 Dr. Sax's events for 2006
 Dr. Sax's events for 2007.
 Comments from people who've heard Dr. Sax speak.

Watch Dr. Sax discuss the book with Al Roker on the TODAY show (five-minute segment)

Readers' Reactions

order the book from amazon.com

order the book from Barnes & Noble

order the audio CD of the book (unabridged) from Barnes & Noble

order the audio version from audible.com

Send an e-mail to Dr. Sax

 

Why Gender Matters

What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences
by Leonard Sax, MD, PhD

"Until recently, there have been two groups of people: those who argue sex differences are innate and should be embraced and those who insist that they are learned and should be eliminated by changing the environment. Sax is one of the few in the middle -- convinced that boys and girls are innately different and that we must change the environment so differences don't become limitations."
          -- TIME Magazine, cover story, March 7, 2005

Praise for Why Gender Matters:

". . . a lucid guide to male and female brain differences. . ."
The New York Times

"When I was a college freshman, a male teaching assistant I sought help from told me matter-of-factly that women were not good at inorganic chemistry. Had I been armed with Why Gender Matters, about how biological differences between the sexes can influence learning and behavior, I could have managed an informed rejoinder to go along with my shocked expression. . . . Using studies as well as anecdotes from his practice and visits to classrooms, [Sax] offers advice on such topics as preventing drug abuse and motivating students. . . . The book is thought-provoking, and Sax explains well the science behind his assertions. . . [Why Gender Matters] is a worthy read for those who care about how best to prepare children for the challenges they face on the path to adulthood."
Scientific American

"Convincing. . . Psychologist and family physician Leonard Sax, using 20 years of published research, offers a guide to the growing mountain of evidence that girls and boys really are different. . . This extremely readable book also includes shrewd advice on discipline, and on helping youngsters avoid drugs and early sexual activity. Sax's findings, insights and provocative point-of-view should be of interest and help to many parents."
-New York Post

"Why Gender Matters is a fabulous resource for teachers and parents. Dr. Sax combines his extensive knowledge of the research on gender issues with practical advice in cogent, highly readable prose. I am eager to have my colleagues at school read this book and discuss it!"
—Martha Cutts, Head of School, Agnes Irwin School, Rosemont, Pennsylvania

"As the principal of an elementary school, I am constantly on the lookout for outstanding articles and books about gender-specific learning differences. Why Gender Matters is the best I've read."
-John Webster, Head of School, the San Antonio Academy

"Why Gender Matters is an outstanding work of scholarship. I am going to make it our 'faculty read' this summer."
-Paul Krieger, Headmaster, Christ School (North Carolina)

"In this reader-friendly book, Dr. Sax combines his comprehensive knowledge of the scientific literature with numerous interesting case studies to argue for his thesis that single-sex education is advantageous."
— Dr. Sandra Witelson, Albert Einstein/Irving Zucker Chair in Neuroscience, McMaster University

"Extremely interesting . . . Challenged many of my basic assumptions and helped me to think about gender in a new way."
—Joan Ogilvy Holden, Head of School, St. Stephen’s School, Alexandria, Virginia

"I simply will never be able to express how eye-opening this book has been for me. Yes me -- even though I thought I was a boy-raising specialist. After all, I have produced four healthy and smart athletes. I must know what I'm doing. But many of my boy-raising days I thought I was going mad. I'd come home from some sports event trembling because of the way the coach yelled at my kid. I'd ask my husband and whichever son it happened to be that day how they could stand being yelled at like that. Almost every time husband and son would look at me and not have any recollection of being yelled at during the game. Now I understand!!!!!!!!!"
-Janet Phillips, mother of four boys, Seneca, Maryland

"Why Gender Matters is an instructive handbook for parents and teachers . . . to create ways to cope with the differences between boys and girls."
-The Boston Globe

"Outstanding book, required reading for any parent."
Timothy Lundeen, father, San Francisco, California

"Fascinating . . . This book is interesting because it takes an 'outside the box' position on gender. Paradoxically, Sax says, gender-neutral education favors the learning style of one sex or the other, and so only drives men and women into the usual stereotyped fields. The best way to raise your son to be a man who is caring and nurturing, says Sax, is to first of all let him be a boy. The best way to produce a female mathematician is to first of all let her be a girl. . . I think Sax is on to something. Mature men and women do draw on qualities that stereotypically belong to the opposite sex. But the easiest way to get them to that point is to first make them confident about being a man or a woman. . . Sax adds that children are less happy and confident nowadays because no one is teaching them how to be men and women. This is a powerful, even obvious insight, once you dare think it. . . In quick succession, with Mary Eberstadt's Home Alone America and Leonard Sax's Why Gender Matters, we've seen two important, creative, and politically incorrect takes on family life and childhood."
-Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online.


Summary
Forget everything you think you know about gender differences in children. Forget "boys are competitive, girls are collaborative." In recent years, scientists have discovered that differences between girls and boys are more profound than anybody guessed. Specifically:

The brain develops differently. In girls, the language areas of the brain develop before the areas used for spatial relations and for geometry. In boys, it's the other way around. A curriculum which ignores those differences will produce boys who can't write and girls who think they're "dumb at math."

The brain is wired differently. In girls, emotion is processed in the same area of the brain that processes language. So, it's easy for most girls to talk about their emotions. In boys, the brain regions involved in talking are separate from the regions involved in feeling. The hardest question for many boys to answer is: "Tell me how you feel."

Girls hear better. The typical teenage girl has a sense of hearing seven times more acute than a teenage boy. That's why daughters so often complain that their fathers are shouting at them. Dad doesn't think he's shouting, but Dad doesn't hear his voice the way his daughter does.

Girls and boys respond to stress differently - not just in our species, but in every mammal scientists have studied. Stress enhances learning in males. The same stress impairs learning in females.

These differences matter. Some experts now believe that the neglect of hardwired gender differences in childrearing may increase a son's risk of becoming a reckless street racer, or a daughter's risk of experiencing an unwanted pregnancy.

Since the mid-1970's, educators have made a virtue of ignoring gender differences. The assumption was that by teaching girls and boys the same subjects in the same way at the same age, gender gaps in achievement would be eradicated. That approach has failed. Gender gaps in some areas have widened in the past three decades. The pro-portion of girls studying subjects such as physics and computer science has dropped in half. Boys are less likely to study subjects such as foreign languages, history, and music than they were three decades ago. The ironic result of three decades of gender blindness has been an intensifying of gender stereotypes.

For parents, Dr. Sax provides concrete guidelines regarding the tough issues of discipline, sex, and drug abuse, and other problem areas.

For educators, Dr. Sax offers practical suggestions to help break down gender stereotypes and help all children to reach their potential.

For everybody, Dr. Sax offers a provocative analysis of how gender influences every aspect of our lives.

Dr. Sax's education and experience

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in biology, Dr. Sax began the combined M.D.-Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Penn in 1986 with a Ph.D. in psychology and the M.D. degree. He went on to do a 3-year residency in family practice at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Since completing that residency in 1989, he has been in full-time clinical practice as a family physician. In 1990, he launched a practice in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland, about 30 minutes northwest of the District of Columbia. He's been there ever since.

Dr. Sax enjoys a unique perspective on children. As a Ph.D. psychologist, he is familiar with the academic literature on child development. In fact, he has continued to publish scholarly papers since starting his practice. But he is no ivory-tower academic. Instead, as a family physician, he has an unusually intimate relationship with about 2,000 children (his total practice includes over 5,000 active patients).

Because he is both a family physician and a research psychologist, Dr. Sax has attracted many families with "problem children" to his practice. Over the years the word has spread, so that now Dr. Sax's practice includes many children with a variety of psychological problems -- as well as a healthy share of perfectly normal kids and high-achieving kids. Unlike most other experts writing on child development, Dr. Sax has experience with kids from every segment of society and every kind of classroom: straight-A students from elite private schools in Bethesda and Potomac, as well as kids struggling with remedial reading in the public school system.

Dr. Sax's unusual background -- being both a family physician (M.D.), as well as a Ph.D. psychologist -- has led him to recognize the importance of gender differences in how children learn, and to a belief that those gender differences are neglected or minimized in American public schools. Here's one example he often cites:

Consider the typical first- or second-grade classroom. Imagine Justin, six years old, sitting at the back of the class. The teacher (a woman) is speaking in a tone of voice which seems normal to her. Justin, however, barely hears her. Instead, he's staring out the window, or looking at a fly on the ceiling. The teacher recognizes that Justin isn't paying attention. Justin is demonstrating a deficit of attention. The teacher may reasonably wonder whether Justin perhaps has attention deficit disorder.

That's actually one avenue which led to my interest in this topic, about ten years ago. I saw this parade of 6- and 7-year-old boys being marched into my office, with Mom clutching a note from the school which read: "Please evaluate Justin for ADD. Would he benefit from medication?" After evaluating such a boy, I found in some cases that the problem was not so much with the boy, but with the school . . . specifically, with the school's failure to recognize the differences in the auditory acuity of boys and girls, and the school's failure to recognize the differences in the developmental timetables of boys and girls.

Take a look at comments from parents and teachers who have heard Dr. Sax speak

You may also want to look at Dr. Sax's list of events for 2005, Dr. Sax's events for 2006, and Dr. Sax's events for 2007.

Here follows a partial list of Dr. Sax's other publications, both scholarly and popular. ("Scholarly" publications are intended for an academic audience. "Popular" publications are intended for a general audience.)

Selected popular publications

What's happening to boys?
Washington Post, March 31, 2006.

In his op-ed for the Washington Post March 31 2006, Dr. Sax called attention to the growing phenomenon of the "Failure to Launch" boy/man: a young man in his 20's, or even his 30's, who is still living at home with his parents -- and who doesn't see what the problem is. The Washington Post invited Dr. Sax to host a one-hour on-line chat, which broke all previous records for the Washington Post: they shut the system down after receiving 395 posts. Dr. Sax himself says that the transcript of the chat session is more interesting than his own op-ed was. It's certainly a lot longer. You can read the transcript of the online chat session here.

Single-sex education: Separate but better?,
Philadelphia Daily News, March 1, 2006.

The Promise and the Peril of Single-Sex PUBLIC Education,
Education Week, March 2, 2005, pp. 48, 34, 35.

Too Few Women: Figure It Out.
Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2005, p. M5.

Teens Will Speed. Let's Watch Them Do It.
The Washington Post, November 28, 2004, p. B8.

The Odd Couple: Hillary Clinton & Kay Bailey Hutchison
The Women's Quarterly (The Journal of the Independent Women's Forum), Summer 2002, pp. 14-16.

Single Sex Education: Ready for Prime Time?
The World & I, August 2002, pp. 257-269.

Rethinking Title IX
The Washington Times, July 2 2001, p. A17.

Ritalin: Better living through chemistry?
The World & I, November 2000, 287-299.

 

Selected scholarly publications

Six degrees of separation:
What teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences.
Educational Horizons, 84:190-212, Spring 2006. Available online here.

The Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD in Women.
The Female Patient, 29:29-34, November 2004.

Dietary Phosphorus Is Toxic for Girls But Not for Boys.
Invited chapter, in: Annual Reviews in Food & Nutrition (Victor Preedy, editor), Taylor & Francis Publishers, London, UK, 2003, Chapter 8, pp. 158-168.

Who First Suggests the Diagnosis of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? A survey of primary-care pediatricians, family physicians, and child psychiatrists
[with Kathleen J. Kautz RN, BSN]. Annals of Family Medicine, 2003, 1:171-174. Available online here.

What Was the Cause of Nietzsche's Dementia?
Journal of Medical Biography, Royal Medical Society, London, February 2003, 11:47-54. Available online here.

How Common Is Intersex?
The Journal of Sex Research, August 2002, 39(3):174-178. Available online here.

Maybe Men and Women Are Different.
American Psychologist, July 2002, pp. 444-445.

The Institute of Medicine's ‘Dietary Reference Intake' for Phosphorus: a critical perspective.
Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 20(4):271-278, 2001.

Reclaiming Kindergarten: making kindergarten less harmful to boys.
Psychology of Men and Masculinity, American Psychological Association, 2(1):3-12, 2001. Available online here.

Characteristics of spatiotemporal integration in the priming and rewarding effects of medial forebrain bundle stimulation.
Behavioral Neuroscience, 105(6):884-900, 1991. [with C. R. Gallistel]

Temporal integration in self-stimulation: a paradox.
Behavioral Neuroscience, 98(3):467-8, 1984.


If you have any questions, comments, complaints, concerns, whatever, please call us, e-mail us, send us a letter, send us a fax. Here's how:

E-mail: send e-mail to mail@singlesexschools.org.

Snail mail: send regular mail to NASSPE, 19710 Fisher Avenue, Suite J, P. O. Box 108, Poolesville, Maryland 20837. (Be sure to include the "Suite J".)

Fax: send a fax to 301 972 8006.

Telephone: call us at 301 461 5065. For questions about conference registration or other billing matters, ask for Katie Kautz; for questions about single-sex education, ask to speak with Dr. Sax.

 

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TODAY Show
Click HERE to watch Matt Lauer interview Dr. Sax on the Today show, discussing "The Truth About Boys" (Tuesday, July 31).

Diane Rehm Show
On August 14 2007, Dr. Sax was the featured guest on the Diane Rehm Show, broadcast nationwide on NPR. Click HERE to link to streaming audio of the show.

TIME Magazine
According to the cover story for TIME Magazine dated August 6, 2007, boys today are doing just great, "better than ever." Please click HERE to read Dr. Sax's detailed refutation of the story.

What they’re saying
Click HERE to read comments from people who've read Boys Adrift. Click HERE to read comments from parents and teachers who have heard Dr. Sax speak.

Why Gender Matters
 Learn about Dr. Sax's previous book

Something Scary is Happening with Boys Today
From kindergarten to college, they’re less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. In fact, a third of men ages 22–34 are still living at home with their parents—about a 100 percent increase in the past twenty years. Parents, teachers, and mental health professionals are worried about boys. But until now, no one has come up with good reasons for their decline—nor, more important, with workable solutions to reverse this troubling trend. More


Dr. Sax on Boys Adrift
I have been a practicing physician for 21 years. For the past 17 years, I have worked in a suburb of Washington DC. Ten years ago, I began noticing something odd. I'd find a particular family where the daughter was motivated, hardworking, and successful - while her brother was an under-achiever. I've now documented this pattern hundreds of times just in my own practice. Emily is a straight-A student determined to get into a good college, while her brother - just as smart as Emily - has none of her drive. More

 

 

2007 © Basic Books, a member of The Perseus Books Group.
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Leonard Sax, M.D., Ph.D.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Truth about Boys

According to the cover story for TIME Magazine dated August 6, 2007, boys today are doing just great, "better than ever" (p. 44) -- not only at school, but in their personal lives as well. The author, David von Drehle, provides three bits of evidence (and only three) to support his assertion that boys are doing "better than ever" at school.

  1. Reading scores for 4th-grade boys have risen.
  2. The proportion of boys graduating from high school has increased 4% (four percent) since 1980.
  3. More boys are going straight to college after finishing high school.

So, what about those reading scores? Reading scores for fourth-grade boys have indeed risen; but (as the TIME cover story concedes), reading scores for twelfth-grade boys have plummeted, so that "many boys are leaving [high] school functionally illiterate" (p. 44). Not to worry, though. After all, those fourth-grade boys are doing better. As those fourth-grade boys move up to the higher grades, we can confidently "expect gains in the higher grades soon." (p. 44).

Such a comment betrays a stunning lack of understanding both of the reasons behind the rise in fourth-grade test scores and the corresponding decline in the scores of high school boys. These two phenomena are closely linked. Over the past 20 years, there has been an acceleration of the early elementary curriculum, coupled with a narrowing of the focus of elementary education (for more detail on this point, with supporting references, please see chapter 2 of Boys Adrift)

Recess has been cut back. There's less music, less art, less physical education, and more reading drills, writing drills, and arithmetic exercises. (This is less true at elite private schools than at most public schools.) When you turn elementary school into year-round test-prep, you will see test scores rise. But that improvement comes at a price. Some students, especially boys, tune out. They lose interest. They no longer read for fun. (See chapter 2 of Boys Adrift for more documentation of the lower propensity of boys to read for fun today compared with 1980.)

And they stop paying attention. Over the same 20 years during which we've seen this acceleration and intensification of the early elementary curriculum, there has been an explosion in the number of kids, especially boys, being diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder. The United States has about 5% of the world's population but consumes about 90% of the total global production of ADHD medications such as Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, and Metadate. (Please see chapter 4 of Boys Adrift more more facts and figures about the overdiagnosis and over-prescribing of medications for ADHD in the United States). The TIME cover story praises the "enlightened teaching and robust encouragement" which Mr. Von Drehle believes now characterizes American education (p. 45). But what's so enlightened about an educational system which drives many parents to drug their children, especially their sons? The number of boys on stimulant medications for ADHD has increased roughly 30-fold (i.e. by 3000%) over the past 20 years. In affluent suburbs, it's now common to find one in three middle-school boys on these "academic steroids." From my perspective as a practicing family physician, listening to the concerns of parents who feel pressured to put their sons on Adderall or Concerta, it's hard to share the enthusiasm of the TIME cover story for our supposedly "enlightened" system. In my experience, it's usually not the boys who have something broken and in need of fixing. It is instead more often the school which needs to be brought back into alignment with the reality of what's developmentally appropriate for kids to learn, and how best to inspire kids to become lifelong learners rather than mere test-takers.

Graduation rates: Regarding the supposed 4% increase in graduation rates: The TIME cover story accepts without question the US Department of Education's estimate that 89% of boys graduate from high school today, up from 85% in 1980. Both these figures are substantially inflated, in the view of people who study the messy issue of graduation rates. In May 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helped to fund a “National Summit to End America’s Silent Dropout Epidemic.” According to the scholars who presented at this summit, "graduation rates are, at best, 70 percent nationally, and for black and Latino students, especially boys, closer to 50 percent." (The quote is from the article in Education Week entitled "Conference Focuses on 'Silent Epidemic' of Dropouts", May 16 2007. It's remarkable that TIME magazine would run a cover story using the Administration's optimistic figure, without even mentioning the fact that most scholars believe these inflated figures have little contact with reality. One wonders: was Mr. Von Drehle unaware of the scholarly work on graduation rates in this country, or was he aware of it but chose to ignore it?

But at least more boys are going to college than before, right? The "favorite statistic" in the TIME cover story, the statistic which Mr. Von Drehle says serves to "sum up all the others," is the one which supposedly proves that "fewer boys today are deadbeats" (p. 45). This statistic refers to the fact that more boys between the ages of 16 and 19 today are in school or working than was the case 20 years ago. That's true, primarily because more boys today attend college than in the 1980's. The TIME cover story concludes that boys therefore "are pulling themselves up."

But such a conclusion neglects the larger picture. It's true that more boys are going to college than was the case 20 years ago. In affluent suburbs, in particular, essentially every boy goes to college. The only requirement for a boy to go to college, after all, is a parent whose checks don't bounce. A more meaningful parameter is how well boys do at college. According to a recent front-page article in the New York Times, at many colleges and universities, roughly 4 out of 5 students earning high honors now are women. According to the latest report from the US Department of Education, only 30% of men who enroll at a four-year college or university will earn a degree within four years, compared with 39.7% of women. According to a May 2007 report underwritten by the Pew Charitable Trusts, young men today (age 30 to 35 years of age) will be the first generation of American men to earn significantly less than their fathers did at the same age. They are also the first generation of American men ever to be less well-educated than their sisters. In this age group, 32% of women have earned a 4-year college degree, compared with only 23% of men. Please see chapters 6 and 7 of Boys Adrift for more information about the end result of our current educational system: a growing proportion of young men who "fail to launch."

posted by Leonard Sax @ 10:14 AM  

3 Comments:

At August 14, 2007 8:40 AM , Male Rights Network said...

Great refutation. It reveals the true picture which we all know to be true.

In the Matriarchy, we hear from our media and Government that girls are being "shortchanged" when in fact they are flying it. Its a total inversion of reality to first of all, focus more attention on women in education and second of all, focus less attention of men in education.

It could well be that this was a concerted effort too, as the United Nations specifically called for media organisations to support in its stated objective, that:

"Gender concerns will be mainstreamed throughout the country programmes with a focus on activities to empower girls and women. In addition, UNICEF will advocate for legal reforms and adoption of policies and programmes that will raise the status of girls and women both in the family and in society."

And

"creating strong partnership with the mass media
and developing integrated communication campaigns ...

Advocating that all actors respect, protect and fulfill children’s and women’s rights, and providing evidence anchored rights-based and socio-economic rationale for policy advocacy

Nor should we forget its stated aim from the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995, to:

"close the gender gap in primary and secondary school education by the year 2005"

Indeed, in Germany, in 1995 men earned 61% of University degrees awarded that year. By 2005, a mere ten years later, that dropped to 49%. meaning that men saw a 15,000 drop in annual graduate numbers in the space of a decade, while the female share grew 11,000.

It's interesting to note too that while men earned most degrees in areas such as law and medicine in 1995, by 2005 women had now become the dominant gender.

Of course, here in Ireland, only 40% of University degrees are earned by men. A gap of about 4,000 a year between women.

Bearing in mind, of course, that all developed Western countries recognised and promised to see through what that 1995 UN conference called for.

Interestingly, the United Nations only recognises a "gender gap" against girls to be of any importance (and in many Western countries, no such gap existed). A gap against boys, apparently is not a "gender gap".

Just another example of equality in actual fact meaning the advocacy of dominance over men, not equality with men.

 

At August 14, 2007 11:10 PM , -ted said...

The Time article seems at odds with a similar article in Newsweek ("The Trouble with Boys" Jan 30, 2006), explaining how our education system is not working for males.
I also take issue with the idea that going straight to college after finishing high school is a measure of success. Many males that go straight to college go straight out of college within 2 years. The problem is high school graduates often have little direction after graduation and would do better taking a year or two before continuing school.

-ted

 

At August 21, 2007 12:04 AM , patty_nielsen said...

Recently the NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools) Independent Magazine published an article that also reflected the sentiments of the Time article. Interestingly, following the publishing of the article “Gender Myths and the Education of Boys,” there were many responses from Heads of schools and teachers who did not support the claims made in the article that the gap between achievement for girls and boys was an exaggeration or insignificant. I also wrote a response to the article because as a mother and teacher of boys I honestly believe that academic success isn’t the only measure of personal achievement and that you can’t quantify individual growth and further more, grades don’t tell the whole story about schools. You can be assured that what boys take away from their educational experience will shape their adulthood, and it won’t be the scores on tests that teach boys about being a happy and successful man. Some will succeed in spite of school. They will figure out on their own that it is equally important to feel safe, take risks, be realistic about their strengths and weaknesses, show compassion and empathy, be a loyal friend, and to be happy.

I believe gender does matter, especially when a boy walks away from school hating his experience and knowing he was hindered in developing fully in ways that give him true power in the world.

Patty Nielsen

 

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What They're Saying

"I am usually pessimistic about learning anything useful at the workshops required by our school district.  It was a stroke of luck that I attended Dr. Sax’s session.  What was so rewarding in his presentation was that it helped me to understand why some things have worked well for me in the classroom while others have not.   I now see the behavior of my students in a new way."
— Jonathan Lind, Sudley Elementary School, Manassas, Virginia

"Dr. Sax is an outstanding speaker.  His insights, all based on scientific evidence, are informative and at times nothing short of astounding.  He has stimulated our minds, challenged, entertained, and inspired us.  I do hope we might work together again."
— Meg Hansen, Principal, Lauriston Girls’ School, Melbourne, Australia

 "Inspiring.  I came back to school and shared all the information with the staff.  A huge success."
— Suzanne Muggy, Ella Stewart Academy for Girls, Toledo Public Schools, Toledo, Ohio

"I was profoundly impressed by the information which Dr. Sax shared with us.  I also appreciated his style of presentation:  a logical sequence of ideas supported by compelling evidence. An excellent presentation."
— Don Comeau, Clear Water Academy, Calgary, Alberta

"The information which Dr. Sax shared with us is truly fascinating and tremendously important."
— Elizabeth Downes, Director, Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington

"Dr. Sax gave three outstanding presentations:  one for the students, one for the faculty, and one for the parents.  The result is a ‘buzz’ around campus – we’re all excited about implementing this new information in our daily practice.  Dr. Sax is an extremely gifted doctor, researcher, and presenter.  His unique ability to draw in various constituencies is remarkable.  We would love to have him back."
— Andrew Byrne, Dean of Faculty, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich, Connecticut

"The thing I find so gratifying in listening to Dr. Sax is that he provides evidence, hard science, to support the points he’s making.  That’s rare in my experience, when speakers talk about gender."
— David Lloyd, The Webb Schools, Claremont, California

"Wow!  Fantastic.   A great balance of research and facts - and humor!"
— Betsy Perlman, Commonwealth Education Organization, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

"Extremely interesting . . . challenged many of our basic assumptions and helped us to think about gender in a new way."
— Joan Ogilvy Holden, Head of School, St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes’ School, Alexandria, VA

"The teachers found Dr. Sax’s seminar interesting and thought-provoking.  Dr. Sax’s evening presentation to the parents had an even more profound impact.  His content goes far beyond gender differences to deep questions about the directions our society is taking." 
— Janet Sailian, Director of Communications, Branksome Hall, Toronto, Ontario

 "Dr. Sax is the leading authority on gender differences in North America."
— Ron Wallace, Principal, Clear Water Academy, Calgary, Alberta

"I stayed up past midnight talking with my colleagues about what I heard at Dr. Sax’s presentation earlier that day.  His talk was brilliant and inspiring.  I confess to feeling a poverty of words in trying to convey how much I enjoyed hearing Dr. Sax and how much I appreciate what he is doing for education."
— Gerry Grossman, Head of School, Woodlands Academy, Lake Forest, Illinois

 "Dr. Sax’s presentation was extremely well received and resonated with our teachers’ experiences and observations."
— Jaralyn Hough, Head of School, The Barnesville School, Barnesville, Maryland

"Dr. Sax gave a fabulous presentation at the Niagara Principals’ conference.  My colleagues are still all aglow with what they heard and have purchased more than 200 of his books through a local provider – I know, because I arranged the sale.  We would very much like to have him back." 
— Gary King, vice principal, Lakeview Public School, Grimsby, Ontario

"Invaluable.  Dr. Sax’s expertise has guided us well along this new journey."
— Cindy Chandler, Assistant Superintendent, Baldwin County Public Schools, Alabama

"Dr. Sax gave an exceptional presentation to more than 100 school administrators, along with other educational leaders from nearby public and private schools.  The information he presented, and his style of presentation, made the entire three hours enlightening and informative."
— Robert Paserba, Superintendent, Diocese of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)

"Of all the sessions I attended, Dr. Sax’s was the only one which gave me concrete information I could use in the classroom."
— Daren Starnes, Director of Academic Studies, The Webb Schools, Claremont, California

"The school is still abuzz with good thoughts and feelings after hearing Dr. Sax’s talk.  Be sure to stop by Jill and Betsy’s [first- and second-grade] classrooms.  As a result of hearing Dr. Sax, they are now conducting their [all-boys] classes without chairs.  It is incredible to watch the increased concentration.  The boys’ performance has improved at least 200%.  It was just one of the ideas Dr. Sax shared with us." 
— Meg Steele, Head of the Lower School, Hardey Preparatory, Chicago, Illinois (from her e-mail to Nat Wilburn, Principal, Hardey Preparatory)

"I can’t tell you how interesting and informative your session was for me.  What I learned will most definitely benefit my children and for that I am very grateful.  I hope I will have the opportunity to listen to you again."
— Kathy K., mother of two children, Calgary, Alberta, in an e-mail to Dr. Sax

"I thank God I came to your seminar.  I wish more parents had shown up."
— Stephanie K., mother of a young boy, Montgomery County, Maryland

 

 

2007 © Basic Books, a member of The Perseus Books Group.
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What They're Saying about Boys Adrift

"Sax, in his pointed, conversational new book, Boys Adrift, reports seeing something new in his medical practice, and hearing something disturbing in the comments after his talks around the nation. Parents and girlfriends describe boys and young men plastered to the controls of their video games, hostile to school, disconnected from adult men and listless on "academic steroids" prescribed to them for attention deficit disorders. Sax zeroes in on these maladies . . .Boys Adrift is an important entry into the conversation. This call to reconsider how the boy becomes the man is worth heeding."
— The Cleveland Plain Dealer; click here to read the full review

"This book is insightful, engaging, and easy to read. It is essential reading for parents of girls and boys, and for those who expect to become parents. I have passed my copy of the book to my daughter. The epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving men is real and demands action; this book provides a carefully researched analysis of the problem and offers useful advice on how to deal with it."
— Professor Craig Anderson, Iowa State University

"Leonard Sax brings good science and gifted writing to his analysis of our biggest social problem in Boys Adrift. I know something of the literature on unmotivated boys and was surprised by how much I learned. Expect to be newly interested in plastic bottles and much else besides."
— Professor Steven E. Rhoads, University of Virginia, author of Taking Sex Differences Seriously

"Dr. Sax has the amazing talent of pulling together complicated scientific and cultural data from multiple sources to provide a stunning and compelling argument regarding this growing problem familiar to parents as well as to professionals who work with underachieving boys and young men. Thankfully, he also presents concrete solutions and resources for helping our young men avoid these pitfalls."
— Flo Hilliard, Gender Studies Project, University of Wisconsin - Madison

 "Boys Adrift is a compelling and thought-provoking examination of the male crisis in contemporary American society. True to form, Dr. Sax balances research with narrative to produce a readable text that explores social, environmental, and cultural factors contributing to this crisis and offers us sensible suggestions that will help right the course for our boys and men. A must read for all of us!"
— Doug MacIsaac, Department of Teacher Education, Stetson University

"Dr. Sax has performed an outstanding service in identifying and exploring a disturbing and overlooked trend: the vast number of boys who seem to be disengaging from school and from their own potential. His analysis of this problem, as well as his engaging insights and advice for parents, make this a must-read for anyone who is frustrated with what is happening to boys in our culture -- or to anyone who is struggling to raise a healthy, happy, and successful son."
— Ron Henry, Men's Health Network, sponsor of the Boys and Schools Project

"If you're the parent of a boy, Dr. Sax's book Boys Adrift is required reading. . . Sax investigates five factors that contribute to what is becoming a national epidemic. He looks at the way children are taught and the role that video games, prescription drugs and environmental estrogens play. He also notes the lack of male role models in the culture at large as a contributing factor. This is fascinating, often unsettling stuff. Fortunately, Dr. Sax offers a program for change. His important book gives a wholly original perspective on American boys in decline, and thankfully offers information to help reverse this trend.
— Book Page, www.bookpage.com, August 2007 issue

 

 

2007 © Basic Books, a member of The Perseus Books Group.
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