The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men

by Christina Hoff Sommers

As part of our Great Relearning, we must again recognize and respect the reality that the sexes are different but equal. Each has its distinctive strengths and graces. We must put an end to all the crisis mongering that pathologizes children: we must be less credulous when sensationalistic experts talk of girls as drowning Ophelias or of boys as anxious, isolated Hamlets. Neither sex needs to be “revived” or “rescued”; neither needs to be “reinvented.” Instead of doing things that do not need doing and should not be done, we must dedicate ourselves to the hard tasks that are both necessary and possible: improving the

moral climate in our schools and providing our children with first-rate schooling that equips them for the good life in the new century.