Why Gender Matters Quotes

“Quoting an experienced school counselor: "You can't change a bully into a flower child, but you can change him into a knight.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“Don't pressure your daughter or your son to conform to gender stereotypes. If your son wants to take ballet classes, cheer him on. If your daughter wants to study marshal arts and computer programming, sign her up. Teach your son that there are all kinds of man in the world including men who excel at ballet and macrame. Teach your daughter that there are all kinds of women in the world, including women who are masters of karate and computer programming.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“A subtle but pervasive bias has infiltrated gender studies over the past decade. A bias that allows saying unkind things about the majority under the guise of being kind to the minority. But I think the bias is bias.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“Gender is important, gender is complicated and gender is meaningful. Know your child and celebrate the kind of girl or boy your child is becoming.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“But biological sex, male or female, seems to run deeper than sexual orientation, gay or straight. Gay men whether masculine or feminine have more in common with straight men then they have in common with women.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“The notion of the opposite sex assumes that you are either masculine or feminine. It assumes a one dimensional continuum: feminine - masculine. But researchers have known for more than forty years that that notional is just isn't accurate.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“Some boys are happier being more feminine than masculine although they still have masculine elements. Some girls are happier being more masculine than feminine although they still have feminine elements. The explosion in the proportion of people who believe that they are trance gender may well represent the failure to understand that gender is two-dimensional not one-dimensional.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“As a society and as parents we face a challenge without precedent. We have to help girls and boys make a transition to a gendered adulthood, to adult life as women and men in a culture in which women can do anything, including being rocket scientists, and men can do anything, including staying home to raise a baby. We have to find ways to value and cherish gender differences without restricting freedom of opportunity.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“Girls spend slightly more time playing with the doll than with the truck. Boys on the other hand typically spend great deal more time playing with the truck rather than with the doll. We were taught that the social construction of gender is the appropriate framework in which to understand these results [..] We give girls a fairly consistent message that girls are supposed to play with dolls and not with trucks. So when offered a choice girls will be more likely to play with dolls rather than trucks. But if a girl picks up a truck it's not a catastrophe. WIth boys the stakes are higher, we send boys a much stronger message what a boy is and is not supposed to do. Boys are not supposed to play with dolls. Boys get that message loud and clear.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“Girls spend slightly more time playing with the doll than with the truck. Boys on the other hand typically spend great deal more time playing with the truck rather than with the doll.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“Dr. Melvin Connors sums it up nicely in just three words: "culture stretches biology”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“The general lack of awareness of gender differences disadvantages both girls and boys, but it disadvantages them in different ways. When teachers don't understand these gender differences, the results too often is a school where the boys think that creative writing is for girls and the girls think physics is for guys. When teachers understand these gender differences they can break down gender stereotypes.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“If there are 3 girls in a class with 11 boys those 3 girls may feel like they don't belong and no amount of preaching about gender equity is going to change that. But if the class is just girls you may get more girls to sign up and the girls will be more comfortable and will likely gain more competence.”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences

“Starting kids reading before they're ready can actually boomerang and turn them off to reading”
― Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences