1 In her book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming our Young Men, Christina Hoff

Sommers (2000) takes on the topic of gender equity and the role it plays in 100 American school system of the twenty first century. Hoff Sommers believes the call for gender equality that began with the suffragette movement in the 1920s is markedly different from the gender feminism that evolved in the 1970s and has been incorporated into the American school system with progressive, self-esteem-based learning. She states, the kind of equality of the sexes most Americans embrace and hold dear is the equality demanded by the founders of the womens movement . . . for women and men to be equal before the law and to be allowed the same freedoms, privileges, and rights. That kind of equality . . . is light-years away from the effort to raise boys more like we raise girls (p. 98). Hoff Sommers puts forth three main points to support her central thesis that the current progressive curriculum is failing American boys: one, there is no need to reeducate our nations boys based on feminist principles; two, Carol Gilligan and William Pollack have skewed empirical evidence to support their claims that girls are being shortchanged in the American education system and that boys are suffering from the masculine demands of a patriarchal society; and three, moral education is no longer a fundamental teaching of the American public school system, stunting childhood character development and inhibiting adulthood autonomy. Despite detectable bias toward an Aristotelian educational philosophy and a traditional learning style for children, an emphasis on a back-to-basics (p. 163) school curriculum, some uncouth comments denigrating her gender theorist opponents, and a confusion of the terms sex and gender, I argue that Hoff Sommers provides relevant evidence to support her main thesis and debunk opposing theories, while providing a well-stated clarification of the difference between indoctrination and education.

2 The War Against Boys is written with expertise on the topics of morality and the history of feminism. According to Hoff Sommers lecture Where the Boys Are, given at the American Enterprise Institute in 2000, she has written about ethics and moral philosophy and extensively about the influence of feminism on American culture. As stated in the article Battle of the Celebrity Gender Theorists, written by Amy Benfer (2001) for Salon.com, Hoff Sommers is a self-proclaimed gender theorist and has taught the philosophy of feminism at Clark University (p. 3). She is currently working as a resident scholar in the W. H. Brady Program at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. The official website of the AEI identifies this non-profit organization as nonpartisan and takes no institutional positions on pending legislation or other policy questions (p. 1). However, the W. H. Brady program was founded in honor of Mr. William H. Brady who, according to the programs official website, was one of the founding fathers of the conservative intellectual movement beginning in the 1950s and an active participant in its councils until his death in 1988 (p. 1). This organization is thus supportive of traditional style learning. In The War Against Boys, Hoff Sommers argues that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 has been abused by such organizations as the WEEA, the Wellesley Center, and the AAUW and that it has been used to promote their feminist agenda in the American public school system at the cost of the nations young boys. She states, the promoters of gender fairness have a great deal of power in our schools, but they are far too reckless with the truth, far too removed from the precincts of common sense, and far too negative about boys to be properly playing any role in the education of our children (p. 51). She goes on to add that there have always been societies that favored boys over girls. Ours may be the first to deliberately throw the gender switch. If we continue on our present course, boys will, indeed, be

3 tomorrows second sex (p. 207). Hoff Sommers wrote the book both to a reveal a disservice she believes the American school system has done to the nations boys over the last thirty years and to argue that Carol Gilligan and William Pollack, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and McLean Hospital respectively, did not provide evidential proof in their literature to support their claims that American girls are being shortchanged and boys are suffering from the constraints of masculinity. One review of The War Against Boys, published by Kirkus Reviews (2000), states that Sommers is much less convincing, however, when she offers her remedy--a simplistic package of back-to-the-basics instruction and moral education to overcome the socially crude, disrespectful, and untoward behavior in the public schools (p. 1). I disagree. Rather, I believe Hoff Sommers is successful in providing evidence that supports her thesis that schools with a progressive attitude toward teaching are creating an environment in which boys are suffering academically, especially in the subjects of reading and writing. She provides two examples of schools that have incorporated single-sex classrooms into their curriculum and shows the positive effects a competitive, achievement-oriented mentality can have on boys academic success, regardless of race and economic background. The first school she references is Harford Heights Elementary School in Maryland. Mr. Sallee is a teacher whose classes are mostly filled with poor, African American boys. His classes are highly structured. He teaches phonics, grammar, and diction . . . the boys gain confidence by mastering skills, becoming good sports, being team players and young gentlemen (pp. 172-173). Hoff Sommers claims this environment encourages boys to engage in their learning process. Sallees students are at risk for every kind of academic and behavioral problem. But in this all-male environment, such problems nearly vanish. Should a boy neglect to do his work or misbehave, he hurts his team and disappoints his

4 teacher. School disengagement is a problem for many boys . . . [but] the boys in Sallees class are the very opposite of disengaged. They are enthralled (p. 173). She also correlates school engagement with academic achievement when she states, engagement with school is perhaps the single most important predictor of academic success (p. 29). The second school Hoff Sommers references is The Heights School in the center of Potomac, Maryland, an all-male private Catholic school. Competition is part of the everyday life of the school there are lots of awards and prizes but, as in Sallees class, it is constrained by ethics (p. 174). Hoff Sommers supports these examples with data from supportive research that was conducted in Britain claiming, boys in single-sex schools did about 20 percent better than those in mixed sex [classes] (p. 177). She provides both real-life examples and statistical evidence to support her argument that boys benefit from a traditional academic curriculum. Hoff Sommers is also successful in revealing Gilligans and Pollacks misinterpretations and lack of empirical evidence to support their oppositional theses. However, her argument becomes less credible when she attacks these gender theorists. I agree with the review from Publishers Weekly (2000) when it argues that Sommers's (sic) book is at its best when coolly debunking theories she contends are based on distorted research and skewed data, but descends into pettiness when she indulges in mudslinging at her opponents (p. 1). Paramount to Hoff Sommers (2000) argument that Gilligan lacked empirical research to support her thesis in the book In a Different Voice, is Hoff Sommers assertion that even after repeated attempts to access the raw data of the three studies that Gilligan conducted to support her thesis, the only answer she received from Gilligans assistant was that [the data] would not be available anytime soon (p. 108). Hoff Sommers reacted to this by observing that more than fifteen years after the publication of In a Different Voice, the data on which its bold thesis was based had never

5 been available for public review, peer review, or any other kind of review (p. 108). Hoff Sommers also successfully debunks Pollacks claim that boys experience a devastating separation trauma (p. 141) by using findings from the American Psychiatric Associations official diagnostic guidebook, DSM-IV. This publication says that separation anxiety disorder afflicts no more than 4 percent of children and more girls than boys. Nor does the disorder appear to be related to being prematurely separated from ones mother. Children with [this disorder] says DSM-IV, tend to come from families that are close knit (pp. 141-142). Hoff Sommers weakens her argument, however, when she makes derogatory statements about Gilligan: Gilligans powerful myth of the incredible shrinking girl did far more harm than good. It patronized girls, portraying them as victims of the culture. It diverted attention from the academic deficits of boys. It also gave urgency and credibility to a specious self-esteem movement that wasted everybodys time (p. 137). The War Against Boys is organized topically and is divided into three main points that support Hoff Sommers central argument that the American public school system is failing young boys. The three points are that boys are not pathological as a general whole, that Carol Gilligan and William Pollack do not provide supportive evidence for their theories that girls are being shortchanged in the American education system and boys are suffering from the masculinity of a paternalistic society, and that moral education is lacking in the progressive curriculum of the American public school system leading to a lack of character development for these children, which is especially problematic for boys. There is an internal consistency of ideas throughout this book and Hoff Sommers succeeds in developing each of her three major points and relating them directly to her overall central thesis. She states,

6 we have created serious problems for ourselves by abandoning our duty to pass on to our children the moral truths to which they are entitled . . . we have further allowed socially divisive activists . . . to wield unwarranted influence in our schools . . . we must put an end to all the crisis mongering that pathologies children . . . American boys, whose very masculinity turns out to be politically incorrect, badly need our support. If you are an optimist . . . you know that one of the more agreeable facts of life is that boys will be boys . . . that good sense and fair play will prevail. (pp. 212-213). Hoff Sommers also uses evidence from reliable sources that are respected by others in her field of study to support her claims, such as research conducted by the U.S. Board of Education and the American Psychiatric Association. This evidence is especially useful in arguing her claim that boys are not pathological and do not need to be reeducated. And she uses data from research conducted by the FBI and the CDC to debunk Katherine Hansons claims that violence is the leading cause of death among women [and that] every year nearly four million women are beaten to death (p. 48). Hanson uses these statements to support her thesis that early intervention in the male socialization process is critical if we are to stem the tide of male violence (p. 48). Hoff Sommers cites the FBIs statistics when she debunks Hansons evidence by stating, according to the FBI, the total number of women who died by murder in 1996 was 3,631. But according to Director Hanson, 11,000 American women are beaten to death every day (p. 49). Hoff Sommers also sites a CDC study of emergency room admissions that suggests that only 1 percent of womens injuries are caused by male partners (p. 49). The continued reference to statistical evidence in The War Against Boys strengthens Hoff Sommers three main points and her overall argument.

7 The gender war is just that, a hotly debated subject upon which theorists take sides, develop strong opinions, and battle it out in publication. Two authors who oppose Hoff Sommers views on the topic of gender equity and its role in the American education system are David Sadker and Mary Pipher. In his article An Educators Primer on the Gender War published in the November issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Sadker (2002) contends that there is little doubt that boys and school are not now nor have they ever been a match made in heaven. But this is a far cry from concluding that a gender war is being waged against them or that girls now rule in school (p. 240). Sadker goes on to provide evidence from the U.S. Department of Education and the Digest of Education Statistics that shows different ways both males and females are struggling in the current American school system, but he believes it is up to Americas educators to duck the barrage from the gender-war crowd and to continue their efforts to make schools fairer and more humane environments for all our students (p. 240). Mary Pipher disagrees with Hoff Sommers statement that girls were moving ahead of boys in most of the ways that count [and that the] self-esteem movement . . . wasted everybodys time (p. 137). In Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, Pipher (1994) argues that, because with boys failure is attributed to external factors and success is attributed to ability, they keep their confidence, even with failure. With girls its just the opposite. Because their success is attributed to good luck or hard work and failure to lack of ability, with every failure, girls confidence is eroded (p. 63). Pipher correlates adolescent girls diminished sense of their worth as individuals to a loss of IQ points as they become feminized (p. 63). Hoff Sommers analysis of the progressive learning style presently incorporated into the curriculum of many American schools is biased in favor of a traditional style of education. She states that the shift away from structured classrooms, competition, strict discipline, and skill-and-fact based

8 learning has been harmful to all children but especially to boys and therefore, Hoff Sommers does not see the value Pipher places on boosting self worth in order to boost academic success. Two topics I did not find other reviews of this book addressing are Hoff Sommers confusion between the terms sex and gender and its implication on her overuse of biological evidence to explain the gender differences between learning styles and her clarification of the difference between the terms indoctrination and education that are often confused in reasoning to downplay moral education in the progressive curriculum of American schools. I believe Hoff Sommers fails to understand the slight, but important, difference between the terms gender and sex. By claiming learning style differences between genders are based on childrens hardwireing (p. 87), she strictly uses biological differences between the male and female sex to support her argument that children of each gender learn differently. Gender is typically defined as sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture and sex as the property or quality by which organisms are classified as female or male on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions (see Dictionary.com, for example). Such definitions clarify that the term gender refers to social and cultural influences on an individuals identification as male or female, whereas the term sex is strictly based on biological differences in genitalia. However, Hoff Sommers uses the two terms synonymously and even indicates that the word sex is better than gender when she thanks Elizabeth Lurie, the Brady Foundation president, for suggesting she avoid the overused and infelicitous word gender. Sex, she correctly pointed out, is better than gender (p. 7). Hoff Sommers states that important developments in neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, genetics, and neuroendocrinology . . . all but refute the social constructionist thesis and point to certain inborn gender differences (p. 87). Here she substitutes the word gender for sex and in doing so makes an unfounded statement. The fields of

9 neuroscience and genetics do have data to support inborn sex differences, some of which Hoff Sommers cites. These fields, however, do not provide evidence to support inborn gender differences. Hoff Sommers also argues that many basic male-female differences are innate, hardwired, and not the result of conditioning (p. 87). Although there are genetic differences between males and females, do biological differences between sexes directly correlate with the absence of an influence of social conditioning on the development of gender identity formation? Hoff Sommers does an admirable job of differentiating between the terms indoctrination and education in her discussion of the need for moral education to be reincorporated into the American school curriculum. When you brainwash people, you undermine their autonomy, their rational self-mastery; you diminish their freedom. But when you educate children, teaching them to be competent, self-controlled, and morally responsible in their actions, you increase their freedom and enlarge their humanity (p. 196). Hoff Sommers claims that many educators who follow a progressive style of teaching confuse the terms indoctrination and education. She writes that those who oppose directive moral education often call it a form of brainwashing or indoctrination. That is sheer confusion (p. 196). She adds that confused educators hold the view that the cardinal sin is to impose values on the student. [They believe] the teachers job is to help the students discover their own values (p. 193). She goes on to emphasize the importance of moral education by connecting childhood character development and adulthood autonomy when she states, children who have been helped to develop good moral habits will find it easier to become autonomous adults . . . to know what is right and act on it is the highest expression of freedom and personal autonomy (p. 196). Although, as I pointed out earlier, The War Against Boys clearly suffers from several biased positions, as Kelley Ross (1993) writes in his Defense of Christina Hoff Sommers, a

10 corollary, indeed, to the theory of the social construction of reality is that everything is bias (p. 1). Bias, however, does not prevent a book from being valuable. Therefore, I would recommend this book to parents, educators, and others interested in the gender debate, regardless of their own biases and opinions on the topic. Christina Hoff Sommers provides statistical evidence to support her points and her central argument, and this helps the book gain scholastic clout. The War Against Boys is an important read to help people understand the gender debate from various angles and make their own informed decisions about how the American school system should proceed to meet the needs of boys and girls alike.

11 Works Cited American Enterprise Institute official website. Available Online: http://www.aei.org/about/filter.all/default.asp. Benfer, Amy (March 9, 2001). Battle of the Celebrity Gender Theorists. Available Online: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/03/09/sommers/index.html. Definitions of gender and sex. Available Online: www.dictionary.com. Hoff Sommers, Christina (2000). The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. New York: Simon and Schuster. Hoff Sommers, Christina (2000). Where the Boys Are: A Bradley Lecture delivered at the American Enterprise Institute. Available Online: http://www.menweb.org/sommersboys.htm. Kirkus Reviews (2000). Kirkus Associates. Available Online: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/productdescription/0684849569/ref=dp_proddesc_0/102-85796542242562?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155. Pipher, Mary (1994). Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine Books. Publishers Weekly (2000). Reed Business Information, Inc. Available Online: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/productdescription/0684849569/ref=dp_proddesc_0/102-85796542242562?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155. Ross, Kelley (April 6, 1993). Defense of Christina Hoff Sommers published in The Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 66:7. Available Online: http://www.friesian.com/apa-pro.htm. Sadker, David (November 2002). An Educators Primer on the Gender War. Phi Delta Kappan. W. H. Brady Program official website. Available Online: http://www.aei.org/research/contentID.20041110114710420/default.asp.

12 Works Conferred Gilligan, Carol and Jane Attanucci (1988). Two Moral Orientations. Adolescent Behavior and Society: A Book of Readings. Boston: McGraw-Hill College. Hoff Sommers, Christina (May 2000). The War Against Boys. The Atlantic Monthly. http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/12/221558.php http://product.half.ebay.com/The-War-Against-Boys_W0QQtgZinfoQQprZ1705318 http://www.aei.org/scholars/filter.all,scholarID.56/scholar.asp http://www.equityfeminism.com/archives/years/2001/000124.html http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/06/25/reviews/000625.25colest.html