Jack versus Jill

__"The War against Boys" by Christina Hoff Sommers, in The Atlantic Monthly (May 2000), 77 N. Washington St., Boston, Mass. 02114.__

A decade ago, Harvard University’s Carol Gilligan, author of the influential In a Different Voice (1982), announced that America’s adolescent girls were in crisis. Soon, with the help of two studies by the American Association of University Women, it became the conventional wisdom among educators that schools shortchange girls. Yet there is almost no solid empirical support for that conclusion, asserts Sommers, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Who Stole Feminism? (1994). She contends that it is adolescent boys who are the troubled sex.

"The typical boy is a year and a half behind the typical girl in reading and writing; he is less committed to school and less likely to go to college," she writes. In 1997, 55 percent of full-time college students were female, and the gender gap in enrollment is projected to grow.

"Far from being shy and demoralized, today’s girls outshine boys," Sommers says. "They get better grades. They have higher educational aspirations. They follow more rigorous academic programs and participate in advanced-placement classes at higher rates.... Girls, allegedly timorous and lacking in confidence, now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and in debating clubs. Only in sports are boys ahead.... Girls read more books. They outperform boys on tests for artistic and musical ability. More girls than boys study abroad. More join the Peace Corps." Meanwhile, boys have the dubious edge in school suspensions, being held back, and dropping out. They are more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. "More boys than girls are involved in crime, alcohol, and drugs."

Boys score better on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and other standardized tests, Sommers acknowledges—but that’s because of another male disadvantage. Boys from families with lower incomes or limited formal education—characteristics associated with below-average scores—are less likely than comparable girls to take the SAT. They don’t drag down male SAT averages—and they don’t go to college.

"Growing evidence that the scales are tipped not against girls but against boys is beginning to inspire a quiet revisionism," observes Sommers. Even Gilligan—though "oblivious of all the factual evidence that paternal separation causes aberrant behavior in boys"—lately has given some attention to their problems, calling for basic changes in child rearing to get boys in touch with their inner nurturer. A far better solution, says Sommers, would be "the traditional approach" to civilizing young males: "through character education: Develop the young man’s sense of honor. Help him become a considerate, conscientious human being. Turn him into a gentleman. This approach respects boys’ masculine nature; it is time-tested, and it works."