The War Against Boys

by Christina Hoff Sommers

50. Ibid., p. 255.

  51. Ibid., p. 263.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Ibid., pp. 267–270.

  54. Ibid., p. 267.

  55. Ibid., p. 273.

  56. Ibid., p. 274.

  57. Pinker, The Blank Slate, p. 351.

  58. ABC News Special, “Men, Women and the Sex Difference,” aired February 1, 1995.

  59. Ibid.

  60. Carolyn Rivers and Rosalind Barnett, cited in Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), p. xxviii.

  61. Immanuel Kant, “Of the Distinction of the Beautiful and Sublime in the Interrelations of the Two Sexes,” reprinted in Mary Briody Mahowald, Philosophy of Woman: An Anthology of Classic to Current Concepts (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978), p. 103.

  62. Quoted in Stephen J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), pp. 104–105.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Leonard Sax, “Leonard Sax: Single-Sex Education Can Work,” Charleston Daily Mail, June 5, 2012, www.dailymail.com/Opinion/Commentary/201206040082 (accessed July 12, 2012).

  65. Cease and Desist Letter sent to J. Patrick Law, superintendent of Wood County Schools, May 21, 2012, www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/womensrights/teach/WoodCoSchoolsdemandletter.pdf, (accessed July 12, 2012).

  66. Ibid.

  67. Amy Novotney, “Coed Versus Single-Sex Ed,” American Psychological Association 42, no. 2 (February 2011), p. 58, www.apa.org/monitor/2011/02/coed.aspx (accessed July 12, 2012).

  68. Senator Hillary Clinton, Congressional Record, June 7, 2001, S5943.

  69. Figures provided by National Association for Single-Sex Public Education (NASPE), www.singlesexschools.org/schools-schools.htm (accessed July 12, 2012).

  70. Gregory Patterson, “Separating the Boys from the Girls,” Phi Delta Kappan, February 2012, www.robinfogarty.com/documents/Kappan.Article.pdf (accessed July 12, 2012).

  71. Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School, “School Profile 2011–2012,” http://dallasisd.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/TX01001475/Centricity/Domain/6547/Irma%20L.%20Rangel%20YWLS%20Profile%202012-2013.pdf (accessed September 12, 2012).

  72. Bill Zeeble, “Dallas All-Boys School Lets Young Men Shine,” Voice of America, August 15, 2011, www.voanews.com/articleprintview/163616.html (accessed July 12, 2012).

  73. ACLU Press Release, “ACLU Launches ‘Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes’ Campaign Against Single-Sex Classes Rooted in Stereotypes,” May 21, 2012, www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/05/21-0 (accessed July 12, 2012).

  74. The boys in West Virginia score 13 points behind girls on the reading and 26 points in writing: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/stt2011/2012454WV8.pdf (accessed January 23, 2013).

  75. Gale Sherwin, “ ‘Science’ Says No to Single-Sex Education,” ACLU Blog of Rights, September 26, 2011, www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/science-says-no-single-sex-education (accessed July 12, 2012).

  76. ACCES website: http://lives.clas.asu.edu/access/educators.html (accessed July 12, 2012).

  77. Sarah Sparks, “Scholars Say Pupils Gain Social Skills in Coed Classes,” Education Week, May 7, 2012, www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/07/30coed.h31.html?tkn=ZVTFyis8rJbJaOtgHu11xG33dXAowOwEiVZp&intc=es (accessed July 12, 2012).

  78. Patterson, “Separating the Boys from the Girls.”

  79. Cease and Desist Letter sent to J. Patrick Law.

  80. Diane Halpern, Lise Eliot, Rebecca Bigler, Richard Fabes et al., “The Pseudoscience of Same-Sex Schooling,” Science, September 23, 2011, www.educ.ethz.ch/halpern-09-23-11_1_.pdf (accessed July 12, 2012).

  81. Hyunjoon Park, Jere R. Behrman, Jaesung Choi, “Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College Entrance Exams and College Attendance: Random Assignment in Seoul High Schools,” Demography, October 2012, pp. 1–37.

  82. US Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service, Single-Sex Versus Secondary Schooling: A Systematic Review, Washington, DC, 2005.

  83. Halpern, Eliot, Bigler, Fabes et al., “The Pseudoscience of Same-Sex Schooling,” p. 1707.

  84. Carol Lynn Martin and Richard Fabes, “The Stability and Consequences of Young Children’s Same-Sex Play Interactions,” Developmental Psychology 37, no. 3 (May 2001), pp. 431–446.

  85. Diana Leonard, “Single-Sex and Co-educational Secondary Schooling: Life Course Consequences?,” Economic and Social Research Council, 2007, pp. 18, 24.

  86. Halpern, Eliot, Bigler, Fabes et al., “The Pseudoscience of Same-Sex Schooling,” pp. 1706–1707.

  87. Diane Halpern, Lise Eliot, Rebecca Bigler et al., “Letters,” Science 35, January 13, 2012, p. 167.

  88. See also ibid.

  89. Amanda Datnow, Lea Hubbard, and Elisabeth Woody, “Is Single Gender Schooling Viable in the Public Sector? Lessons from California’s Pilot Program. Final Report” (Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, May 20, 2001), p. 11.

  90. Ibid., p. 13.

  91. Ibid., p. 40.

  92. Tamar Lewin, “Single-Sex Education Is Assailed in Report,” New York Times, September 22, 2011.

  93. Lenora Lapidus, “Title IX: Means More Than Sports for My Daughter and All of Our Children,” ACLU Blog of Rights, June 22, 2012, www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/title-ix-means-more-sports-my-daughter-and-all-our-children (accessed July 12, 2012).

  94. Michael Erb, “Single-Gender Classes Could Cost Wood County Schools,” Parkersburg News and Sentinel, June 27, 2012.

  95. Michael Erb, “Wood Board of Education Votes to Keep Vandy Single-Gender Classes,” Parkersburg News and Sentinel, July 3, 2012.

  96. Debra Cassens Weiss, “School Concludes Bias Law Bars Father-Daughter Dances,” Education Weekly, September 12, 2012, www.abajournal.com/mobile/article/school_concludes_discrimination_law_bars_father-daughter_dances/ (accessed September 20, 2012).

  97. Vivian Gussin Paley, Boys & Girls: Superheroes in the Doll Corner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 1.

  98. Ibid., p. 65.

  99. Ibid., p. 67.

  100. Ibid., p. 41.

  101. Ibid., p. 90.

  102. Ibid., p. 116.

  4. Carol Gilligan and the Incredible Shrinking Girl

  1. Francine Prose, “Confident at 11, Confused at 16,” New York Times Magazine, January 7, 1990, p. 23.

  2. Carol Gilligan, Nona Lyons, and Trudy University Hanmer, eds., Making Connections: The Relational Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).

  3. Ibid., p. 4.

  4. Ibid., p. 4.

  5. Ibid., p. 23.

  6. Ibid., p. 14.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Ibid., pp. 147–161.

  9. Ibid., p. 154.

  10. Ibid., p. 158.

  11. Ibid., p. 147.

  12. Ibid., p. 40.

  13. Anna Quindlen, “Viewing Society’s Sins Through the Eyes of a Daughter,” Chicago Tribune, January, 1, 1991, p. 19.

  14. Carolyn See, “For Girls the Hardest Lesson of All,” Washington Post Book World, September 2, 1994, p. D3.

  15. Myra Sadker and David Sadker, Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), pp. 77–78.

  16. Mary Pipher, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (New York: Putnam, 1994), p. 19.

  17. Anne C. Petersen et al., “Depression in Adolescence,” American Psychologist 48, no. 2 (February 1993), p. 155.

  18. Daniel Offer and Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, “Debunking the Myths of Adolescence: Findings from Recent Research,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 31, no. 6 (November 1992), pp. 1003–1014.

  19. Ms. Foundation for Women and Sondra Forsyth, Girls Seen and Heard (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1998), p. xiii.

  20. Ibid., pp. xiv and xv.

  21. Ms. Foundation, Synopsis of Research on Girls (New York: Ms. Foundation, 1995).

  22. Ms. Foundation for Women and Sondra Forsyth, Girls Seen and He
ard, p. xvii.

  23. Ms. Foundation, Synopsis of Research on Girls, p. 1.

  24. Ibid., p. 5.

  25. Elizabeth Debold, Marie Wilson, and Idelisse Malave, Mother Daughter Revolution: From Betrayal to Power (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993), p. 9.

  26. American Association of University Women, Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America, Executive Summary (Washington, DC: AAUW, 1991), p. 7.

  27. American Association of University Women, A Call to Action (Washington, DC: AAUW, 1991), p. 4.

  28. Suzanne Daley, “Little Girls Lose Their Self-Esteem on Way to Adolescence, Study Finds,” New York Times, January 9, 1991, p. B6.

  29. Bruce Bower, “Teenage Turning Point,” Science News, March 23, 1991, p. 184.

  30. Ibid.

  31. For other criticisms of the alleged self-esteem crisis, see William Damon, Greater Expectations: Overcoming the Culture of Indulgence in America’s Homes and Schools (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 74. See also Kristen C. Kling et al., “Gender Differences in Self-Esteem: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 125, no. 4 (1999), pp. 470–500; Kirk Johnson, “Self-Image Is Suffering from Lack of Esteem,” New York Times, May 5, 1998, p. F7; my Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994; Touchstone, 1995), pp. 136–50.

  32. AAUW/Greenberg-Lake Full Data Report, Expectations and Aspirations: Gender Roles and Self-Esteem (Washington, DC: AAUW, 1990), p. 18.

  33. Ibid., p. 13.

  34. American Association of University Women, How Schools Shortchange Girls:The AAUW Report, p. 84.

  35. Millicent Lawton, “AAUW Builds on History,” Education Week, September 28, 1994, p. 17.

  36. Susan Chira, “Bias Against Girls Is Found Rife in Schools, with Lasting Damages,” New York Times February 12, 1992, p. 1.

  37. Tamar Lewin, “How Boys Lost Out to Girl Power,” New York Times, December 12, 1998, sec. 4, p. 1. See also Judith Kleinfeld, “Student Performance: Males Versus Females,” Public Interest, Winter 1999, pp. 3–20.

  38. American Association of University Women, How Schools Shortchange Girls:The AAUW Report (Executive Summary), p. 2.

  39. Amy Saltzman, “Schooled in Failure?,” U.S. News & World Report, November 7, 1994, p. 90. Psychologist Judith Kleinfeld had a similar experience when she attempted to locate the Sadker call-out study. Kleinfeld asked, “Is it possible for a study simply to disappear into thin air? Apparently it is: when I telephoned David Sadker to ask him for a copy of the research, he could not locate one.” (In Judith Kleinfeld, “Student Performance: Males Versus Females,” p. 14.)

  40. See, for example, P. W. Hill, P. Smith-Homes, and K. J. Rowe, School and Teacher Effectiveness in Victoria: Key Findings from Phase I of the Victoria Quality Schools Project (Melbourne: Center for Applied Educational Research, 1993). University of Melbourne researchers studied fourteen thousand students: among their key findings were that (1) “attentiveness has a massive effect on student achievement” (p. 28), and (2) girls are more attentive than boys (pp. 18, 28).

  41. Sadker and Sadker, Failing at Fairness, p. 279.

  42. Women’s Research Network News (New York: National Council for Research on Women, 1993), p. 11.

  43. Emily Eakin, “Listening for the Voices of Women,” New York Times, March 30, 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/03/30/arts/listening-for-the-voices-of-women.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm (accessed September 20, 2012).

  44. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, The American Teacher 1997: Examining Gender Issues in Public Schools (New York: Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 1997).

  45. Ibid., p. 3.

  46. Ibid., p. 131. A similar question was asked by the 1998–99 State of Our Nation’s Youth Survey, State of Our Nation’s Youth 1998–1999 (Alexandria, VA: Horatio Alger Association, 1998): 71 percent of girls but only 64 percent of boys said they have an opportunity for open discussion in class.

  47. The Search Institute is an educational foundation devoted to advancing the well-being of children and adolescents. See Search Institute, Starting Out Right: Developmental Assets (Minneapolis: Search Institute, 1997); also Search Institute, A Fragile Foundation: The State of Developmental Assets Among American Youth (Minneapolis: Search Institute, 1999).

  48. Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, State of Our Nation’s Youth 1998–1999. The survey conducted by NFO Research, Inc., was based on two small but carefully selected samples of students (a cross-section of 2,250 fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds as well as a computer-generated sample of 1,041 students; see p. 4). The researchers are careful to note that this study is not definitive and provides only a “snapshot in time.”

  49. Ibid., p. 31.

  50. Bae, Choy, Geddes, Sable, and Snyder, Trends in Educational Equity of Girls and Women, p. 22.

  51. Ibid., p. 28.

  52. Susan Harter et al., “Predictors of Level of Voice Among High School Females and Males: Relational Context, Support and Gender Orientation,” Developmental Psychology 34, no. 5 (1998), p. 892.

  53. Susan Harter, Patricia Waters, and Nancy Whitesell, “Lack of Voice as a Manifestation of False Self-Behavior Among Adolescents: The School Setting as a Stage upon Which the Drama of Authenticity Is Enacted,” Educational Psychologist 32, no. 3 (1997), pp. 153–173.

  54. Ibid., p. 162.

  55. Ibid., p. 153 (abstract).

  56. Amy Gross, passage from Vogue cited in Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

  57. Emily Eakin, “Listening for the Voices of Women,” New York Times, March 20, 2002. Gilligan left Harvard soon after the donation, and the center never came into being. Harvard returned the funds to Ms. Fonda.

  58. Lawrence J. Walker, “Sex Differences in the Development of Moral Reasoning: A Critical Review,” Child Development 55 (1984), p. 681.

  59. William Friedman, Amy Robinson, and Britt Friedman, “Sex Differences in Moral Judgments? A Test of Gilligan’s Theory,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 11 (1987), pp. 37–46.

  60. See the exchange between Gilligan and me regarding the status (and whereabouts) of her research in The Atlantic Monthly, August 2000, Letters, vol. 286, no. 2, pp. 6–13. Available at www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/08/letters.htm (accessed September 12, 2012).

  61. Zella Luria, “A Methodological Critique,” Signs, no. 2 (1986), p. 318.

  62. Faye J. Crosby, Juggling: The Unexpected Advantages of Balancing Career and Home for Women and Their Families (New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 124.

  63. Gilligan is celebrated by some (mostly feminist) moral philosophers for her discovery of two approaches to morality: the (female) ethic of care and the (male) ethic of justice. The labeling of these as male and female is her doing, but the distinction is hoary. The tension between care and duty, between the personal and the impersonal, between abstract principle and contextual reality are familiar themes in moral philosophy that transcend gender. All standard theories (John Rawls’s hypothetical contractarianism, for example) must assign proper places to care and duty, balancing, for example, considerations of justice with considerations of mercy. See George Sher, “Other Voices, Other Rooms? Women’s Psychology and Moral Theory,” and Marcia Baron, “The Alleged Repugnance of Acting from Duty,” Journal of Philosophy 81, no. 4 (April 1984), pp. 197–220.

  64. Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan, Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992), p. 15.

  65. Ibid., p. 10.

  66. Francine Prose, “Confident at 11, Confused at 16,” New York Times Magazine, January 7, 1990, p. 46.

  67. Debra Viadero, “Their Own Voices,” Education Week, May 13, 1998, p. 37.

  68. Carol Gilligan, “Remembering Larry,” Journal of Moral Education 27, no. 2 (May 1998), pp. 134–135.

  69. Ruth Graham, “Carol Gilligan’s Persistent ‘Voice,’ ” Boston Globe, June 24, 2012, http://articles.boston.com/2012-06-24/ideas/32348040_1_psychology-gilligan-gender
-studies/5 (accessed September 20, 2012).

  70. Carol Gilligan, “The Centrality of Relationship in Human Development: A Puzzle, Some Evidence, and a Theory,” in Gil Noam and Kurt Fischer, eds., Development and Vulnerability in Close Relationships (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996), p. 252.

  5. Gilligan’s Island

  1. Carol Gilligan, “The Centrality of Relationship in Human Development: A Puzzle, Some Evidence, and a Theory,” in Gil Noam and Kurt Fischer, eds., Development and Vulnerability in Close Relationships (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996), p. 258.

  2. Ibid., p. 251.

  3. Ibid., p. 250.

  4. Gilligan, In a Different Voice, pp. 7–11.

  5. Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 9.

  6. Ibid., p. 7.

  7. Ibid., p. 180.

  8. Ibid., p. 181.

  9. Ibid., p. 214.

  10. Gilligan, In a Different Voice, p. 8.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering, p. 219.

  13. See chapter 3 for a review of literature on sex differences.

  14. Michael Norman, “From Carol Gilligan’s Chair,” New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1997, p. 50.

  15. Gilligan, “The Centrality of Relationship in Human Development,” p. 251.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Norman, “From Carol Gilligan’s Chair,” p. 50.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Norman, “From Carol Gilligan’s Chair,” p. 50.

  20. Gilligan, “The Centrality of Relationship in Human Development,” p. 238; Franklin, “The Toll of Gender Roles,” p. 9.

  21. US Census Bureau, Living Arrangements of Children 2009, p. 4, www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-126.pdf (accessed September 21, 2012).

  22. Ibid.

  23. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (Washington, DC: US Department of Labor, 1965). Quoted in National Fatherhood Initiative, Father Facts (Gaithersburg, MD: National Fatherhood Initiative, 1998), p. 57.

  24. Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and William Galston, Putting Children First: A Progressive Family Policy for the 1990s (Washington, DC: Progressive Policy Institute, 1990), p. 14.

  25. Cynthia Harper and Sara S. McLanahan cited in “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration,” Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004), pp. 369–397.