An updated and revised edition of the controversial classic, now more relevant than ever, argues that boys are the ones languishing socially and academically, resulting in staggering social and economic costs. During the latest wave of feminism in the 1970s, Americans realized that girls and women were being shortchanged in society. The response was a number of social reforms that gave girls and women the attention and assistance that was long overdue. Consequently, girls have succeeded in school and women in society so that they now outperform boys and men.
Christina Hoff Sommers contends that today’s women’s lobby won’t face facts, fearing that aiding boys will happen only at the expense of girls. Women’s advocates are hindering efforts to address today’s gender imbalance, Sommers posits, and it’s time to take a hard look at present-day realities and recognize that boys need help.
Called “provocative and controversial…impassioned and articulate” (The Christian Science Monitor), this new edition of The War Against Boys offers a new preface and six new chapters, plus updates throughout the rest of the book, which argue that the problem of underachievement among American boys not only persists but is actually growing. Among the new topics Sommers tackles: how the war against boys is a war against our technological future and how our schools have become hostile environments for boys. She offers realistic, achievable solutions to these problems that include boy-friendly pedagogy, character and vocational education, and single-sex classrooms.
The War Against Boys shows how our society has continued to overemphasize the troubles of girls while our boys’ issues of devastating self-esteem and academic problems remain neglected. Boys need help, but not the sort they’ve been getting, and The War Against Boys is an incisive call to recognize and confront the growing implications.
