The War Against Boys

How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men

By: Christina Hoff Sommers

Narrated by: Coleen Marlo

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.

Girls and women were once second-class citizens in the nation's schools. Americans responded with concerted efforts to give girls and women the attention and assistance that was long overdue. Now, after two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, women have made massive strides in education. Today they outperform men in nearly every measure of social, academic, and vocational well-being. Christina Hoff Sommers contends that 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 edition of The War Against Boys offers a new preface and six radically revised chapters, plus updates on the current status of boys throughout the audiobook. Sommers argues that the problem of male underachievement is persistent and worsening. Among the new topics Sommers tackles: how the war against boys is harming our economic future, and how boy-averse trends such as the decline of recess and zero-tolerance disciplinary policies have turned our schools into hostile environments for boys.

As our schools become more feelings-centered, risk-averse, competition-free, and sedentary, they move further and further from the characteristic needs of boys. She offers realistic, achievable solutions to these problems that include boy-friendly pedagogy, character and vocational education, and the choice of single-sex classrooms.

The War Against Boys is an incisive, rigorous, and heartfelt argument in favor of recognizing and confronting a new reality: Boys are languishing in education, and the price of continued neglect is economically and socially prohibitive.

©2013 Christina Hoff Sommers; Preface copyright 2013 by Christina Hoff Sommers (P)2018 Tantor

I’ve been meaning to read this

In all honesty I already agreed with the premise but it also questioned some of the ideas I held about the crisis of boys in America and really helps clarify ideas I’ve had

review

good book. i enjoyed it. very informative. even more relevant today in the year 2021.

Requires Active listening

This is NOT a book for peripheral attention.
You must pay attention. Great Book, However!

Important Book

As a teacher and as a mom, I can see the damage that is being done to our boys. This book explains it and offers solutions. I hope people will follow her advice.

Mind blowing

Sommers book will amaze and frighten almost any reader. She simply describes insidious political machinations of a small determined group to socially engineer masculinity and manhood out of society. It's incredible the information in this book is not more widely discussed. Extremely well researched with thorough citations. A must read.

Super informative and valuable.

I really enjoyed this book and the amount of real valuable information which affects both boys and girls in society today. It was a little hard to listen to because of all the numbers and stats given. I wish I would have had a hard copy in front of me, but very beneficial read.

Great Book....Troubling for guys.

This is a good book but troubling for men who are about to raise sons in todays climate. The men and women in this world who have boys should all read this and come up with a plan as to how they want their sons to turn out.

Boys Should Be Boys

This book has helped me to look evaluate how I respond to educators of my son and to my son. To question if the expectations are bias and how should I respond in a manner that will help my son succeed.

Informative

This is an informative book about how American schools are failing boys. The statistics are correct and it's an interesting and alarming read. It was surprising to learn that many feminists are against single sexed schools when they've been shown to benefit both boys and girls. It was even more surprising to learn that some of them oppose recess when it also benefits all children. Sommers is highly intelligent, an excellent persuasive writer, and a wonderful activist. It's a shame that she's been smeared by the mainstream media as an enemy of feminism when she is one of the few who truly care about both women's and men's issues. The review ends here unless you want to read my rant about how not all women are inherently disinterested in mechanics.

My only problem with the book is Sommers' confidence that girls just aren't interested in hard sciences and mechanics. This is purely anecdotal, but as a child I was never given mechanical toys or junk to disassemble and tinker with. As an adult, I took an aptitude test to join the military. My highest score was in the mechanical section. I was surprised and intrigued.

I got slated for a medical job (not my choice) but I was still thinking about that test score. I started tinkering with things on my own like most young boys do. I discovered that I'm not only good at it, but find it engaging and relaxing. Maybe if more girls were given the opportunity to disassemble mechanical objects, then they would discover that they like it. Several years later, one of my favorite hobbies is watchmaking. I was an awful administrative medical technician, by the way. It turns out that not all women are organised, good at paperwork, and can stand sitting at a desk all day.

The age old question- is it nature or nurture? As a woman who enjoys watchmaking, FPS video games, camping, fishing, reptile keeping, cute shoes, and getting my hair highlighted at the salon, it's a jumbled up mishmash of both. Impossible to untangle. I would have gone my entire life without knowing that I had a knack and enjoyment for mechanics if it weren't for a coincidental test result during my adulthood. Who's to say that many other women aren't the same way?

Excellent Book. Narrator is OK.

This book provided some much needed insight and I found the content extremely valuable. The narrator was alright, there were some oratory habits which bothered me a little; however, I would listen to this book again.