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

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.

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.

Surprised how reasoned and readable this was

It makes me sad that you can't find authors in academia writing this kind of book. I don't consider the American Enterprise Institute, with which the author is associated, a legitmate scholarly institution because of its demonstrated conservative political bias. Sadly all of academia seems to have the opposite political bias and, so, would never write this book. I found the work readable, honest, reasoned without hysteria, and based on identifiable facts. Boys are no longer potential partners in a fair society, but potential sexual/physical/business predators that need to be femenized. If only we could get PhD's in universities to take an honest look at these kinds of social issues without fear of being run out of the institution for their blasphemy. Until then, I guess we're stuck with looking past AEI's bias and relying on some of their authors to do good work. To be clear, this is good work.

Fantastic Book!

As a father to a young boy and son of a great Dad, I found this book to be excellent. It helped me better understand the values that my Dad instinctively instilled in me and is a great resource to help me understand how I can prepare my son to face the challenges he will face as he grows up to be a man.