It's almost a clich?n polite American circles that girls are in a state of crisis. In high school they're silenced and demoralized; in college they're short-changed. Boys, and a culture that indulges masculinity in the classroom, take the blame. This kind of thinking has filtered down from academic feminist circles to teachers' unions. But the philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers thinks they've got it all wrong. The real casualties of the gender wars, she argues, are boys.
Male culture has been deemed politically incorrect, and boys are being penalized for their masculinity. Comparative statistics show it's boys lagging behind girls in reading and writing. Boys take fewer advanced classes; boys are less likely to get to college. Sommers says what they need is understanding, discipline, and a solid moral grounding. And through it all, parents and teachers have got to let them be boys. (Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
