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We have a whole library shelf of pregnancy, baby, and now parenting books that my wife has bought over the past few years. I've had a hard time getting the enthusiasm to delve into many of these. However, as the father of a 4 year old daughter and now new twin boys, this particular book looked intriguing. Well, I couldn't put it down. Not only is it well written with engaging anecdotes, but it presents the latest scientific findings in gender research (with lots of footnotes so you can read the studies yourself if you are so inclined) and relates it to the job of parenting. It helps that the author is a family doctor who has seen his share of dysfunctional situations that in hindsight might easily have been prevented with a little knowledge.
The book is more than just informative about gender differences in children - he relates this information to such parenting topics as disciplining your child, gender specific education strategies, dealing with problem children, kids and drugs (both the legal and non-legal kind), and teenage sex.
Even if you don't agree with everything the author says, I think you'll learn a lot by reading this book.
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The book's main premise is that on average boys and girls are significantly different. To support this thesis, Sax mentions a number of recent studies on the differences of male and female brains. Teenage girls, for example, handle negative emotions within prefrontal cortex: the same area of the brain that is responsible for the language. Teenage boys, on the other hand, use amygdala, a separate area of the brain. Sax concludes that for this reason a teenage girl finds it much easier to talk about how she feels than a teenage boy does. The same is true about math: girls process it in the prefrontal cortex and boys in a separate part, hippocampus. So, the book says, boys would find it easier to understand math if it were explained to them as pure science, and girls would learn the same material more quickly if it was presented in connection with real life.
The science is explained on a very basic level, no prior knowledge necessary. Although, sometimes the thoughts are not extended to a logical conclusion. For example, throughout the book Sax assumes that the closer parts of the brain are the better communication among them. Even though this seems reasonable, some supportive evidence would have been useful. And what if girls' math processing in prefrontal cortex simply means that talking about math comes easier to them than to boys?
Still, that male and female brains are different on average and react differently to the same stimuli seems fairly commonsensical. In this context, Sax's argument for single-sex education sounds convincing.Read more ›
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Why Gender Matters does an excellent job of presenting taboo subject mater with well laid out arguments backed by evidence. The premise of the book is summed up well in this passage from one of the appendages: "A central argument for this book is that for the past three decades, the influence of social and cognitive factors on gender traits has been systematically overestimated while the innate factors have been neglected."
This is a difficult subject to tackle without coming across as a sexist and a bigot. But I was consistently impressed with Sax's ability to approach these topics delicately but unambiguously. His careful phrasing effectively disarmed the knee-jerk defensive reaction, and unapologetically delivered his points in the most reasonable tone.
The writing was pleasant to read, and the content thought-provoking, enlightening and challenging.
The Bad
Sax mixes in a lot of his personal views on morality and proper child rearing. There are whole pages which hardly reference gender at all, which instead serve as a soapbox for Sax to rant about the need for discipline or rail against mushy liberal parenting approaches.
I have little basis on which to judge his parenting advice, being a topic I have little knowledge of or interest in. Even so, it came off as prudish and overbearing, and I think the book suffered for it.
The Unforgivable
In the chapter six, titled "Sex", a sensationalist and thoroughly debunked myth, "Rainbow Parties" (wikipedia it) is cited as evidence for the moral decline of our society and the outrageous activities that kids these days engage in. This glaring factual error lends serious doubt to the credibility of the author as an unbiased man of evidence.Read more ›
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I really liked this book when I started reading it. The author made a bold statement that he would back up his statements with evidence, and the early chapters are full of information with footnotes if one is inclined to research more about any facts (such as: the highschool dropout rate in the US is now close to 30%. That figure was startling to me, but he lists several places where I could do further reading on that topic.)
The problems start later in the book. Once the facts are presented, I found myself disagreeing with the conclusions he drew from those facts quite often. He believes that parents who "consult" with their children, "inform" them about available choices, and "make suggestions" are equivalent to "overly permissive" parenting. He cites an example of parents who allow their children to "choose" soda and chips to eat every day. No doubt, that's no way to allow your child to grow up, but he makes no mention of allowing your child a choice of acceptable options. What about allowing him to choose between broccoli or a spinach salad with dinner? There's lots of evidence to support that listening to your child and allowing him freedom within limits that you set is beneficial to self esteem.
There's a lot of grey area between the authoritarian style of parenting he advocates and being a pushover to your child due to fear of not being liked by him. He's dismissed the idea of working out a plan with a child due to some very poor compromises some parents have made. (A heavy 8 year-old girl is allowed to spend a month with grandparents who let her eat nonstop junk food. Then she's hard to deal with when she returns home. Girl doesn't want to go to a no-junk-food camp instead of Gramma's, so mom doesn't do anything different.Read more ›
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This item: Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences
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