Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences (Hardcover)

by Leonard Sax (Author) "Matthew turned five years old the summer before kindergarten started..." (more)
Key Phrases: male brain tissue, dare training, anomalous male, United States, San Francisco, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In the feminist conception of gender flexibility, no set rules apply: girls can play with trucks; boys can play with dolls. But pediatrician and psychologist Sax argues that our theories about gender's fluidity may be wrong and to apply them to children in their formative years is quite dangerous. Sax believes the brains of boys and girls are hardwired differently: boys are more aggressive; girls are more shy. And deliberately changing a child's gender—in cases of intersex (hermaphrodism) or accident (as in the case of David Reimer, who was raised as a girl after a hideous circumcision mishap)—can ruin a child's life. Sax also believes modern gender philosophy has resulted in more boys being given behavior-modifying drugs and more girls being given antidepressants. Much of his argument makes sense: we may have gone to the other extreme and tried too hard to feminize boys and masculinize girls. Sax makes a compelling argument for parents and teachers to tread lightly when it comes to gender and raises important questions regarding single-sex education, which he supports. His readable prose, which he juxtaposes with numerous interviews with school administrators, principals, scientists and others, makes this book accessible to a range of readers.
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From Scientific American
When I was a college freshman, a male teaching assistant I sought help from told me matter-of-factly that women were not good at inorganic chemistry. Had I been armed with Why Gender Matters, about how biological differences between the sexes can influence learning and behavior, I could have managed an informed rejoinder to go along with my shocked expression. Sax—a pediatrician and psychologist in the Washington, D.C., area and founder of the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education—hopes to make today’s teachers and parents aware of the science behind differences between girls and boys. He was inspired to write the book as more and more parents brought their young sons to his office in the mid-1990s, seeking an evaluation for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Recalling studies that show boys do not hear as well as girls, Sax felt that for some of the boys he assessed, simply not hearing the teacher led to their inattention, a problem that could be solved by a front-row seat. Although Sax repeatedly makes clear these differences do not limit what either sex can achieve, he does contend they play a valuable role in determining the most effective methods for teaching, disciplining and understanding children and young adults. Using studies as well as anecdotes from his practice and visits to classrooms, he offers advice on such topics as preventing drug abuse and motivating students. In his chapter on aggression, Sax cites research that shows young male primates are much more likely to engage in rough-and-tumble play than females to illustrate why some amount of aggression in boys is normal and why banning "healthy" outlets such as dodgeball—done in his local school district—is misguided. The book is thought-provoking, and Sax explains well the science behind his assertions. His anecdotes are generally instructive, although some are a little too thin to support his points. Sax ends by offering several compelling arguments in support of same-sex education, such as analyses that find girls are more likely to study physics and boys are more likely to study literature in single-sex schools. But whether or not you agree with Sax, his volume is a worthy read for those who care about how best to prepare children for the challenges they face on the path to adulthood.

Aimee Cunningham

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (February 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038551073X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385510738
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #68,528 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Reading, February 28, 2005

By	Philip Trubey (Rancho Santa Fe, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why Gender Matters, May 20, 2006

By	Catherine G. Roda - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.) Because of examples like this where the mom didn't push the issue, he concludes that any consulting with a child is inadvisable. This is very unfortunate. Teaching a child the art of compromise and working to reach a solution that both parties can agree on is a great gift.

The fact that this book was written in 2005 means that it's full of recent information, and it may be worth reading just to see the compilation of the latest studies. He makes an interesting case about the benefits of singe-sex education, and for the benefits of single-gender, cross-generational activities for young people. It is his personal opinions on discipline which primarily tained this book in a negative way for me, and dragged the whole work down to two stars.

73 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book, required reading for any parent, February 16, 2005

By	Timothy D. Lundeen (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An outstanding book on the differences in how boys and girls learn and develop, appropriate parenting techniques, and how to help them live up to their potential and become happy/productive adults.

I had a few specific disagreements, despite my overall appreciation for this work.

First, his overall view of the differences in the sexes. Sax says "Here are some examples of false beliefs about gender differences:

* Boys are "naturally" better at math and science than girls are.
* Girls are "naturally" more emotional than boys are.
* Girls are "naturally" collaborative, while boys are competitive."

I don't like this phrasing of gender differences. These statements might in fact be literally false as claimed, but certainly give a misleading impression of the typical differerences between males and females. I like the argument made by Baron-Cohen in his book, The Essential Difference, that on average male brains are optimized for systems, and female brains are optimized for empathy. Baron-Cohen's explanation fits the observed facts and research better than anything else I've seen, and would be a better overview than putting up some straw men to knock down like this, while ignoring the overall reality.

With regard to competition, all of the studies I've seen show that competition is a significant incentive for boys but has no effect for girls. Ironically, both of the best-practives examples he cites from master classes for boys involve competition :-)

Second, Sax echoes the educationist's mantra that "Almost every child is a gifted child." This seems ludicrous to me. The definition of gifted is top 3-5% on some dimension of human ability. There just aren't enough independent dimensions here for almost everyone to be gifted in some way. I would argue that the main three dimension are athleticism, cognition, and empathy. Most other dimesions have a fair amount of correlation with one or more of these, with musically gifted people typically also cognitively gifted, etc. You might come up with a few more (memory ability doesn't seem to be correlated with cognitive ability, for example), but "almost everyone"? I wouldn't think that more that 20-25% of the population would be gifted regardless of the number of dimensions you chose to measure, and that most of these "gifts" would not be related to academic ability in any way.

The harm from this belief that "all children are gifted" comes when you then say that because everyone is gifted, everyone can be treated the same way. To his credit, Sax doesn't draw this conclusion, but is all too common -- my son went to Stuart Hall, one of the schools used by Sax as an example of best-practices teaching for boys, and I heard both of these statements from them (e.g. "everyone is gifted" and "we have the same program for everyone" and "even though your son has an IQ in the top 1% that doesn't mean he is more gifted intellectually than anyone else or could use any special help academically"). Particularly for children who are cognitively gifted, not having an appreciation for their learning differences in a classroom setting can often have long-term detrimental effects. (I see cognitively gifted chilren in a typical classroom as an unfortunate minority. They are not getting what they need to thrive.)

Sax also echoes the desire to have more scientific career paths open to women, that there might still be social/teaching/peer pressures that contribute to the career choices made by women when more of them might actually prefer traditionally male professions. Could be, but there is no scientific evidence that supports this in any way, and there is a fair body of evidence that refutes it. There is also the fact of the difference in the tails of the male/female cognitive distributions: men have a higher standard deviation than women, so there are many more very bright men that women at the extreme high end of the tail, just as there are many more dull men at the low end of the scale.

I also am not so convinced that single-sex schools are a good thing. My son went to Stuart Hall, an all-boys school in San Francisco, and the kids do band together against the teachers. This opposition can be quite intense. On the one hand, I suppose this is good for socialization, and my son is quite capable socially. On the other hand, it is not a good atmosphere for academics, learning appropriate behavior, or in terms of learning to relate with adults. I'm sure a lot of our issues had to do with the quality of the school overall and their standard of discipline, and I've never had a son go through the early years in a coed school, but I'm still concerned based on my experience.

The rest of the book is all good, and highly recommended!

(I looked at the one previous review before I wrote this, which had a number of complaints about Sax's parenting technique recommendations, and I don't agree with these criticisms. A careful reading of what Sax actually says refutes all of these concerns, as far as I can see.)