What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences
by Leonard Sax, MD, PhD

"Until recently, there have been two groups of people: those who argue sex differences are innate and should be embraced and those who insist that they are learned and should be eliminated by changing the environment. Sax is one of the few in the middle -- convinced that boys and girls are innately different and that we must change the environment so differences don't become limitations."
          -- TIME Magazine, cover story, March 7, 2005

Praise for Why Gender Matters:

". . . a lucid guide to male and female brain differences. . ."
The New York Times

"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. . . . Using studies as well as anecdotes from his practice and visits to classrooms, [Sax] offers advice on such topics as preventing drug abuse and motivating students. . . . The book is thought-provoking, and Sax explains well the science behind his assertions. . . [Why Gender Matters] is a worthy read for those who care about how best to prepare children for the challenges they face on the path to adulthood."
Scientific American

"Convincing. . . Psychologist and family physician Leonard Sax, using 20 years of published research, offers a guide to the growing mountain of evidence that girls and boys really are different. . . This extremely readable book also includes shrewd advice on discipline, and on helping youngsters avoid drugs and early sexual activity. Sax's findings, insights and provocative point-of-view should be of interest and help to many parents."
-New York Post

“Why Gender Matters is a fabulous resource for teachers and parents. Dr. Sax combines his extensive knowledge of the research on gender issues with practical advice in cogent, highly readable prose. I am eager to have my colleagues at school read this book and discuss it!”
—Martha Cutts, Head of School, Agnes Irwin School, Rosemont, Pennsylvania

"As the principal of an elementary school, I am constantly on the lookout for outstanding articles and books about gender-specific learning differences. Why Gender Matters is the best I've read."
-John Webster, Head of School, the San Antonio Academy

"Why Gender Matters is an outstanding work of scholarship. I am going to make it our 'faculty read' this summer."
-Paul Krieger, Headmaster, Christ School (North Carolina)

“In this reader-friendly book, Dr. Sax combines his comprehensive knowledge of the scientific literature with numerous interesting case studies to argue for his thesis that single-sex education is advantageous.”
— Dr. Sandra Witelson, Albert Einstein/Irving Zucker Chair in Neuroscience, McMaster University

“Extremely interesting . . . Challenged many of my basic assumptions and helped me to think about gender in a new way.”
—Joan Ogilvy Holden, Head of School, St. Stephen’s School, Alexandria, Virginia

"I simply will never be able to express how eye-opening this book has been for me. Yes me -- even though I thought I was a boy-raising specialist. After all, I have produced four healthy and smart athletes. I must know what I'm doing. But many of my boy-raising days I thought I was going mad. I'd come home from some sports event trembling because of the way the coach yelled at my kid. I'd ask my husband and whichever son it happened to be that day how they could stand being yelled at like that. Almost every time husband and son would look at me and not have any recollection of being yelled at during the game. Now I understand!!!!!!!!!"
-Janet Phillips, mother of four boys, Seneca, Maryland

"Why Gender Matters is an instructive handbook for parents and teachers . . . to create ways to cope with the differences between boys and girls."
-The Boston Globe

"Outstanding book, required reading for any parent."
Timothy Lundeen, father, San Francisco, California

"Fascinating . . . This book is interesting because it takes an 'outside the box' position on gender. Paradoxically, Sax says, gender-neutral education favors the learning style of one sex or the other, and so only drives men and women into the usual stereotyped fields. The best way to raise your son to be a man who is caring and nurturing, says Sax, is to first of all let him be a boy. The best way to produce a female mathematician is to first of all let her be a girl. . . I think Sax is on to something. Mature men and women do draw on qualities that stereotypically belong to the opposite sex. But the easiest way to get them to that point is to first make them confident about being a man or a woman. . . Sax adds that children are less happy and confident nowadays because no one is teaching them how to be men and women. This is a powerful, even obvious insight, once you dare think it. . . In quick succession, with Mary Eberstadt's Home Alone America and Leonard Sax's Why Gender Matters, we've seen two important, creative, and politically incorrect takes on family life and childhood."
-Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online.

The brain develops differently. In girls, the language areas of the brain develop before the areas used for spatial relations and for geometry. In boys, it's the other way around. A curriculum which ignores those differences will produce boys who can't write and girls who think they're "dumb at math."

The brain is wired differently. In girls, emotion is processed in the same area of the brain that processes language. So, it's easy for most girls to talk about their emotions. In boys, the brain regions involved in talking are separate from the regions involved in feeling. The hardest question for many boys to answer is: "Tell me how you feel."

Girls hear better. The typical teenage girl has a sense of hearing seven times more acute than a teenage boy. That's why daughters so often complain that their fathers are shouting at them. Dad doesn't think he's shouting, but Dad doesn't hear his voice the way his daughter does.

Girls and boys respond to stress differently - not just in our species, but in every mammal scientists have studied. Stress enhances learning in males. The same stress impairs learning in females.

These differences matter. Some experts now believe that the neglect of hardwired gender differences in childrearing may increase a son's risk of becoming a reckless street racer, or a daughter's risk of experiencing an unwanted pregnancy.

Since the mid-1970's, educators have made a virtue of ignoring gender differences. The assumption was that by teaching girls and boys the same subjects in the same way at the same age, gender gaps in achievement would be eradicated. That approach has failed. Gender gaps in some areas have widened in the past three decades. The pro-portion of girls studying subjects such as physics and computer science has dropped in half. Boys are less likely to study subjects such as foreign languages, history, and music than they were three decades ago. The ironic result of three decades of gender blindness has been an intensifying of gender stereotypes.

For parents, Dr. Sax provides concrete guidelines regarding the tough issues of discipline, sex, and drug abuse, and other problem areas.

For educators, Dr. Sax offers practical suggestions to help break down gender stereotypes and help all children to reach their potential.

For everybody, Dr. Sax offers a provocative analysis of how gender influences every aspect of our lives.