In their book The Maiden King: the reunion of masculine and feminine, Robert Bly and Marion Woodman speak of "the ready-made masculine and the ready-made feminine. . ." (p. xvii). They recognize that each girl must work out for herself what "feminine" will mean for her, what kind of woman she will be; and likewise, each boy must discover and create what "masculine" will mean for him.
Most enduring cultures of which we have any record have taken this process -- the process of transition to a gendered adulthood -- very seriously. We ignore it. Indeed American parents seldom speak to their children at all about the meaning of womanhood or manhood (as opposed to generic, un-gendered adulthood). Most parents today don't know what to say.
But girls still want to know, What does it mean to be a woman? Boys still want to know, What does it mean to be a man? We don't tell them. As a result, the marketplace fills the vacuum, providing "the ready-made masculine and the ready-made feminine" which are caricatures of the real thing; but young people don't recognize them as caricatures, because they have received no guidance. The result is a growing proportion of girls who are anxious, depressed, and tired; girls who can tell you a great deal about what they do but not so much about who they are. Likewise, we find a growing proportion of boys who are disengaged not only from school but from the real world. Those boys are comfortable in the virtual world, where they play their online video games, and/or surf the net for photographs of girls.
Understanding these problems, and working toward practical solutions that can be put in place today by every parent and every teacher -- that's what my second book Boys Adrift and my third book Girls on the Edge are all about.
My first book,
Why Gender Matters: what parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences was published
in hardcover by Doubleday (2005) and in
an expanded softcover edition by Random House (2006). My second book, Boys Adrift: The five factors driving
the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys, was published by Basic Books in 2007; an expanded softcover edition was published in January 2009.
My third book, Girls on the Edge, will be published by Basic Books in April (2010).
Read an excerpt from Why Gender Matters
Read an excerpt from Boys Adrift
Get more information about me:
All about my education and experience
My publications
My events for 2005
My events for 2006
My events for 2007.
My events for 2008.
My events for 2009.
Preliminary list of my events for 2010.
Comments from people who've heard me speak.
Watch me discuss Why Gender Matters with Al Roker on the TODAY show
Watch me discuss Boys Adrift with Matt Lauer on the TODAY show
Watch me discuss single-sex public education with Matt Lauer on the TODAY show (March 3, 2009)
order Why Gender Matters from amazon.com
order Why Gender Matters from Barnes & Noble
order the audio CD of Why Gender Matters (unabridged) from Barnes & Noble
Order the GERMAN language edition of Boys Adrift
order the audio version of Why Gender Matters from audible.com
order the audio version of Boys Adrift from audible.com
Get in touch with me, either by phone, e-mail, or snail mail
"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; click here to read the original story
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 Mind
"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.
I attended public schools in Shaker Heights, Ohio, from kindergarten through grade 12. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in biology, and then went to the University of Pennsylvania, where I earned both a PhD (in psychology) and an MD. I went on to do a 3-year residency in family practice at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1990, I launched a family medical practice in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland, about 30 minutes northwest of the District of Columbia. I practiced in the same location, serving families in the same small town, for 18 years (1990 - 2008). My wife and I lived about 300 yards from my office. In 2008, I retired from medical practice in order to devote myself to being a better husband and a better father, and also in order to have more time to visit schools, to learn more about gender differences, and to help to lead The Montgomery Center for Research in Child & Adolescent Development (MCRCAD), d/b/a the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE) , which I founded in 2002.
TWILIGHT sinks its teeth into feminism
Washington Post August 17, 2008.
My op-ed about Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series has prompted many comments, mostly negative. Many of the bloggers seem to have read only the headline (written
by an editor at the Post), and assumed I was attacking feminism, which I wasn't. Other bloggers assumed that I didn't like the Twilight books, and
wrote about how great the books are. Please take a look at my response to the bloggers at this link.
What's happening to boys?
Washington Post, March 31, 2006.
In this op-ed for the Washington Post March 31 2006, I called attention to the growing phenomenon of the "Failure to Launch" boy/man: a young man in his 20's, or even his 30's, who is still living at home with his parents -- and who doesn't see what the problem is. The Washington Post invited me to host a one-hour on-line chat, which broke all previous records for the Washington Post: they shut the system down after receiving 395 posts. You can read the transcript of the online chat session here.
The Promise and the Peril of Single-Sex PUBLIC Education,
Education Week, March 2, 2005, pp. 48, 34, 35.
Too Few Women: Figure It Out.
Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2005, p. M5.
Teens Will Speed. Let's Watch Them Do It.
The Washington Post, November 28, 2004, p. B8.
The Odd Couple: Hillary Clinton & Kay Bailey Hutchison
The Women's Quarterly (The Journal of the Independent Women's Forum),
Summer 2002, pp. 14-16.
Single Sex Education: Ready for Prime Time?
The World & I, August 2002, pp. 257-269.
Rethinking Title IX
The Washington Times, July 2 2001, p. A17.
Ritalin: Better living through chemistry?
The World & I, November 2000, 287-299.
Polyethylene Terephthalate May Yield Endocrine Disruptors.
Environmental Health Perspectives, in press. Full text available online by
clicking here (full PDF).
Six degrees of separation:
What teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences.
Educational Horizons, 84:190-212, Spring 2006.
The Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD in Women.
The Female Patient, 29:29-34, November 2004.
Dietary Phosphorus Is Toxic for Girls But Not for Boys.
Invited chapter, in: Annual Reviews in Food & Nutrition (Victor Preedy, editor), Taylor & Francis Publishers, London, UK, 2003, Chapter 8, pp. 158-168.
Who First Suggests the Diagnosis of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
A survey of primary-care pediatricians, family physicians, and child psychiatrists
[with Kathleen J. Kautz RN, BSN].
Annals of Family Medicine, 2003, 1:171-174. Available online here.
What Was the Cause of Nietzsche's Dementia?
Journal of Medical Biography, Royal Medical Society, London, February 2003, 11:47-54. Available online here.
How Common Is Intersex?
The Journal of Sex Research, August 2002, 39(3):174-178. Available online here.
Maybe Men and Women Are Different.
American Psychologist, July 2002, pp. 444-445.
The Institute of Medicine's ‘Dietary Reference Intake' for Phosphorus: a critical perspective.
Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 20(4):271-278, 2001.
Reclaiming Kindergarten: making kindergarten less harmful to boys.
Psychology of Men and Masculinity, American Psychological Association, 2(1):3-12,
2001. Download full text as a PDF by clicking here.
Characteristics of spatiotemporal integration in the priming and rewarding effects of medial forebrain bundle stimulation.
Behavioral Neuroscience, 105(6):884-900, 1991.
[with C. R. Gallistel]
Temporal integration in self-stimulation: a paradox.
Behavioral Neuroscience, 98(3):467-8, 1984.
