A revised and updated edition (with more than 70% new material) of the evergreen classic about the innate differences between boys and girls and how best to parent and teach girls and boys, with a completely new chapter on transgender and intersex kids.
“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 (view article)
“… a lucid guide to male and female brain differences…”
– The New York Times (view article)
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”
— Scientific American Mind (view article)
Back in 2005, the first edition of Why Gender Matters broke ground in illuminating the differences between boys and girls–how they perceive the world differently, how they learn differently, how they process emotions and take risks differently. Dr. Sax argued that in failing to recognize these hardwired differences between boys and girls, we ended up reinforcing damaging stereotypes, medicalizing bad behavior, and failing to support kids to reach their full potential. In the years since 2005, the world has changed drastically, with an avalanche of new research which supports, deepens, and expands Dr. Sax’s work. This revised and updated edition includes new findings about how boys and girls interact differently with social media and video games; a new discussion of research on gender non-conforming, LGB, and transgender kids, new findings about how girls and boys see differently, hear differently, and even smell differently; and new material about the medicalization of misbehavior.
Bio:
Leonard Sax MD PhD graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the age of 19, and then went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned both a PhD in psychology, and an MD. He completed a 3-year residency in family practice in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. For 19 years, Dr. Sax was a practicing family physician in Maryland, just outside Washington DC. He now sees patients in West Chester, Pennsylvania (west of Philadelphia). In 2005, Doubleday published his first book Why Gender Matters; an updated edition was published in 2017. His second book, Boys Adrift, was published in 2007; an updated second edition was published in 2016. His third book Girls on the Edge was published in 2010; an updated second edition was published in 2020. His book The Collapse of Parenting was published by Basic Books in December 2015 and became a New York Times bestseller.
Dr. Sax has spoken on issues of child and adolescent development not only in the United States but also in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, England, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain, and Switzerland. He has visited more than 500 schools since 2001. He has appeared on the TODAY Show, CNN, National Public Radio, Fox News, PBS, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, New Zealand Television, and many other national and international media.