From: vision.org

Boys are being socially reengineered. In the process, they have become victims of misguided sexual politics.

So says Christina Hoff Sommers in her book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (2000). She is a W.H. Brady Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and holds a doctorate in philosophy from Brandeis University. As the title of her book suggests, Sommers asserts that the feminist movement, working through the education system, has been waging nothing less than a war against boys in the belief that they must level the playing field for girls.

Vision contributor Thomas Fitzpatrick asked Sommers to enlarge on her views about the upbringing of boys.

TF When Rex Harrison sang “Why Can’’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?” in My Fair Lady, it seemed amusing and entertaining. Throughout previous generations, the genders have longed to better understand each other. However, what you describe is something altogether different—even insidious. Are you saying that there is a calculated and concerted effort underway to redefine masculinity for future generations?

CHS Yes, the “gender theorists” in schools of education and the activists in women’s groups are powerful allies in pursuing this dubious goal. They acknowledge that it’s too late to change adult men. However, they believe that boys can be salvaged if they are rescued from being wrongly “masculinized.” Thus the need for a movement to reconstruct boyhood, to produce boys who will be less competitive, more emotionally expressive, more nurturing—simply put, more like girls. For more than a decade these activists have engaged in an effort to overhaul how boys are brought to manhood. They are convinced that breaking down male stereotypes, starting in preschool, is good for society.

TF You have been quoted as saying, “We may be the first society in history to turn against its males.” What factors have caused our culture to take the unprecedented step of declaring war on masculinity?

CHS Very simply, boys have become politically incorrect. They are thought to be insensitive and prone to violence. They tend to like action, competition, roughhousing; and they don’t spend a lot of time talking about their feelings. This worries many people. A group of psychologists, most notably at Harvard, have convinced themselves that boys need to be rescued from their masculinity. At the same time, hard-line feminists are persuaded that unless we intervene at the earliest possible age to change the way boys are being socialized, women and girls remain in danger and continue to be “oppressed under patriarchy.” My book shows that both these groups—the gender warriors and the New England psychologists—have been remarkably successful in promoting their male-averse policies and programs in the schools. In the meantime, boys are not getting the help they really need. Too many of them are academically and ethically neglected.

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