The Truth about Girls and Boys: Challenging Toxic Stereotypes about Our Children

their harming of girls and boys. Rivers and Barnett expose the sloppy journalism that has allowed pseudoscientific ideas to percolate into our collective beliefs about gender development. Parents, teachers, and policymakers will do well to read this book, to rescue today's girls and boys from false claims of 'hardwired' differences limiting their learning and stunting their futures. -- Lise Eliot, author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can Do About It Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett's dissection of the ways tired stereotypes are being repackaged as 'science' is urgently important. It must be read immediately by parents, educators -- anyone who believes children should develop their full intellectual and emotional potential. -- Peggy Orenstein, author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture The Truth About Girls and Boys is a must read for anyone vouchsafed with the upbringing, care, teaching, or social policy that impacts our most precious legacy: our children -- girls and boys. We must read this 'game changing' book, ponder its meaning, and not put it down until we move from our present position of empty-minded acceptance to open-minded and critical thinking. Rivers and Barnett throw out a sturdy life preserver to bring us back from the harm of mangled pseudoscience to the shores of thoughtful, gender equitable understanding. -- William S. Pollack, author of Real Boys: Rescuing Our Boys from the Myths of Boyhood Rivers and Barnett provide insightful examples to show how sex stereotypes ranging from aggression to sexualized body images are based on inaccurate and often harmful generalizations. They make a powerful case against a key rationale for sex-segregated education -- that girls and boys learn differently, and therefore should be taught differently and in sex segregated classes. Instead, they conclude that heterogeneous groups and attention to individuals will do more to maximize opportunities and improve society. -- Sue Klein, Ed.D, Education Equity DirectorFeminist Majority Foundation This is an excellent and important book, clearly written yet also packed with documentation. Lis Carey's Blog 8/19/2011 Buy It RIGHT NOW. Run to the bookstore. Knock over children and old ladies if you have to. Just get your hands on this book! Bookshelf Bombshells 9/28/2011 ...simple, direct, and accessible prose. Things Mean a Lot Blog 10/5/2011 Should be given to new parents, educations, coaches, and anyone with the ability to influence the path of young lives. It's packed with excellent advice. -- Sheila Gibbons Media Report to Women 1/1/2012 Thought-provoking. PsycCritiques 3/28/12 Because of the topic and accessibility of the writing, parents and teachers should be encouraged to read this book. -- Emily Keener Psychology of Women Quarterly Vol 36, No 3, 2012