Dear Leanord Sax,

Your book Why Gender Matters changed my view of the world and myself because it gave me a wider perspective of why people so crazy things.
Your book showed me that boys and girls minds function differently. Boys focus better in louder settings and girls prefer quiet because that how the brain is wired. If one boy is tempted to jump off a big rock chances are he won't do it. If a friend comes around one of them is jumping. If two friends come around all three are jumping. Boys don't want to look weak in front of their friends and they will do anything to maintain their status. Girls are more likely to do things alone because they don't want to be judged.
Twenty years ago, doctors and researchers didn’t think so. Back then, most experts believed that differences in how girls and boys behave are mainly due to differences in how they were treated by their parents, teachers, and friends.
It's hard to cling to that belief today. An avalanche of research over the past twenty years has shown that sex differences are more significant and profound than anybody guessed. Sex differences are real, biologically programmed, and important to how children are raised, disciplined, and educated.
In Why Gender Matters, you lead parents through the mystifying world of gender differences by explaining the biologically different ways in which children think, feel, and act. You addresses a host of issues, including discipline, learning, risk taking, aggression, sex, and drugs, and shows how boys and girls react in predictable ways to different situations.
You offered fresh approaches to disciplining children, as well as gender-specific ways to help girls and boys avoid drugs and early sexual activity. You wanted parents to understand and work with hardwired differences in children, but he also encourages them to push beyond gender-based stereotypes.
While reading this is have realized that I'm not your average girl. I don't need quiet to focus and if one of my friends is jumping off a rock I'm likely to try it too. But that doesn't mean that you were wrong I'm just one of the exceptions. I also realized that why gender matters occurs on a daily basis. Everywhere I go I now see boys do dumb things or girls looking annoyed because boys are being loud.
I know that Sax's work influenced me because every day I pick out a new "why gender matters" out of my life and explain it to friends and family. This book means a lot to me because it was so well written that I am able to see every side to an argument. But I am also able to disagree with Sax's which makes it interesting because now I spend my life trying to prove him wrong.