SOURCE: Lowry, Richard. “The Male Eunuch.” National Review 52, no. 12 (3 July 2000): 41, 45.

In the following review, Lowry praises Sommers's The War against Boys as an important conservative intervention against liberal trends in education.

A couple of kindergarten boys were recently suspended from school in New Jersey after being caught red-handed playing cops and robbers at recess. Finger-pointing, shouting “bang,” running, playing dead—the incident involved the whole sorry litany of playground mock aggression. School officials were enforcing a Columbine-inspired “zero tolerance” policy against firearms at school, even the thumb-and-forefinger variety (where are the trigger locks?). But they were also acting on another trend afoot in American education: a disapproval of all the things boys do during recess. The Atlanta schools have eliminated recess altogether.

Snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails have fallen on tough times. In fact, as Christina Hoff Sommers demonstrates in The War against Boys, they have...