Saving Our Sons is a timely and courageous book, and I am proud to have contributed my small share to the editorial process.

While some may bristle at Dr. Gurian’s assertion that boys in the U.S. and abroad are falling behind girls in many measures of health and well-being, numerous studies and statistics support this observation. In 2015, the World Health Organization published a major study of male health worldwide in which the study’s authors conclude that: “In most parts of the world, health outcomes among boys and men continue to be substantially worse than among girls and women. Yet this gender-based disparity in health has received little national, regional or global acknowledgement or attention from health policy-makers or health-care providers.”

Some of the statistics Dr. Gurian cites about American boys are truly shocking. Boys are twice as likely as girls to be labeled “emotionally disturbed” and twice as likely to be diagnosed with a behavioral or learning disorder. Boys are four times as likely as girls to be suspended or expelled from early childhood and K – 12 learning environments. In school, boys receive two-thirds of the Ds and Fs, and less than 40 percent of the As. While much has been made of the STEM gap, few are aware that boys are much farther behind girls in literary skills than girls are behind boys in math and science. Tragically, males between the ages of 15 and 24 are four times more likely to commit suicide than young women.

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