Girls and boys are different. So why do our schools insist on treating them as identical? Could this misguided equality have anything to do with the increasing dissatisfaction among women that is revealed in survey after survey? Do gender-blind educational policies in fact work to women's disadvantage? Bringing together many women's voices, from Bridget Jones to Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan to Germaine Greer, James Tooley challenges education's sacred cows, demanding a radical rethinking of sexual politics and a fairer way forward for women. The Miseducation of Women landed like a bombshell when it was published in England a few months ago; but Mr. Tooley's book, replete with examples and anecdotes from the United States as well as Great Britain, has equal application to the gender arguments on this side of the Atlantic.

The truth in Prof. Tooley's polemic lies not so much in what he says about the national curriculum....Rather, it is in his spirited assault on the 'hidden' curriculum-those underlying messages that schools send pupils. * London Telegraph *
This book is designed to create a stir. It is carefully wrought to engage readers who might be coming from very different directions. . . . I disagreed passionately with much of Tooley's thesis . . . but he does engage the reader. -- Caroline St. John-Brooks * Times Educational Supplement *
...Sensible and well-argued. * Evangelical Now *
A new and enthusiastic entrant into the [gender] debate takes the argument to a different, altogether more controversial level. * London Evening Standard *

James Tooley is professor of education policy at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and author of Reclaiming Education and The Global Education Industry. He writes frequently for the London Times, the Guardian, the New Statesman, and other newspapers and periodicals. He lives in England.