I had lunch last week with a friend, who was fretting about her son. He was having problems staying focused in class and had too much energy to sit still at a desk for six hours a day. Even with affirmative action programs for boys, girls still outnumber the boys on college campuses.

Do schools prefer girls? Do teachers reward students who sit still and have neat handwriting and have good verbal schools — characteristics that tend to skew female?

In The War Against Boys, Christina Hoff Sommers made the claim that schools and society are trying to feminize boys, with the result that too many boys end up being drugged up on ADHD meds or just dropping out of school. It's a plot.

Others make the point that even if girls are outperforming the boys in school, men are still outperforming women in the workplace. They dominate upper management of companies, academia, and Congress. So, what's the problem?

I can go either way on this one. What do you think?