But why assume that this gender gap was caused by school? It merely showed that girls and boys responded differently. The girls were doing better in school but were more inclined to worry about problems. The boys were either too oblivious to see their failings or didn’t want to admit them, like the men on college campuses who contentedly play “Halo” instead of going to class.

This is the same gender gap that appeared in the letters this week: concerned women, oblivious men. It’s the gap observed by marriage counselors, who notice that wives are far better at spotting problems and articulating them. In his observations of couples, the psychologist John Gottman finds that more than 80 percent of the time it’s the wife who brings up the tough marital issues, while the husband prefers to avoid talking about them.

Men’s reticence may be due to cultural conditioning that makes them reluctant to show weakness. It’s also probably due to their brains, which don’t process emotions as deftly as women’s do. To avoid getting swamped by fear or rage, men shut down negative emotions. If we don’t talk about it, it’s not a problem: What, me complain?

To women, the men are in denial. To men, the women are complaining about trivia. But each sex’s strategy makes sense for each sex. The problem comes when you set public policy based on who’s complaining the loudest. The gender-equity programs established in the 1990’s, besides perpetuating a bogus crisis, mainly served the cause of girls who didn’t need it.

I’m not hoping to see men and boys lobbying for their own gender-equity boondoggles, because a lot of them don’t need special help either. The students in most trouble are poor African-Americans and Latinos — especially the boys, but also the girls. They’ll never have an easy time making their complaints heard. But it would be a start if we all stopped pretending that middle-class girls were the ones being shortchanged.