Here’s a column that I wrote a few years ago. In light of the new Pew Internet Life study that shows the differences between boys and girls in terms of use of social media, I thought I’d look back at how we’ve mentored and helped girls while we’ve let boys flounder. I call it the Legally Blonde versus Dumb and Dumber syndrome.

Written in 2004: I expected my job as a mom would go heavy on bolstering my daughters’ fragile egos while taming my testosterone-laden son. Boy, did I call that one wrong. The girls have the backbone of Attila the Hun, the work ethics of a Thomas Edison, and insights far beyond their years. The boy? He’s got the attention span of a flea, the stick-to-it-ness of WD-40, and, though he hides it under a veneer of grunts, a true lack of self-confidence.

While I was busy teaching the girls to compete in a man’s world, I should have been lobbying for affirmative action for boys. Neglected by educators, the brunt of jokes in the popular media, and bypassed by girls on most measures of academic success, these guys could really use a little help.

For the past 20 years educators and the media were on a mission to empower women. It worked. Do a web search on “girls” and “science” and you get a listing of dozens of organizations created to foster girls’ love of science. Do the same search on “boys” and “science” and you’ll get a Beastie Boys’ song.

The results of last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationwide report card for math and reading, shows that 12th grade girls outrank boys as proficient readers, 44% to 28%. A 13-year-old boy won this year’s Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, but many more girls than boys entered the competition. When The Philadelphia Inquirer looked at its region’s schools at last year’s graduation, they found 106 female valedictorians compared with only 64 males. The last male holdout bastion seems to be the SAT, where boys traditionally outscore girls. But this year, with the new SAT’s required handwritten essay, you can expect the tables to turn. Even on the sports field, concentrated efforts like Title IX, part of the Educational Amendment passed in 1972, got results by increasing girls’ participation by about 20%.

The tale of the tape? Girls win. According to a recent study 44% of girls are A students; only 35% of boys can say the same. With a 3 to 5 ratio, girls outnumber boys in the National Honor Society. And for every five AP courses the girls take, the boys take only three. The story continues. Today, girls comprise 60% of the college population and 58% of the graduate population.

If education caters to the women, then media is throwing them an all out banquet. Spend a Saturday morning with the ABC Family Channel. It’s a Gloria Steinem field day. Kim Possible is a superheroine who can defend world peace and still ace her homework; Lizzie McGuire and her mom are indomitable. Raven is a savvy teenage psychic surrounded by friends and siblings. The only male dominated entry in the lineup? Dave the Barbarian–that’s right, a show about three teenage barbarians. Ask Disney and they’ll proudly tell you their morning cartoons are fostering strong family values, but clearly they’re on a gender bender. The Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond…the list goes on and on. The guys are crude and none too bright. Their women rule the roost.

On the big screen, boys don’t fare much better. It’s the dude culture of Dumb and Dumber versus Reese Witherspoon’s not-only-did-I-graduate-Harvard-Law-but-I-can-use-my-Armani-suit-against-you. The boys get the fart jokes and belches and manage to get by while doing as little as possible. The girls are all about TOT–triumph over tragedy. Even at their computers, those great gender equalizers, it’s well documented that while the boys are shooting up anything that moves, girls are honing their communications skills on email, chat, or IM.

Girl-nurturing schools, can-do moms, and have-it-all girls in the media–what’s a poor boy to do? We’ve done well by our girls. Now it’s time to give boys and their dads back their piece of the action.