Insofar as sociology is a meaningful field of study, it's results should be applicable in the real world. So, since men and women are constructed differently, it stands to reason that advice meant to actually be used would take that into account, even if the person giving the advice has no personal investment in those constructions, in the same way that engineers account for Newtonian physics even if they would be just as happy with Aristotelian physics if it happened to be true.

What I find interesting about this is the fact that because of the assumption that all teenagers will follow typical gender roles, the article for males is leaving out advice that could potentially benefit them.

The one extra sentence that was left off the male advice, about cookbooks and shopping could benefit teenage boys as well. If they take an active responsbility in feeding themselves, their parents are more likely to accept their diet. They should have been given that advice, then it's up to the reader if they take it or leave it.

What I love is the implication that the boys should just tell their families what they're doing and have their new diet be prepared by other people.

What?! Men don't cook! They're already vegetarian, they don't need more sissification! .... yeahhhh. Right.

This actually is pretty bad this gives young male vegetarians and vegans no real help in making sure they're getting fed properly, I realize that a proper overview of nutrition isn't available on either site, but when you go vegetarian there are a few ways you can do it and without some guidance and ideas for recipes it gets played out again and again that the vegetarian to be simply stops eating the articles of their diet they now find offensive and don't really replace them with something that is enough for their nutritional needs.

Then they start feeling like crud, then they go back to eating meat, and they forever after talk about how much better they felt after eating meat again. It's infuriating. Every vegetarian and vegan (much more so for vegans) I know who has maintained that over years, cooks for themselves or is extremely unhealthy. I can think of my partner when I met him, and my roommate who eats only cheese more or less.

I view this as a mild form of resistance to male vegetarianism. It's not giving them a vital tool that they need to be healthy and maintain their diet choice.

Wow. Just wow. Glad to know my husband and I don't fit the stereotype. He's more the cook than I am, though I am gaining a little ground since we went vegan (I've always hated handling raw meat). Still, he can bake the best carrot cake with vegan cream cheese frosting. And his three uncheese lasagna had the kids scraping their plates at his family's yearly holiday gathering.

Some of the other small differences were interesting to me, like how vitamin D is "important" on the guys' page but for us gals it is "necessary". Maybe I'm knit-picking, but there's already so much misinformation about veggie diets out there that I really take a close look at what they are and aren't saying.

And then back on the guys' page it says that B12 needs to be added to the diet, which is true, but on the gals' page it says that it is "only found in animal foods". That isn't exactly true. It's produced by bacteria normally found in animals' digestive tracks past where it can be absorbed (and therefore poo) and in our ultra-hygienic society we vegans can't count on getting enough without supplements or fortified-foods. But, the B12 in those fortified-foods doesn't come from animal foods, it comes from B12 specially grown using no animal products. So, it be better to say that B12 is "only found in animal foods, in supplements, in fortified foods, or in poo or on things poo has touched."

another thing to highlight is that the male version specifically encourages the reader, in addition to plans to stay healthy and reasoning behind changing their diet, to explain their "ideas around vegetarianism". Thus grounding their reasoning behind more tangible ideology and theory. And this part is not included in the female version.

Strangely, the female section isn't merely additive; the text has also changed. It's possible that this was just the negligence of an author or the inconsistency between multiple authors. Not sure why else it wouldn't be the same being that all someone would have to do is press "copy' and "paste."

Oh dear.

I'm a longtime male vegetarian. This is very indicative of the sorts of attitudes I get when people find out about it (you're already a sissy, so better stay away from other sissy stuff to compensate!). How very frustrating for it to come from a "health promotion" sort of source.

This is not just about semantics, but has real health implications. You cannot--CANNOT--become or remain a vegetarian or vegan without taking an active role in your own diet, and that means figuring out what meals you need to eat. Even if you have someone generous enough to cook for you, that probably entails looking through a few cookbooks to let them know what kinds of things you'd like them to make. I find it very troubling that they left off that vital information from the "male" version.

Maybe more guys would be able to swallow the idea of learning to cook more if they thought of it in terms of self-sufficiency... or if they knew that if you get good at it, your friends will love you for it.

I'm reminded of the shirts from Northern Sun, where one has a picture of a woman saying "Don't assume I cook" and the other has a picture that says "Don't assume I fix things." Everytime I see them, I read it as "Don't assume I have basic life skills." It's the same here. Since the boys aren't given advice on cooking, I see them as more juvenile.

As an computer programmer who's worked in web development for years, I can say it is very plausible that the section in question was a copy addition/edit that was applied to the girls' site, but omitted from the boys' simply as an oversight and poor web development QA practices.