Most standardized math tests--such as those of the SAT college admission test--favor male students, even though
women receive higher average grades in college math classes.
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In Brief
Closing the Sex Gap
- Women, on average, have stronger verbal skills (especially in writing) and better memory for events, words, objects, faces and activities.
- Men generally are better at mentally manipulating objects and at performing certain quantitative tasks that rely on visual representations.
- Intervention studies are still in their infancy but suggest both sexes can benefit from targeted training to improve their skill set.
For years, blue-ribbon panels of experts have sounded the alarm about a looming shortage of scientists, mathematicians and engineers in the U.S.—making dire predictions of damage to the national economy, threats to security and loss of status in the world. There also seemed to be an attractive solution: coax more women to these traditionally male fields. But there was not much public discussion about the reasons more women are not pursuing careers in these fields until 2005, when then Harvard University president Lawrence Summers offered his personal observations.
He suggested to an audience at a small economics conference near Boston that one of the major reasons women are less likely than men to achieve at the highest levels of scientific work is because fewer females have “innate ability” in these fields. In the wake of reactions to Summers’s provocative statement, a national debate erupted over whether intrinsic differences between the sexes were responsible for the underrepresentation of women in mathematical and scientific disciplines.
This article was originally published with the title Sex, Math and Scientific Achievement.
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51 Comments
Add CommentI like this article. It challenges the comment from authority which is Harvard President.Because It is so easy to lose confident if authority tells you that your brain just naturally cannot do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne glaring thing left out of all this is tempermental and motivational differences / and, or evolutionary reasons for the differences introduced by the different hormonal milieus in men vs women. We tend to look far too piecemeal at these abilities, which, like the rest of the body, should work in concert. Women have children, men do not. They have breasts. What does this say about the internal ability or pressures for women to be careful, caring, caregivers for example? These kinds of questions need to be asked. Maybe it is not all "prejudice" but motivational -- choices willingly made. Women seem not to persevere in science, and studies have shown large tempermental differences in males and females in perserverance behaviors even in infancy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuestion to the authors... The "Ladies' Choice" section states that teachers' perceptions of aptitude is reflected by later test scores even if objective measures contradict the teachers' perceptions. Is this the reason why females get higher grades in school yet score lower on standardized tests? Even if there is a different reason for that discrepancy, how is the bias here against women instead of against men?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe don`t have to forgive that womens are designed for the near space as she is who has a baby and the man has to care that space
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisso thanks and I am ...Luis
However much I hope that change has occurred, I think that the problem starts very early in life when adults have
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispreconceived notions of 'what little boys can do' and what little girls can do'.
In retrospect, I have concluded that teachers in my early school years put doubt into my head and psyche about my ability to do math. As a child I had a good memory and a quick mind. When faced with math problems, my answer would come so quickly the
teachers doubted me. When asked to explain how I achieved rhe answer, I was unable to do so because my thought processes were so rapid I could not reproduce them.
As a result, I began to doubt myself. My subsequent education was an uphill battle against other odds but I managed to become a physician when only a few women were admitted to medical school. To this day, I look
at a math problem and come up with a very accurate answer and cannot explain how I achieved that answer.
The doubt is still there.
bjkr
I left the engineering field because of the difficulty I encountered in being a female in a male dominated environement. I do not understand why women must work and produce twice as much as a male in order to maintain employment in these areas. Along with less chance of promotion, dealing with gender type slurs and put downs, is it any wonder women do not stay in these fields. I laugh at these professions that are worried about staffing, Serves you right!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the most productive female applicants are only as productive of the least productive male applicants, isn't it reason enough not to pick them rather than assume a gender bias in publication peer review process? Have I misunderstood something here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoremipa, I believe you have misunderstood. It seems to be a poorly worded passage. They should have mentioned explicitly how the observed productivity of women compared to the observed productivity of the men. It's doubtful that these metrics were distributed exactly the same between the men and the women, but apparently this is what we are to assume because it was a "shocking" revelation that women were not rated equally.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut it's doubtful that the weight assigned to each attribute by the peer reviewers was the same as what the researchers considered for their own composite score. There were 3 areas on which the women were rated, but the researchers used an arbitrary number of other statistics to test the feasibility of those 3 measures, without actually knowing the methods used by the peer reviewers. I would take the null hypothesis on this one... They haven't shown sexism at all, even if it does exist.
Just by simple logic, it would seem that the statistics used by the researchers would also put a bias against young up-and-coming scientists. Number of citations, number of publications, etc. It seems like the oldest scientists should win all grants. But this can't be the case since some of the most brilliant scientists do their best work when they are young. This is one thing the feminist researchers could have done to test the validity of their methods. How well does their ranking system predict how other groups receive grants?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I remember correctly, Summers only suggested innate differences as one possible explanation for the disparity of numbers. He was not asserting the truth of that proposition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood article but somewhat unbalanced. If training can overcome innate differences, why not train boys who are at a "profound disadvantage" on some basic skills. Instead, the authors lean on equalizing girls on the presumption that their underrepresentation in the sciences is the fundamental problem. An even more fundamental problem is the underrepresentation in the scientific disciplines agaisnt other disciplines. A solution enabling girls to compete better with boys (something they're already doing) is only a partial solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a similar bias against older people as against women: a self fulfilling prediction that they lose intellectual ability with age
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit is interesting but not relevant, since all of us can be trainned and perform well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe apparent looming "shortage of scientists, mathematicians and engineers in the U.S." may be what the current and near future crop of grad students and post-docs hope for so that they have some chance of getting a "permanent" position in their chosen profession.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article misrepresents Summers comments. For example, authors say: "If the lack of women in science were a reflection, in part, of lack of ability, then the take-home lesson would seem to be that we can do nothing but accept the natural order of things." "Then" doesn't follow from "if" in the above sentence. And anyway, Summers contemplated whether the "if" part is true. The thrust of his comment was that more research is neeeded to find the true reasons. And it is not his fault that his comments were twisted and assigned different meaning convenient for PC police.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course there are natural gifts or talents related to the brains biology. However, It also depends on the kind of questions that a person asks from childhood, and of course questions depend on what makes a person curious or fearful. Some people never stop learning men or women and can even acquire new talents by watching and studying them. However, of course, time, money, and psychological wellness are important dimensions for achieving this. So mathematic is an art and a talent, it can be learned and it needs practice like any other art
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo wonder Einstein was male! -JR
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Article explains in detail about factors that decide, Quantitative and Verbal skills in Men and Women, apart from the general notion in which one particular sex is favoured. However as no methods are explained by which we Improve the current situation of Women, it falls short of its objective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is amazing how poorly they cite Summers assertions on the issue. Actually the article and Summers opinions are quite comparable, with a difference in emphasis. Summers never stated that the ONLY reason for the underrepresentation of female scientist was difference of sexes. Neither that it was the MAIN reason. For Summers the main reason was that the long hours required for top positions were harder for women than for men, because women take more responsability on home matters. And both conclude that there is much to be done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by el_robert at 12/07/2007 8:53 AM
Spiralsun: Please provide citations for the literature on male:female differences in perseverence behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazing. They essentially repeat Summers's exact points, while going along with mobthinky nonsense about Summers having said "chicks are DUMB!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a lot of anecdotal evidence based on actual individual actions where there is no barrier-to-entry. For example, the news rack at the checkout stand. Which magazine does the woman choose, which magazine does the man choose? What books do men and women check out at the local library? I belong to a amateur radio club, men join but woman don't? Woman and men, at the individual level, are making "sexist" decisions that are conveniently overlooked in our politically correct environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsider the possibility that risk may be more of an issue than ability. Whether women nurture or not, they must choose the environment for possible birth and raising of children. Science and math are considered much higher risk occupations in a career sense than are many others. One's ability to provide may be sharply affected by one's ability to take risks. That is not to say that women cannot take risk, only that they may be more risk averse on average than men. Hopefully, that is true, because on them depends the future of our species. That thought appears to be both encouraged and enforced upon girls and women of all ages. On average, smaller size and vulnerability during parts of their life cycle would certainly emphasize a tendency towards risk and conflict avoidance. Translating that directly to math and science may not be reasonable, but it deserves study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would say that by the time people are making choices at the checkout counter, the die has been cast, and nature and nurture have become inextricably mixed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor crying out loud. The authors are invited to take a sociology or political science course once in a while.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe process of becoming a scientist works against a woman's biological clock. Four years of undergrad, 4-6 years of grad school plus 4 years of post doc research put a woman into her mid 30s before she even has a chance for a tenured position. This can be discouraging to a potential woman scientist who also wants a family.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen young women are told (by older women, usually) "Don't worry about math, I flunked it and still have a life", you can expect that the pressure to perform in mathematics is dissipated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf so-called natural abilities determine success in given professions, one would expect women to dominate in fields demanding writing skills and far outnumber men as successful novelists, playwrights, editors, journalists, and the like. That this is not the case suggests that something more than hormones is at work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne factor not mentioned is that math is often miserably taught, so that only those determined to be scientists or engineers at a very early age are willing to struggle beyond the superficial jumble taught in the schools. The prejudice against math as incomprehensible and something to be avoided is shared by most men with Ph.Ds in the humanities for the same reason, I suspect.
A gender divide in science aptitude kind of makes sense. Since earliest of times men have been hunters and breadwinners, which has forced them to think more objectively. They have been required to look outside themselves at the world around them in order to be successful hunters. Women, on the other hand, have been required to deal with husbands, children, and relatives in order to keep peace in the family. This has forced them to be more introspective and to be more subjective in their thinking. Women are by no means dumb, they just think differently. Just by nature of the way genetics works, a subset of women will think more objectively and excel in science just as a subset of men will be people-persons and gravitate toward dress design (for example).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a shame that right wing religious and political influence on education has gone so far as to appoint school presidents with such backward thinking as Larry Summers. Harvard has a very high standard, so I wonder how many others like him are to be found around the country. Our daughters don't need to be told that they can't, or that they don't have the natural ability. Sure, there are differences between us, but we will not understand the real one's as long as we are inventing artificial differences. Yes, Spiral. They have breasts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI often adhere to the belief that evolutionary and biological gender differences influence our behavior. But I believe that, in this case, it is mostly a social issue. The part of the article titled "Ladies" Choice" touches on this. But, just coming from a more experiential perspective, how many of us know women that say "I hate math." There, of course, are men that seem the same way. But overall, I think it became popular for a long time to hate math... It was as if people were "above" math. I notice this with a lot of artists and writers (something the article says women excel at).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, if the writers are likely to hate math, and the women tend to be better at writing, then it is possible that the women are more likely to pick up on the social characteristic of hating math.
I think the reason this has gone down over the years is that now, being good at as many things as possible is becoming more popular. Women are less inhibited by their gender to choose a math or science career.
cont.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by Parapraxis Rex at 01/09/2008 6:24 AM
Therefore, more of them seek out careers they are interested in rather than careers they "should" be interested in. We must remember that women's suffrage was not that long ago. We are still catching up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI want to also say that I am not suggesting there are NO gender differences in intelligence, brain usage, etc. But, I am saying that this issue in particular seems to be more influenced by socialization than anything. I would have liked to read more about cross-cultural studies on the issue. The Swedish one was surprising.
I suppose we will have to wait and see. I think we can make much better assumptions on this issue in about 50 years. Hopefully I will live to see it.
Women know acutely how often 1 plus 1 does not equal two. Experience tells them that math is often divorced from the "real" world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it has to do with personal preferences and i believe it is genetics as well. Please don't blame the society or the stereo type we are much smarter today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do we not celebrate these differences and exploit them rather than try to overcome them. Why do girls have to what boys do? Lets value each other equally whilst we do different things. Let the best visuo-spatial performers get the enhanced visuo-spatial training and let the verbally gifted receive ehanced training in that area.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat young children know from experience, supposedly educated elite tacitly deny. It's ultimately Orwellian.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[i]"Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense."[/i] - George Orwell, 1984
Western feminism promotes a belief that all men and women are equally endowed with a desire for dominance and control and possess an aptitude for same. All can be uplifted, and all brought to see that sexual equality is the one true path to peace in our world. In androgyny lies our salvation. Nothing could be more misguided.
No amount of wishful thinking or ideological zealotry is going to reverse the natural complimentary nature of men and women and make them identical.
[i]"It may readily be conceived that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded, and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women."[/i] - Alexis de Tocqueville, 1831
The genders are not equal in their innate ability to learn English or math, as they are not equal in their ability to play sports, music or chess any more than all males or females are equal. Clearly some of each gender has greater mental abilities, moral character and more pronounced physical attributes than others.
A second-grader knows that, but our "intellectual" elites reject it as bigotry and blasphemy against the egalitarian dogmas that define who they are.
The authors hint at the significantly greater variance of the Gaussian distribution of all male traits over female traits ([url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence]See Plot: Variance in IQ[/url]) including mathematical ability stating:
[i]"For reasons that are not yet fully understood, it turns out that males are much more variable in their mathematical ability, meaning that females of any age are more clustered toward the center of the distribution of skills and males are spread out toward the ends. As a result, men outnumber women at the very high and very low ends of the distribution."[/i]
The authors fail to acknowledge that the observed differences in the variability of skills between the sexes can be explained genetically. Many brain-related genes are located on the X chromosome, of which women have two copies and men only one. A mutation in one of these genes, whether positive or negative, will thus have a higher impact in males than in females (where the second, presumably non-mutated copy will mitigate the effect of the mutated one).
The authors continue suggesting that the far greater variability in mathematical ability, well scientifically established in the eighties, is now disappearing without citing a reference or countering the proposed genetic explanation.
It is important to note that this difference in variability between the sexes is of genetic origin and not environmental, and no amount of politically correct thinking can change the fact that there are significantly more very smart and very dumb men than women. It is sheer folly or wishful thinking to suggest that the smartest men can be replaced by equally smart women by any form of affirmative action. Replacing America’s smartest men with fifty percent women will simply result in more bad decisions and less progress.
For a little humor and more information one must review the [url http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html]Pinker vs. Spelke Debate[/url] entitled [i]The Science of Gender and Science.[/i] (That’s really the title. Using the word “science†twice makes it doubly scientific.) We have Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker, an admitted feminist paying homage to Gloria Steinem, with hair that would make his female opponent jealous arguing for the men and Harvard psychology professor Elizabeth Spelke, Co-Director of the [i]Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative[/i] of Harvard arguing for the women.
I would recommend reading "[url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence]Sex and Intelligence[/url]" prior to staking our nations future on recruiting more women to solve our science and engineering shortage.
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Edited by Lloyd Selberg at 01/15/2008 5:51 AM
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Edited by Lloyd Selberg at 01/15/2008 5:54 AM
to me i think the brain compositionresponsible for this.I believe that a male's brain can withstand emotional and psychological stress experienced during the cause of an experiment.The female's brain though emotionally dynamic is incapable of hangover after a major scientific work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI honestly think all of this is ridiculous. Why fight it? If we can prove that men are naturally better at (or more interested in) science and math, then why force something that is not supposed to be. It says that women are naturally better at verbal skills than men, but you don't see men getting all up tight about the young boys being pushed to pursue a social service career. If we were to give these girls "extra training" in these fields are the young boys going to have the opportunity for this training. How about instead of trying to fight it we give these boys the extra training in science and girls extra training in social skills. If you find something a person or sex in this case is good at why not encourage the corresponding sex to really excel in that field. Are we so caught up in "equal rights" to the point where we are putting the thought in young girls that they have to fight the man and overcome them. Instead of equal rights i think we should call it equal respect. Respect women for their attributes to society and equally respect men for theirs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anyone else see a problem when the six authors of this article defy reason and logic and come to a politically correct but irrational conclusion? Has scientific method become secondary to politically correct egalitarian beliefs and feminist promoted androgyny?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe authors suggest that Larry Summers provoked a much needed public debate, yet failed to explain the consequences resulting from public pressure at his quite legitimate and rational statement.
In January 2005, Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, unintentionally provoked a public controversy when MIT biologist Nancy Hopkins leaked comments he made at a closed economics conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In analyzing the disproportionate numbers of men over women in high-end science and engineering jobs, he suggested that, after the conflict between employers' demands for high time commitments and women's disproportionate role in the raising of children, the next most important factor might be the above-mentioned greater variance in intelligence among men than women, and that this difference in variance might be intrinsic, adding that he "would like nothing better than to be proved wrong".
The controversy generated a great deal of media attention, forced Summers to make a number of apologies, and led Harvard to commit $50 million to the recruitment and hiring of women faculty. One might conclude that in the arena of public opinion, even a male Harvard President can’t suggest anything other then egalitarian beliefs and more feminist input is the solution.
Could the problem be that the universities today are so filled with products of women’s studies that have taught for years that math and science are phallocentric disciplines ill suited to the feminine way of knowing? For decades now, we have educated women to believe that their feelings and wishful thinking can and does replace the scientific method.
Permitting the irrational feminist ideology to supersede a scientifically rational solution of supporting and exploiting the males with exceptional math and scientific traits seems to be the authors’ message. The authors have learned from the public crucifixion of Summers that if they don’t wish to experience the same, they must ignore science and follow political correctness.
The authors (and members here) need to take a look at Sonnert's articles in the April 1998 issue of Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery year large corporations lobby congress saying that there is not enough scientists and engineers, they lobby for laws like the America Competes law. These laws are designed to allow these companies to import people from other countries to work. They do this because its cheaper. Meanwhile millions of students go into college thinking theyre going to make a killing as an engineer or scientist but find that theres no demand for American scientists. Its all bull shit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAtheistsAreTedious...you dont understand any of the issues about labour shortages and about immigration. Your arguments are weak. But people are limited in how much brain power they have....some more than others so I'll let your arguments go by quietly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're going wrong on this site! It is males, NOT females, who have more grey matters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121100142.htm
Many other scientific resourses say this. I hope you stop deviating facts on this site just to compromize with women. Facts should be said as they are; otherwise you're losing your credibility.
Micho
There is a simple, maybe not very scientific test; look at what woman do when there is virtually "no cost" to their freedom of action.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, how many woman would choose to join an amateur radio club? How many woman, on their own volition would buy a computer programming book?
Very few woman seem willing to invest their time in these activities even though they have the free will to choose these activities.
Math has never claimed to be married to the real world. (treat it as a mental game) Serendipitously some of math corresponds surprisingly (and often surreptitiously) close to the real world. Men know this! (just teasing - forgive me please)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is misrepresenting Summers view as being being exclusive to the "innate" difference, whereas in fact it covered the majority of other reason covered in this article. This author should have done a better job researching his comments before writing this piece, or knows this and chose to distort Summers comments anyways. Way to go.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGuys. Just because whatever you've observed in your own limited realm of experience seems seems to highly correlate to whatever belief you've built up and are now looking to defend, does not mean you can pass these perceived correlations off as science. These days, the evidence is very great that it's mostly societal factors which effect math performance. Modern studies find that, in this day and age where little girls are (mostly) actually told that they can do whatever little boys can do, there is no difference in math scores in schools. In most states, test scores are equal; in some, girls average a little higher, and visa versa. The only real differences that seem to be pervading are involved with "sexuality, aggression, and motor skills." This makes perfect sense with respect to real neuroscience and endocrinology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the coming decades, we will see many great female minds emerging in the fields of math and science. It will continue to be slow for a while, as in the professional world as a whole continues to engage in sexist behavior. But the youngest boys of today, many of them are learning quickly that they have no mental advantage over their female classmates.
The greatest output of female contribution will come at a time when women are no longer judged primarily on their sexual appeal. When young girls will no longer grow up to find themselves shunned by their peers for choosing science and education over cosmetics and gossip. When they grow up believing that the breadth of their intelligence is what makes "sexy" and desirable, and yet at the same time being desirable no longer has to be their main concern.
But for now, there continues to exist men (and even women) who will just read these words and laugh, and shake their heads...
Oh and here is a good link to modern research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.spring.org.uk/2008/07/are-boys-better-than-girls-at-maths.php
Love this article, but I think girls can also get better in math, only if they can get more involved like through playing math games like http://mathiqgames.com = they are pretty fun & actually teach a valuable skill.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore feminist propaganda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this