CibbuanoWhy are there more men in math and science
December 11th 2007 18:46
One reason for dropping attendances in math-heavy science majors may be the raw fact that there are so few women. All that's left are sad, helpless geeks, good with computers and integrals, but unable to score a date.
Having studied in sciences, I can relate to the pain. Out of a class of 70, less than 10 were female, which was hard to bear.
Why is that? It's easy to say that girls are not encouraged to be good at math and sciences, which is definitely true in Western countries.
Is this true in Asian countries? When I taught in China, I found that more women were studying in math and sciences, but those field were still dominated by men.
It'd be easy to fall back on the old arguments that men have stronger skills with math... how can we realistically measure this? These claims are often met with jeers of derision.
In light of this controversial topic, Scientific American has a lengthy article about the differences between men and women in math. It's an important topic, as, if we really want to see equality between the sexes, women need to feel comfortable to be proficient in these subjects.
From the article:
From my own experiences, I can refute and support these claims. Growing up, the girls in my classes easily outperformed me in writing and artistic classes. However, I strongly feel that I had the sense that I shouldn't be too good at these subject, and that I should be proficient at math and science.
It's not a stretch to see that girls perhaps carry the same bias.
At the same time, at university, though my classes were primarily stocked with men, the women that were in my major were superstars, highly intelligent and very perceptive with mathematics.
And what about this study, which found that women scored better on math exams when no men were present?
Or this open letter from Earlham U:
My personal opinion on this topic is simple: we should do everything we can, as adults, to try and impress on women that math and science are beautiful areas of study, and that there's no shame in being interested in these subjects.
"
Having studied in sciences, I can relate to the pain. Out of a class of 70, less than 10 were female, which was hard to bear.
Why is that? It's easy to say that girls are not encouraged to be good at math and sciences, which is definitely true in Western countries.
Is this true in Asian countries? When I taught in China, I found that more women were studying in math and sciences, but those field were still dominated by men.
It'd be easy to fall back on the old arguments that men have stronger skills with math... how can we realistically measure this? These claims are often met with jeers of derision.
In light of this controversial topic, Scientific American has a lengthy article about the differences between men and women in math. It's an important topic, as, if we really want to see equality between the sexes, women need to feel comfortable to be proficient in these subjects.
From the article:
"Because grades and overall test scores depend on many factors, psychologists have turned to assessing better-defined cognitive skills to understand these sex differences. Preschool children seem to start out more or less even, because girls and boys, on average, perform equally well in early cognitive skills that relate to quantitative thinking and knowledge of objects in the surrounding environment.
Around the time school begins, however, the sexes start to diverge. By the end of grade school and beyond, females perform better on most assessments of verbal abilities. In a 1995 review of the vast literature on writing skills, University of Chicago researchers Larry Hedges (now at Northwestern University) and Amy Nowell put it this way: “The large sex differences in writing … are alarming. The data imply that males are, on average, at a rather profound disadvantage in the performance of this basic skill.” There is also a female advantage in memory of faces and in episodic memory—memory for events that are personally experienced and are recalled along with information about each event’s time and place."
Around the time school begins, however, the sexes start to diverge. By the end of grade school and beyond, females perform better on most assessments of verbal abilities. In a 1995 review of the vast literature on writing skills, University of Chicago researchers Larry Hedges (now at Northwestern University) and Amy Nowell put it this way: “The large sex differences in writing … are alarming. The data imply that males are, on average, at a rather profound disadvantage in the performance of this basic skill.” There is also a female advantage in memory of faces and in episodic memory—memory for events that are personally experienced and are recalled along with information about each event’s time and place."
It's not a stretch to see that girls perhaps carry the same bias.
At the same time, at university, though my classes were primarily stocked with men, the women that were in my major were superstars, highly intelligent and very perceptive with mathematics.
And what about this study, which found that women scored better on math exams when no men were present?
Or this open letter from Earlham U:
"Women are just as good at math as men. At Earlham, half the math majors are women, and those women include some of our strongest majors. Half the students in our elementary classes are women. A survey of recent calculus classes showed equal numbers of male and female students. The average female student scored about half a letter grade better than the average male student."
My personal opinion on this topic is simple: we should do everything we can, as adults, to try and impress on women that math and science are beautiful areas of study, and that there's no shame in being interested in these subjects.
"
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Comment by Anonymous
I think the preference stems from childhood. Men would build things out of blocks, Lincoln logs, ect. (As a child so did I) Girls use their imagination. Play house and makeover their dolls. If you think about it, a molecular formula is a lot like connecting pieces of a puzzle, so for those who like to put things together, chemistry is fun.
If we want our young ladies to enjoy these subjects, sneak a set of legos, or Lincoln logs under the tree or in the Easter basket. Encourage them to create something!