Who Says Women Can’t Do Numbers?
 
Why don’t we see girls filling half the seats in college math and science classes? And let’s include one of my favorites in the bundle as well—computer science.
 
We know from studies that boys and girls are equally interested in computers at school until about age ten. After that point, girls’ interest decreases . . . unless they’re in a girls-only school.  The same trajectory is seen for math and the physical sciences in coed classes. Now I’m not advocating separate schooling based on gender, but I want to know why this is happening. As I see it, here are the possible reasons:
 

• Girls veer away from what they think of as “boys’ courses,” or
• Boys hog the teachers’ attention in these subjects in coed classes, or
• Girls think they’ll be more attractive to boys if they dumb-down in the boys’ classes, or
• Stereotyping about what’s appropriate for girls is being picked up in most schools, or
• Maybe girls are more interested in subjects that relate more directly with people, or
• In the case of colleges, perhaps it’s because female instructors in these courses are not promoted as quickly to full professors, or 
• Perhaps it’s a combination of these factors.

When I was a physics student at Berkeley in the late 1960’s, I was well aware there were very few women in my classes. It was my belief that we’d see equal numbers of women and men by the 1980’s.  Women are capable, so what’s the problem? I have an interest in eliminating this trend, because I believe our daughters’ occupations are limited unnecessarily. On the bright side, there are things we can do. Elementary school teachers have found if they have girls’ computer classes separate from boys’, the girls stop thinking of computers as boys’ stuff. This also works well with after-school clubs. In England, a change in educational presentation worked equally well with both girls and boys. The trick is to catch the girls’ interest well before high school.
 
I profess women do not have an innate handicap when it comes to these subjects. Stanford University professors agreed in a 2005 forum that there is no evidence of innate gender differences in math and science.
 
“In fact, differences in performance between males and females have shrunk to nearly insignificant levels on most standardized tests, “ said Jo Boaler of Stanford University. “There is a huge belief that boys are better at math which is vastly out of proportion to any data that we have, yet people believe it. You go into schools and the children will tell you that.” Referring to changes in educational presentation in England, Boaler states, “When teaching approaches are changed, you get much higher rates of achievement and participation among girls and women.”
 
When women do choose to take these courses, they do as well as the men. The problem is that in the U.S. they are not choosing these fields—and this is limiting their occupational choices.
 
We have to thank Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University, for making us raise our voices when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. I profess we should look into why only 4 of 32 tenured job offers went to women at Harvard last year. Knowing that 6 out of every 10 college graduates are now women—maybe something else is hampering women’s success in the tenure process.
 
Ten years ago, Lawrence Summers’ comment would have been considered a minor misstep. It would not have reached the level of a politically incorrect gaffe. Today, times are a-changing. And to prove the point, due to an uproar, Summers stepped down from his post and the new president is Drew Faust—a woman. 
 
 
Tip:  If you live near a college or university, collect statistics on what percentage of tenured positions are offered to women. Let your news media know if you see a disparity that should be looked into. Nancy Hopkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began turning things around when she exposed problems in how much lab space they had granted to women compared to men. I have to hand it them—they acknowledged their mistake and expanded the investigation into other areas as well. And . . . MIT now has a new president, Susan Hockfield.
 
 
Further Reading:
 
Podcast (always less than 10 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, 3 Steps To Gain More Authority —Take These Steps Towards Leadership & Authority
 
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, How Successful Women Use Power —Hint, It’s Not An End In Itself
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Kimberly Wiefling,  How to Get Out of Your Own Way
—5 Strategies for Thinking Outside the Box
The New York Times, For Women in Sciences, Slow Progress in Academia, by Sara Rimer, April 15, 2005
 
Stanford University, No Evidence of Innate Gender Differences in Math and Science, Stanford Report, February 9, 2005
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Tags: women, math, science, technology, gender, differences