
Women and Mathematics - pchristensen
http://micromath.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/women-and-mathematics/
======
dilanj
48% of the class of '06 at MIT were female (up from like 2% back in the day)
and most of them were serious hackers. Yet today almost all of the girls who
didn’t go to grad school are working for either a large corporation or an
investment bank.

With the whole goddamn responsibility of keeping humanity alive on top of them
undoubtedly there’s a genetic disposition for women to be more risk averse.
Math and programming are relatively precarious. That though probably is easily
overcome, since women have clearly been extremely competent in pretty much
every other field now for decades.

So the problem has to lie in social conditioning. Cultural expectation and
etiquette has always been the most powerful destroyer of potential in both men
and women. Tradition is THE enemy.

(Heard this joke? Why do baby boys wear blue and baby girls wear pink? Because
they don’t have a fucking choice.)

~~~
antipc
Hi, you appear to be brainwashed by the PC establishment. Try this experiment:
attempt to think for yourself for a few months. (Try out the craziest
thoughts! If they're 'scandalous' you don't have to run them by other people,
just evaluate them for yourself.)

Also, think critically about the people who promote these views. Most of them
aren't very smart (in the sense that a tenured professor with awards can still
be an idiot), or have a vested interest in promoting these views (typically
racial).

Here's the first Google hit I could find disproving your joke. Someone else
can find a blog post where a lesbian buys her daughter a firetruck and the
girl begins to nurse the firetruck.

The world evolves in a certain way for a reason. Do you think this is the
first era in which people thought that everyone might be equal? This is the
first era in which we've had the luxury to attempt the experiment. The results
are in: people aren't equal. Pack it up and go home. We're all tired of
hearing this drivel.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/boys-like-blue-
gir...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/boys-like-blue-girls-like-
pink--its-in-our-genes-462390.html)

~~~
DaniFong
I don't think dilanj is suggesting that no biologically driven differences
exist. I think that the argument is that at MIT there's a preselected, science
focused group of women, who have their professional involvement with math
decrease dramatically as they enter the working world and need to support
themselves. There's a strong, though not certain case for a cultural effect
here.

And by the way, on color?

"In Western culture, the practice of assigning pink to an individual gender
began in the 1920s. From then until the 1940s, pink was considered appropriate
for boys because it was the more masculine and decided color while blue was
considered appropriate for girls because it was the more delicate and dainty
color. Since the 1940s, the societal norm apparently inverted so that pink
became appropriate for girls and blue appropriate for boys, a practice that
has continued into the 21st century"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink>

~~~
DabAsteroid
_women, who have their professional involvement with math decrease
dramatically as they enter the working world and need to support themselves.
There's a strong, though not certain case for a cultural effect here._

It would be interesting if this phenomenon were correlated with 2D:4D ratio,
wouldn't it? <http://www.google.com/search?q=steve+sailer+finger+length>

~~~
homme
Even more interesting; the erudite scholars vanguard inquiry into the nature
of a gay germ:
[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=steve+sailer+gay+ge...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=steve+sailer+gay+germ&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=)

Brilliance. To be cited in Nature, surely.

------
glymor
This is crap.

5 paragraphs of how mathematics has higher standards of rigour. Completed by a
muddled argument supported only by a quote and apocryphal reports.

Also, "snow" falling over text makes it hard to read, as would be obvious.

------
quoderat
Women are socially (and, perhaps, otherwise) conditioned to avoid those
society perceives as loser-types.

Unfortunately, mathematicians still fit this mold, as much as I wish it
weren't so.

This alone largely explains the absence of women in math, much as it explains
the absence of women in my field, IT.

~~~
reh297
Having been a woman for most of my life (and a girl for the rest of it), I can
assure you that women don't avoid fields applying mathematics just because
they don't want to hang out with loser-types. In fact, I find most women try
to pursue things they enjoy, more so than avoid things they may hate (like
losers, or long division, per se).

If there's a lack of women in IT, it's probably because they don't enjoy it,
or aren't encouraged to pursue it. Most women don't make professional
decisions hoping to increase their chances of havin' a cutie in the next
cubicle.

~~~
quoderat
"Most women don't make professional decisions hoping to increase their chances
of havin' a cutie in the next cubicle."

Not consciously, anyway. And it doesn't have anything to do with "havin' a
cutie," it's more to avoid going into fields with a social stigma associated
with them and their typical practitioners.

This social stigma is decreasing (even in IT -- "geek" is no longer an
insult), but nevertheless it is still there.

For whatever reason, women seem to be more influenced by social cues -- or
perhaps just influenced differently than men. It's not wrong -- it just is.
Therefore, my guess is that a lot of the gender disparity is still extant for
social stigma reasons and the concomitant avoidance of that stigma.

~~~
DaniFong
I think the social stigma argument is oversimplified. Nerds often just trade
the standard status hierarchy for another, governed by more nerdly pursuits.
Yet positive nerd social spaces and stereotypes for boys are much more
accessible than those for girls.

------
schtog
Is it raining pixels on that site? I see white pixels moving from top to
bottom of the site...

~~~
Prrometheus
I don't have the best eyesight in the world, my whole family basically
consists of mole people, so that site freaked me out. I thought something was
going wrong with me.

------
russell
I would suggest that girls form study groups. My daughter and 4 of her girl
friends formed one in her senior year in high school for English, Calculus,
Physics, etc. My daughter got a lot from it. Two of the girls were
valedictorians; all went to top schools. It succeeded because they were
motivated to get into good schools and the the simple model probably doesn't
scale. School sponsored pairings in science didn't work so well because
personality problems and differences in dedication.

Has anyone had experience (or their kids) with online study groups,
particularly with collaborative aids?

~~~
jimbokun
Why did you choose to phrase that "I would suggest that girls form study
groups" and not "I would suggest that all students form study groups?" Just
because you have a daughter? Because the topic of the article is about women
and mathematics? Or because there is something about study groups that
especially helps girls, but not boys?

~~~
russell
The topic was women and mathematics, but I phrased it that way because of the
sexual dynamics of mixed groups of teenagers. Because boys tend to be more
skilled at math, they will show off and the girls will tend to become more
passive. The boys' competitiveness will dominate. Of course, study groups for
boys are a good thing too.

