
Girls’ advantage in reading can largely explain the gender gap in STEM - mpweiher
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/09/1905779116
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johnrbent
I don't know much about this field (and I did not purchase the full article),
but it seems like quite a leap to assume this is a source of the gender-gap.
First of all, you're talking about 80% of one standard deviation difference in
reading-to-math scores between males and females - that doesn't seem like
enough to study it as the cause of anything.

And how does being better at reading steer people away from STEM? There is
just as much reading going on in STEM as out, and arguably more intensive
reading in.

It seems like the score difference is probably related to the gender-gap
somehow, but I doubt it is a cause. I would be interested in reading the
article if it was freely available.

~~~
hackeraccount
The funny version I heard was basically that girls are like super humans
compared to boys. They're good at Math but they're also good at non-Math too.
The boys on the other hand are bad at Math compared to the girls. They're also
bad at non-Math but they're not equally bad. They're really really bad at non-
Math and merely bad at Math.

What to do? For the boys the choice is easy - go with what you're best at. For
the girls on the other hand it's harder - what do you do if you're good at
everything? The answer is to do whatever you enjoy the most. So all the boys
go into STEM and the girls spread their talents all over the map.

It's probably not a true deception of reality but it's certainly a funny one.

~~~
jbob2000
I’ve had this thought that intelligence and talent is actually very limiting.
You need to be a little stupid to sit in front of a computer for 10 hours
straight. You need to be a little stupid to go into a coal mine, or work on a
fishing boat, or chase down criminals.

As much as we like to think talent = productivity, maybe it’s more of a curve?
You need to be _just_ talented enough to maximize productivity. Too much
talent and you never get anything done.

~~~
braindouche
It's a thing, and well-studied, at least on some levels. The top achievers in
any given high school cohort usually aren't the kids with the highest measured
IQs, for instance, and the kids with the highest measured IQs aren't usually
more successful after graduation.

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tyingq
I wonder how this theory squares with the relatively high percentage of women
that are accountants, tax advisors, investment professionals, actuaries, etc.

~~~
dragonwriter
Obviously, those (as well as, say, the biological sciences) are not “math
intensive fields”, despite appearances to the contrary, whereas churning out
CRUD apps _is_ math intensive...

EDIT: Or, to be fair to the authors, other factors besides relative reading
ability, as well as as accounting for the other 20% of the gender gap in math-
intensive fields in general, also explain the gender distribution between
particular math-intensive fields.

~~~
norswap
I was puzzled by "churning out CRUD apps is math intensive" \- could you
explain?

I do agree that the aforementioned fields are not necessarily math-intensive —
except investment professional in certain cases.

~~~
michaelt
dragonwriter is being facetious.

An accountant or tax adviser needs reasonable applied math skills, but isn't
likely to need to know the difference between a cardinality and a cartesian
product.

Likewise, most working programmers don't need to know the difference in their
day-to-day work - although they might need to in order to pass a CS degree as
a gateway to getting hired.

~~~
tyingq
The premise of the article, though, doesn't seem to hinge on higher level or
complex math.

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Bostonian
I see vastly more attention given to areas where girls are under-represented,
with the belief that such disparities are inequities to be fixed, than I do to
areas where males perform worse. It seems that male deficits are largely
accepted. Could the male disadvantage in reading be reduced by different
instructional methods (more phonics) or with reading material that appeals to
boys?

~~~
DanBC
> than I do to areas where males perform worse.

This is only because you're not looking.

~~~
darklion
Can you point to fields where male under-representation is given the same
weight as fields with male over-representation?

This isn't a troll--I'm genuinely interested in seeing which fields and areas
are trying to promote more balanced gender representation.

~~~
michaelt
There are campaigns for things like nursing [1]

    
    
      “Through these campaigns [...] to challenge the
      stereotypical image of nursing as a female career so the
      increase of 9% among male applicants (19% among 18 year
      olds) is particularly excellent news.
    

Also for things like teaching [2].

And for things like professional-level ballet schools recruit 50% male and 50%
female, despite many more female applicants, due to the practical needs of
teaching partnering.

[1] [https://www.england.nhs.uk/2019/02/young-male-nursing-
applic...](https://www.england.nhs.uk/2019/02/young-male-nursing-applicants-
surge-after-we-are-the-nhs-recruitment-campaign/) [2]
[https://www.tes.com/news/so-you-want-get-more-men-primary-
te...](https://www.tes.com/news/so-you-want-get-more-men-primary-teaching)

------
mac_was
Maybe just most women aren’t interested in STEM, like most men aren’t
interested in hairdressing? Those who are, both men and women, can get jobs as
I see women being very good programmers and men being very good hair dressers

~~~
peatmoss
We tend to see differences and fit an explanation.

\- For some, the differences are explainable by completely benign reasons
(“girls just aren’t interested / girls have a comparative advantage in non-
STEM fields”),

\- others see a conspiracy of intention (“men are trying to keep women out”),

\- others see a malevolent but unconscious system (“thoughtless behaviors
drive women away”),

\- others see a relatively benign but unconscious system (“girls are given
dolls where boys are given computers”)

I am old enough to remember being bullied in school for being into computers.
I remember one or two girls along the way that hung out with the rest of us
nerds in the computer labs. Nobody much cared about the gender breakdown as
far as I could tell—most of the adult men and women I knew expressed something
between distaste and hostility to the notion that a youngster would waste so
much time on these stupid toys.

I think once computers established their bonafides as an economic ladder,
people started to take note. But by that time, those of us relegated to hiding
from bullies in the computer labs came to be the face of the computer
industry. I suspect that probably exerts subtle pressure on the younger
generation to conform (“these people don’t look like me, listen to my music,
understand my culture, share my gender—I guess this just isn’t what my people
do.”

I suspect people encounter some degree of all of these things. This kind of
research study is interesting in trying to suss our relative contribution.

~~~
flipcoder
> I am old enough to remember being bullied in school for being into
> computers.

Yep, when I was young, even some of my teachers and other adults tried to
dissuade me from computers and programming. I remember being mocked and
ridiculed by other kids, and no one was incentivizing it when I was in school.
If anything, people were avoiding it because it was uncool. I always thought
it was the social stigma present in their own peer groups that were keeping
them away from it, and not gatekeeping, at least from what I witnessed.

------
darkwater
Is this suggesting that girls do not choose STEM faculties because they can
read better so they like more humanistic faculties, where there are more texts
(as in literature books) to read? Or my text comprehension is that bad?

~~~
orwin
Not exactly. From what i understood, this article is telling that if someone
feel he is better at reading/comprehension than he is at math, he is more
likely to not go into math-related field, regardless of his math performance
compared to the average. To dumb it up, most of the time, you don't go into a
math-related field because you compare your math skills with other, but
because you compare your math skills with your own reading skills (at least
when you're young).

It feels right, it was a really tough choice between math and philosophy for
me and only peer pressure sent me to STEMs (and i sometime regret it). I'm
gonna wait until replication is done until i define an opinion.

~~~
jdavis703
Me and my sister were homeschooled and only one grade level apart.

So this ancedote is kind of like a twin study. We both did great at reading,
in most years on standardized California Achievement Tests we'd be in the 98th
or top percentile for reading. On the other hand for math we were always below
the median, sometimes our score was so low we were in danger of the state
forcing us to be in public school.

These results probably aren't surprising, we both had essentially the same
educational experience.

Interestingly enough we both went on to different universities with full
scholarships. She chose creative writing. I (he) chose information technology.

I don't know what can explain this aside from random variation, because this
study certainly doesn't explain this well.

~~~
jbob2000
When growing up, did you equally share duties around the house?

One of the guys I grew up with was the middle child between two girls. Girls
never had to do chores, he helped with garbage and dishes, and in later years,
helped with renos and yard work.

My point being that he was basically trained from birth to be productive,
whereas his sisters were always allowed to explore their creativities (since
they didn’t have to do chores). His sisters both have liberal arts degrees and
have bounced around jobs, but he owns a very successful landscaping company.

~~~
jdavis703
I like to think so. We were both essentially left with the order of "the house
should be clean when I get home from work." From there we usually rotated dish
washing, tidying common areas, etc.

