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I'll probably get a bunch of down votes for saying this, but anyway... I suspect that is has a lot to do with the varying IQ distributions between the genders.

by makosdv 10y ago

I'll probably get a bunch of down votes for saying this, but anyway... I suspect that is has a lot to do with the varying IQ distributions between the genders. Females tend to be closer to the mean, whereas males have wider variance. If you are of average intelligence, calculus just won't make sense to you and that will end your STEM education right there. There are just more males with above average intelligence than there are females, so naturally more males will "survive" calculus to continue in STEM fields. On the other hand, there are more males with below average intelligence than females, which is one reason why most criminals are males.

jdmichal 10y ago
It looks like the idea has been studied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence#Mathematics_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc... In a 2008 study paid for by the National Science Foundation in the United States, researchers found that... while boys and girls performed similarly on average, boys were over-represented among the very best performers as well as among the very worst.
tzs 10y ago
I've heard it described as men having 'more dumbbells but more Nobels'. I believe that came from Helena Cronin of the Darwin Centre at the London School of Economics.