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Either on the whole females are fundamentally less capable of excelling in mathematical subjects or it's a societal thing. I believe it's the latter. I think t

by tkahn6 16y ago

Either on the whole females are fundamentally less capable of excelling in mathematical subjects or it's a societal thing. I believe it's the latter. I think the article hit it on the head: "girls are often told that's OK and try something else, but boys are encouraged to work harder." Math is fun because it's challenging and part of my motivation comes from my peers', parents', and teachers' expectations that I excel. I think the problem rises from a combination of: "Math is hard... let's go shopping!" and more insidiously "Physics is hard... let's go to English class!" I've seen a few really smart girls get frustrated with physics or chemistry, give up, write it off, and then focus their effort on english or history or some other humanities class.

SlyShy 16y ago
Girls have dreadfully few role models too, and certainly aren't properly encouraged by mainstream culture to cultivate ability in the hard sciences and mathematics. I think it'll get better in future generations, however. I've spoken to a lot of programmers who are now raising daughters who are curious, tech literate, and not afraid to act smart. That ought to be encouraging. It's certainly a problem in this generation though. I was just at the Minneapolis Hacker News meetup, and it was 100% male.
gruseom 16y ago
My favorite professor was a mathematician who did her doctorate at Zürich in the 1940s. Needless to say, for most of her career she was the only woman in the department. With the advent of feminism she would get called up frequently by activists or journalists asking her to comment on all the obstacles she faced as a woman (a request she steadfastly rejected), and also on how to get girls into math. Her routine answer to the latter was that if anyone had tried to "get her into math" she would have promptly dropped math and taken up embroidery. But my favorite story was when the controversy hit about the talking Barbie who said "Math is hard." She was phoned up and asked what she had to say about this. Her response: "Barbie is right."

by tkahn6 16y ago

SlyShy 16y ago

Girls have dreadfully few role models too, and certainly aren't properly encouraged by mainstream culture to cultivate ability in the hard sciences and mathematics. I think it'll get better in future generations, however. I've spoken to a lot of programmers who are now raising daughters who are curious, tech literate, and not afraid to act smart. That ought to be encouraging. It's certainly a problem in this generation though. I was just at the Minneapolis Hacker News meetup, and it was 100% male.

gruseom 16y ago

My favorite professor was a mathematician who did her doctorate at Zürich in the 1940s. Needless to say, for most of her career she was the only woman in the department. With the advent of feminism she would get called up frequently by activists or journalists asking her to comment on all the obstacles she faced as a woman (a request she steadfastly rejected), and also on how to get girls into math. Her routine answer to the latter was that if anyone had tried to "get her into math" she would have promptly dropped math and taken up embroidery. But my favorite story was when the controversy hit about the talking Barbie who said "Math is hard." She was phoned up and asked what she had to say about this. Her response: "Barbie is right."