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I'd disagree on your conclusion in paragraph 2 for the following reason: it's not that there is damage done to women's mathematical abilities, it's that there i

by kaitai 13y ago

I'd disagree on your conclusion in paragraph 2 for the following reason: it's not that there is damage done to women's mathematical abilities, it's that there is damage done to their psyches. That damage can be wiped away by "changing identity" because they can perform honestly without messing up their position in society. We can surmise that there is some adaptive reason women don't perform as well under their own names, and from that conclude that there may be difficult-to-see benefits to "playing dumb" if you're female. Discrimination is no longer the scary evil force you seem to think it is. It's the pause that precedes the quick end of the conversation after you say you're a mathematician (female or male), it's the changing of the rules by which you evaluate someone depending on whether they are male or female, it's the slight cognitive dissonance that leads someone not to talk to a black physicist quite as long (what am I supposed to say?!)... that subtle social cue that you're not what you are supposed to be. People on the street, at the bank, at the library are just plain nicer to me when I'm performing the pretty female role and are just plain not nicer, or ignore me, when I'm looking ugly or smart. Is it so far to stretch that I might perform better on that math test when I don't have to own it and put my name on it? There is no cost when it's not my name.

jerf 13y ago
To be clear, in my second paragraph, I'm referring to true damage to math skills. There's a world of difference between "woman are being discriminated against and it's destroying their ability to learn math" and "women are being discriminated against and they don't like to show off the skills they have". In particular, and this is important, the solutions are different. Although also the severity is different, too, which is also important in deciding what to do about it. One of the problems I have with this whole debate is that people are so quick to jump down your throat if you don't simply parrot the party line, even when you mostly agree with it, that it isn't even permitted to deeply examine the problem. Nevertheless, step one, as in all engineering, is to figure out the problem. If you insist on short-circuiting that step, your solutions won't work. That doesn't change magically because it's a hot-potato topic.

by kaitai 13y ago

jerf 13y ago

To be clear, in my second paragraph, I'm referring to true damage to math skills. There's a world of difference between "woman are being discriminated against and it's destroying their ability to learn math" and "women are being discriminated against and they don't like to show off the skills they have". In particular, and this is important, the solutions are different. Although also the severity is different, too, which is also important in deciding what to do about it. One of the problems I have with this whole debate is that people are so quick to jump down your throat if you don't simply parrot the party line, even when you mostly agree with it, that it isn't even permitted to deeply examine the problem. Nevertheless, step one, as in all engineering, is to figure out the problem. If you insist on short-circuiting that step, your solutions won't work. That doesn't change magically because it's a hot-potato topic.