You are quite right. I was thinking about Japan/Korea, and some statistics I had looked up years ago. I can't find any information on Taiwan, but have a look

You are quite right. I was thinking about Japan/Korea, and some statistics I had looked up years ago. I can't find any information on Taiwan, but have a look a some of the gender equality for Japan/Korea. The numbers are quite abysmal. On the other hand Singapore is top of the world. See: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2012.pdf http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2012.pdf p.224 Japan ,p.232 Korea, p.358 US, p.318 Singapore. It seems the problem is isolated to Japan and Korea, and likely has nothing to do with sports, math education, nor East-Asia.