I, Me, Myself

Sex, Math and Scientific Achievement

Closing the Sex Gap

▲ Women, on average, have stronger verbal skills (especially in writing) and better memory for events, words, objects, faces and activities. 
▲ Men generally are better at mentally manipulating objects and at performing certain quantitative tasks that rely on visual representations. 
▲ Intervention studies are still in their infancy but suggest both sexes can benefit from targeted training to improve their skill set. 

 

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In 2005, Harvard University president Lawrence Summers offered his personal observations. He suggested that one of the major reasons women are less likely than men to achieve at the highest levels of scientific work is because fewer females have “innate ability” in these fields. 

In this article, however, experts present an analysis that says there is no single or simple answer for why there are substantially fewer women than men in some areas of science and math. Instead a wide variety of factors that influence career choices can be identified, including cognitive sex differences, education, biological influences, stereotyping, discrimination and societal sex roles.


(1) Females get higher grades in math classes at all grade levels and also do slightly better on international assessments in algebra, perhaps because of its languagelike structure. But boys shine on the math part of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)—resulting in a difference of about 40 points that has been maintained for over 35 years. When all the data on quantitative ability are assessed together, however, the difference in average quantitative ability between girls and boys is actually quite small. What sets boys apart is that many more of them are mathematically gifted. There were twice as many boys as girls with math scores of 500 or higher (out of a possible score of 800), four times as many boys with scores of at least 600, and 13 times as many boys with scores of at least 700 (putting these test takers in the top 0.01 percent of 12- to 14-year-olds nationwide). 


(2) Decades of data from studies of different animal species show that hormones can play a role in determining the cognitive abilities that males and females develop. For example, during typical prenatal male development, high levels of hormones such as testosterone masculinize the developing brain and result in male-typical behaviors and probably male patterns of cognitive performance. It is important to emphasize, though, that finding sex differences in brain structures and functions does not suggest these are the sole cause of observed cognitive differences between males and females. Because the brain reflects learning and other experiences, it is possible that sex differences in the brain are influenced by the differences in life experiences that are typical for women and men.


(3)  A 10-year study of 320 profoundly gifted individuals (top one in 10,000) found that those whose mathematical skills were stronger than their verbal ones (even though they had very high verbal ability) were very likely to pursue degrees in math and science . On the other hand, those kids whose verbal skills were higher most often pursued educational credentials in the humanities and law. It appears then that highly gifted kids ask themselves, “What am I better at?” rather than “Am I smart enough to succeed in a particular career?” Therefore, It is true that multiple psychological and social factors play a part in determining career direction. People’s individual expectations for success are shaped by their perception of their own skills. This study and others suggest that stereotypes of science as masculine may prejudice educators against girls from the start.


(4) Perhaps most troubling is the thought that a skilled, confident scientist could climb to the top and still face discrimination when she gets there. Nevertheless, plenty of research suggests that people’s perception of a job as stereotypically masculine or feminine results in a bias in hiring and compensating candidates or employees who are male and female, respectively. Even though social psychologists agree that the overt sexism that existed decades ago in the U.S. and in many other countries is now rare, they say it has been replaced by unconscious sexism in some situations. 1997, the United Nations had named Sweden the leading country in the world with respect to equal opportunities for men and women. Even so, men dominated Swedish science. At the time, women received 44 percent of Swedish biomedical doctoral degrees but held only 25 percent of postdoctoral positions and 7 percent of professional positions. 


(5) We cannot consider success at work without considering the effort needed for families to function and maintain a home. Even when husbands and wives both work full-time, women continue to assume most of the child care duties and to shoulder most of the responsibility for tending to sick and elderly family members. Women work, on average, fewer hours per week and spend more time on family and household tasks than comparably educated men do. For women, having children is associated with lower income and a reduced probability of attaining tenure. In contrast, men show a slight tendency to benefit professionally when they become fathers. Thus, the different roles women and men play in family care can also explain their differential participation in demanding careers.

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