After looking at the incremental theorist argument and the entity theorist argument, Carol S. Dweck takes a refreshing stance in her essay “Is Math a Gift? Beliefs that Put Females at Risk” that looks at both stances objectively to determine which one is better. After different experiments and research dealing with both beliefs in women, Dweck comes to the conclusion that it all comes down to the mindset of women and their education. She goes on to conclude that women who believe that their capabilities can be strengthened over time with practice and commitment leads to an equal number of men and women in the STEM field. What causes the problem is the mindset and attitude that a person’s skill cannot be harnessed over time; you can only use what you are given.

Retrieved from: blog.chocchildrens.org

Dweck starts off by pointing out an inherent difference between boys and girls. When given a test with hard questions in the beginning, boys tend to use the confusion they feel to fuel their motivation to try harder and do better. However, with girls, their attitude will automatically want to make them give up, therefore leading them to do worse overall on the test. Dweck uses this as the foundation to her research. She reasons that because the data was taken from students of such a young age without the idea of gender stereotypes, that this would not come into the equation, thus making the assumption the stereotyping genders does not play a role when trying to find a solution with this problem. I do not agree with this mindset that gender stereotype does not play a role based on the fact that the research was done on such young children. Just because it may not have existed in that point of their lives doesn’t mean that it won’t in the future.

One of the research Dweck uses to prove how much different this attitude changes scores is by taking one group of girls and instilling the idea that their skills and abilities can be developed and improved, and taking another group of girls and teaching them that their skill is a gift that cannot be changed. Dweck goes on to prove that the girls who were taught with an incremental theory had equal test numbers to that of the boys while the other group scored significantly lower compared to boys. While I do agree that attitude plays a role in how well a person will do on a test, I would not say that it is a well-rounded enough argument to only argue that point. How come this gap is seen so greatly in the STEM field and not other fields? How would Dweck explain the fields of work that are predominantly women, such as the nursing field? Does that show something of men’s attitude? Dweck has also only used test scores to prove the disparity in the STEM field, making the assumption that when companies hire employees, they would only take test scores into consideration. However, I would argue that while test scores is very important, I would argue that they would look at other factors as well, such as experience, skills that one may bring to the table other than testing well. Just like the university admissions process, the firm will look holistically at a person, some subjective, such as the interview portion, some objective, such as the test scores received.

While I do agree with Dweck’s points made, I believe that she does not go far enough to fully answer the question. Attitudes of women do create change. However, the flaws made in her argument causes me to question whether there are other variables that come into play that may help answer the question.