When one sees a baby human, one\u2019s response is typically along the line of \u201cAw, what a cute, precious baby!\u00a0 What\u2019s the name?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Insert societally-defined boy\u2019s name here.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, he sure is handsome!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Insert societally-defined girl\u2019s name here.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goodness, she sure is beautiful!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How quickly our perceptions change.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s face it, as Dr. Elizabeth S. Spelke and Dr. Ariel D. Grace suggest in their article \u201cSex, Math, and Science,\u201d we\u2019re basically all screwed once that figurative, or sadly literal blue or pink fleece hat is placed snuggly atop our bare baby heads.\u00a0 Those blue hats must protect all the spatial abilites, mathematical talents, and inclinations of going into STEM that are stored soundly in baby boy\u2019s brain all throughout his tenure with the Physics department.\u00a0 Whereas, the pink hats should warm up all the potential people-skills and emotional connectivity baby girl has doddling around in her head as she works twice as hard to trying to get a professor of Physics job.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Spelke and Grace addresses this issue of gender difference and gender bias, which may be conscious or unconscious, by juggling three different topics:\u00a0 cognition, discrimination, and motivation.\u00a0 Through their research, males\u2019 and females\u2019 appear to have the same cognitive abilities, including object perception, and numerical and spatial reasoning.\u00a0 Math aptitude tests, according to Spelke and Grace are skewed and \u201cunderpredict women\u2019s success at mathematics\u201d (61).\u00a0 However, what if these tests overpredict men\u2019s success at mathematics?\u00a0 In a study conducted by Shane W. Bench and Heather C. Lench of Washington State University\u2019s and Texas A&M University\u2019s departments of Psychology, in which men and women took a math exam and then estimated the quality of their performance, in both of the two trials that were conducted, men were more likely to overestimate the quality of their performance than women.\u00a0 Now, we must ask ourselves:\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Society.\u00a0 Society is almost always to blame!\u00a0 As outlined in Jeffrey Nevid\u2019s Psychology: Concepts and Applications:<\/em><\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>Our culture appears to train women to perform a simple deduction based on a faulty premise that math is \u2018masculine.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Math = Male<\/p>\n Me = Female<\/p>\n Therefore, Math \u2260 Me\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Math is just another thing society tells women they cannot do, along with football, burping, wrestling, slouching, the list goes on (speaking from experience).\u00a0 On the flip side, males are being told the exact same thing.\u00a0 Men are supposed <\/em>to be good with numbers and building things.\u00a0 If a five year old male toddler builds a \u201chouse\u201d out of cardboard bricks, he gets told he\u2019s going to be an engineer!\u00a0 If I build a replica of the Great Wall of China out of the same blocks, I get told I\u2019m \u201ccreative.\u201d (True story!\u00a0 Of course, at the time, I had no idea what an \u201cengine ear\u201d was, but I do now, and I\u2019m mad.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Overall, our society depends so heavily upon tests; the meaning of life is no longer 42, but 2400. \u00a0Tests prompt competition.\u00a0 That being said, I propose that, on a social level as women are gradually being urged into STEM fields, men feel their abilities are being challenged.\u00a0 The way it has been for so long is that STEM fields were so undeniably male-dominated.\u00a0 Perhaps, this new wave of \u201clow-key,\u201d microagressive discrimination is actually brought on by fear of emasculation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bench, Shane W., and Heather C. Lench. “Gender Gaps in Overestimation of Math Performance.”\u00a0SpringerLink<\/em>. Springer International Pusblishing, June 2015. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ceci, Stephen J., and Wendy M. Williams, eds.\u00a0Why Aren’t There More Women In Science<\/em>. 1st ed.<\/p>\n Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2007. Print.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nevid, Jeffrey S. “Gender and Sexuality”\u00a0Psychology: Concepts and Applications<\/em>. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 417. Web.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When one sees a baby human, one\u2019s response is typically along the line of \u201cAw, what a cute, precious baby!\u00a0 What\u2019s the name?\u201d Insert societally-defined boy\u2019s name here. \u201cWow, he sure is handsome!\u201d Insert societally-defined girl\u2019s name here. \u201cMy goodness, she sure is beautiful!\u201d How quickly our perceptions change. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns14\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}