To all the ladies reading this blog: Save the energy/time and give up. We will have a better chance in succeeding in something we are actually good at than in something that we are forcing ourselves to believe is true. Instead of bothering to read these books about women in the sciences/math, how about we take an FYS course about household duties and the controversies of which mop brands to use when cleaning the house. Clearly these remarks are offensive and don’t even make sense right? The sad reality is that some people still think males are more superior over females and all we are good at is taking care of the house. Females are notoriously known for being incompetent in STEM compared to men. Humans are so easy to manipulate, so it is easy to let society determine how you think about an individual…specifically women. Lawrence Summers is one of these victims naïve enough to fall for such a trap. He believes that there are three factors that account for the underrepresentation of women in science: sex differences in cognition, discrimination, and motivation. Spelke and Grace from Sex, Math, and Science do the honors of analyzing and discrediting Summer’s idea of cognitive abilities through their own research and findings.

Let’s first focus on this whole controversial idea of cognitive abilities. Let me give you a clear idea of what these cognitive sex differences are: males are more focused on objects while girls are focused on people, males are simply “gifted” with spatial/numerical reasoning, and males have greater variability. Grace reacts to these statements by stating, “we believe research casts doubt on all these claims.” What kind of research was found? They found that through meta-analysis, male and female infants learned at indistinguishable rates in how to fit blocks into holes. They concluded that the data showed that there was no such evidence that boys engaged with objects more than women. Grace and Spelke then debunk the next statement, “males have a gift in math” through a study that was performed on two/four year olds. They tested these children on geometry-based and landmark based navigations quite similar to the mental rotation test. There was an equal result in both genders; however, grace and spelke stated that there is a gradual sex difference as people age. Adult females relied more on landmarks (singling out individual features) and males relied more on geometry (shapes viewed by rotation). However, these minuscule differences do not prove anything because both gender performed at almost equal levels. The SAT M is known for testing “true math ability.” The SAT M shows that males outperform females; however, Grace and Spelke argued, “By suitable choice of items, one could create a test favoring either gender.” Hence, it is how the test is setup that determines an individual’s success. However, they still point out that “Nevertheless, it is possible that one of these profiles is better suited to learning or performing high level mathematics.” They argue that creating a gender fair test requires people to develop an understanding of the sexes and the nature of mathematics. There are two solutions they propose: To study male/female infants, children, and adults and to test mathematical aptitudes on males/females with strong equal background by introducing them to new math material. If one sex masters the material, that one sex should master the material more effectively. This then leads on to the final topic of cognitive differences, which is variability. More males have variability causing them to have a larger pool of talented mathematicians. Grace and Spelke disprove this claim by testing males and females of same mathematical background, new challenging material. Both were successful. As much as I support Grace and Spelke’s discovery, I found a shortcoming with their research. I found their claim to be a little too biased with such data because if we look back on chapter three, at least Dweck mentioned that there was still a gender gap with her findings. In Dweck’s study, she found that girl’s who did not think of knowledge as a gift performed just as well as males did. Although the gender gap did decrease, it did not close completely, showing that males were still in the “lead”. But in Grace and Spelke’s data, they do not mention any possible signs of gender gap. With Grace and Spelke, they don’t give specific numbers that show by how much each gender did better than the other. They concluded that SAT M does not determine a man and woman’s progress in careers in STEM. They stated, “Cognitive sex differences do not account for the preponderance of males in math and science.” (61)

Now this question is going off a slight tangent, but has anyone noticed “Dora the Explorer” has had a drastic makeover in the last couple of years? As I recall my childhood memories, she was a cute and stout tomboy, but now she simply resembles an awkward tween ready for trouble and drama. What’s going to happen next? Will Dora the Explorer become Dora the next top model or will she be a part of the next bachelor? Though these ideas seem exaggerated, I’m pointing out a recurring pattern that exists in our world, which is gender stereotype. Spelke and Grace point out some of the gender stereotypes that exist in chapter four. They found that parents end up overestimating the competence of their male children compared with their female children. Parents wanted to be as equal and not show any signs of gender bias despite their best interest. This is no surprise considering the fact that this is quite common. In an article called Girls in STEM, parents were asked what kinds of jobs they thought their daughters would like. And their responses were? They expected their daughters to take on traditional female vocations such “education and child care, the arts, healthcare and hair and beauty.” This shows gender bias from a sub conscious level. We are so brainwashed into thinking that females will take on careers that are known for being feminine. This shocking pattern does not stop there. Valian came across a similar finding Spelke and Grace state out. They state, “women were found to be less likely than men to receive postdoctoral fellowships.” In the study when one dossier depicted a candidate with an average record, they saw the candidate as “more impressive when the name on the dossier was male than it was female.” Sexism at its finest, am I right? Obviously this is a sarcastic statement and with all seriousness this is a huge issue that should not be overlooked. Overall, what readers get out of Grace and Spelke’s speculation is that discrimination and gender bias still exists!

Finally, with the idea of sex differences in cognition and discrimination, both synergize into what is known as motivation. Males want to pursue careers in STEM because they are not as discriminated while females are less motivated to pursue fields in STEM because it seems somewhat intimidating.

Through the analysis that Grace and Spelke offer, we are able to conclude that women are indeed capable in succeeding in STEM because there is no exact evidence that shows males have an advantage in these fields because of their cognitive abilities. It is true that females and males have somewhat different cognitive abilities; however, both are on par when it comes to understanding any kind of concept. Males are just as good with understanding people, as females are good with understanding objects. So, to all the ladies who read up to this point of my blog: Never give up and use all the energy you can because you will succeed through endless effort. The truth is, both male and females are equally capable in performing perfectly well in the STEM field. The key to success is having a positive mindset. Kudos to you because you took the right FYS course. Think of knowledge as a tree. It is constantly growing and will never stop growing. Growing knowledge is the best gift that is given to everyone.

Sources:

– Why Aren’t More Women in Science by Ceci and Williams

-http://www.ibtimes.com/girls-stem-parent-stereotypes-may-discourage-daughters-science-technology-engineering-1895719

Image Sources:

-https://www.sweetcitycandy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Tween-Dora.jpg

-https://www.pinterest.com/tjleonhard/school/

In Chapter 2 of Why aren’t more women in Science, writer Doreen Kimura takes a different turn on the controversial topic by talking about the cognitive differences between a man and woman. Females are supposedly better at tasks such as verbal memory and object location memory while males are better at mental rotation and mechanical reasoning. Although these differences should be taken into consideration, Kimura states that “using sex to determine quotas of admission to any program would be a mistake.” She makes a statement by claiming that we just have to accept “differential representation of the sexes.” Which I am having mixed feelings about. Is she saying that women should just continue being secretaries because we are female and have set cognitive abilities?

The cognitive differences mentioned before are influenced by prenatal and levels of sex hormones. A test was done showing that a male rat was better at learning spatial mazes than a female rat. However, hormonal manipulation shows that this could be reversed. Kimura explains that adults who engage in activities that involve spatial reasoning also did so when they were younger. This is simply a hypothesis and there is no data or statistic to back up her example. However, Kimura writes that it is “quite wrong” to claim that childhood experience determines adult activity. Kimura then explains a reasoning using test data. She explains that although females receive better marks on most subjects, males end up testing higher. There are similar results shown in the breaking through barriers power point on the FYS blog site. The results show that males do tend to score higher on tests compared to females (slide 9). Chapter one also mentioned the differences in test scores between boys and girls as well.

At one point in the chapter, Kimura makes a statement claiming that differential abilities have to be considered and that these social traditions are a result of a female’s cognitive abilities. She is basically throwing salt on the wound by claiming that women were put in these “traditional jobs” because of their limited ability. Basically women were secretaries because they were good at it. Really? I would disagree with her statement because I believe that sometimes our abilities are simply manipulated by the social boundaries and traditions. I just think that she got mixed up with what she was trying to convey. Even as we look back, the only kind of job openings that women were able to receive easily were secretary jobs or jobs lesser than a male’s occupation. When the majority of men had to go to war during World War II, women took jobs that normally men would do. I think that some of these jobs involved mechanics and math. This just proves that although a woman may be “wired” differently, that can’t stop her from performing jobs that require her to use any kind of science or math. On page forty-three, Kimura describes statistics that are similar to that of the breaking through barriers power point. There is a common pattern that is constantly mentioned which is that females tend not to study physics and that there are generally more females in biological science. I like how Kimura makes an effort to point out that women were indeed historically discriminated in faculty hiring. The statistics in solving the equation power point even show that women are still experiencing discrimination. They are being judged based upon looks rather than talent as well.

Overall, Kimura makes a great point by stating out cognitive differences. Although it is proven that males do have some sort of “upper hand” when it comes to special reasoning; hence, an advantage in math this does not mean males were built to be better than females in STEM. There must be other factors and a realization that everyone grows up under multiple and complex conditions that shape their interests in a certain subject or occupation. My only concern was why Kimura only talked about the cognitive differences. At times I felt that she was accepting the idea that males are smarter than females. Whose side is she really on? Also at one point in the chapter, I felt as if she was encouraging all females to just focus on something they are meant to be good at…nurturing and speaking.

Other sources:

why-so-few-Women-in-Science-Technology-Engineering-and-Mathematic-powerpoint-presentation-long

solving-the-equation-presentation-nsa

Writer Virginia Valian of Chapter one in Why Aren’t More Women In Science talks about whether women are truly less capable and talented than men. She brings up theories, social schema, and statistics to analyze why men are the more dominant figures in the math and science world. I think the statement “women are less talented than men” is more of an opinion than a fact that people surprisingly accept. The three reasons stated for why women might be less talented than men are: there is a single talent that determines success, standardized quantitative tests measure that single talent, and talents are fixed (Valian 28). However, a physicist stated out that talent is difficult to measure; hence, talent comes in multiple packages and can be developed over time (Valian 28).

The chapter introduces two theories, entity and incremental. Entity theorists could be thought of as the pessimists. They see a given trait as static and fixed. While incremental theorists are people who could see that every cloud has a silver lining. They believe that traits are “capable of increasing” (Valian 28). I believe that as someone who supports female involvement in the science field, the incremental theory makes more sense. Without improvement in traits, there would be no development in society. Why are people even going to college if there is no chance of improving one’s ability? We go to college to learn and expand our ability.

Virginia Valian mentions how people are influenced by emotion (Valian 31). There is a mixture of culture, family dynamic, and stereotypes that influence and shape a person’s personality and ability. There is a reason why parents overemphasize compliments to young children when their child completes a simple task. It’s to encourage them further. The act of encouragement leads to confidence and a stable emotion. Everyone is influenced by emotion and their ability could be hindered by lack of confidence or other conflicting emotions. So, if a female is constantly told that women are not capable of succeeding in the science world, that statement is going to stick with her subconsciously and maybe even hinder her ability.

Valian also mentions that humans tend to create categories (Valian 35). For example, people in my culture tend to categorize others by blood type. I’m blood type A and I’ve been told that I’m a perfectionist, cautious, and hardworking. I sometimes find myself trying to act out these qualities because of these categorizations. So, it is no wonder that women who are placed in the “not capable of science” categories are negatively influenced to think they aren’t capable when they really are.

Chapter one states, “…even in a work environment in which everyone intends to be fair-and believes they are being fair-men are likely to receive advantages…”(Valian 33). Due to sexism and stereotype, males are given an upper hand. That is probably why there are more males in STEM. Virginia Valian also talks about experiments done, where evaluators end up choosing males over females who were more competent and qualified. This is a serious problem and the root to this problem is ignorance. By choosing to believe statements, culture, categorizations, and stereotypes we are “brainwashed” into thinking that females are “dumber” than males. We need to educate people about how stereotypes are not true and break the limitations that society sets upon females.

In conclusion test scores are a useful source to refer off of, but sometimes tests fail to cover all parts of ability. Tests are meant to measure talent and ability, but in my opinion talent could never be measured because it is constantly growing and improving. Hence as Virginia Valian states towards the end “test performance cannot explain the low representation of women in math and natural science.” In other words, the reason why there are less females in the science/math field is not because they are talentless in the subject. The tests and statistics in chapter one do show that males scored higher than females, but tests don’t really prove anything because it is difficult to measure one’s ability through a piece of paper.

Welcome to your student blog for the FYS-Women in Science!