By: Shannon Laughlin
Growing up as a girl interested in math and science, I’ve been made very aware of the gender stereotypes and inequality common within our society. I’ve heard the sexist “make me a sandwich, woman” jokes, read the studies suggesting that women are underestimated and often underpaid, and observed the lack of women working in STEM careers. And after spending hours toiling over the first two essays in Why Aren’t More Women in Science?, I’d begun to think the reason for this phenomenon was something inflicted by society or biology, or most likely a combination of both. What I did not realize was that the explanation could be something coming from within our own thought processes and attitude. After reading “Is Math a Gift? Beliefs that put Females at Risk” by Carol Dweck and reflecting upon my own experiences, I now believe that a lot of this trend is caused by the way we define intelligence.
In elementary school, I was placed in the “Talented and Gifted,” or TAG, program in first grade. This means that I was pulled out of class every day during math and science to be with other kids who excelled in this area so we could move through the material more extensively and at a faster pace. While the program did provide me with challenges that would later help in problem-solving, the mentality surrounding it from other students and teachers it may have been destructive. People believed that the kids in this program were naturally smarter, and teachers almost treated us differently. They would constantly praise us, or say “sorry we’re going slowly on this topic.” I was afraid to raise my hand to answer a question in history and English class, because I was in TAG, and it would look bad if I answered it incorrectly. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the actual TAG classes, but I hated the way other people saw me.
This situation describes exactly what Dweck talks about in her essay. She noticed that the higher a girl’s IQ, the more she struggled with new materials and challenges, as if she felt more discouraged by them. This did not occur in boys, as they often felt motivated and energized by these materials. After some digging, she found that boys tended to have an incremental, or open, mindset when it came to intelligence and believed they could accomplish anything with work (like The Little Engine that Could… “I think I can, I think I can”), while girls believed that intelligence is fixed and you are born with it (this is also called an entity mindset).
Why would this occur? Are girls taught intelligence differently than boys, or is this something else going on here? Well, Dweck goes on to explain that praise can often cause this mindset to develop. For example, constantly praising someone for their excellence on math problems makes them believe that they have a “special math quality” no one else does. They don’t associate their success with the fact that they are more academically driven, and perhaps studied harder or more efficiently. This causes them to fear making mistakes, because they have the “special math quality,” how could they possibly make a mistake? The fact that this mindset occurs more in girls than boys makes sense to me, after all, several references (including the AAUW PowerPoint) show that girls generally outperform boys in their grades. This could cause girls to receive more praise than boys, and take on an entity mindset.
This explanation is reasonable, but one must consider its assumptions. Dweck seems to reference her own research for the main points of the essay. While the findings were fascinating, it was a bit of a shortcoming that she didn’t provide more outside evidence besides her own for the main body. However, she did include other studies in the logical flow of the essay. Another assumption in her point of view is that the difference between girls and boys mindsets is inflicted by outside sources. It could be biological, which is something Ch. 2 author Kimura would argue.
Despite the defects in Dweck’s argument, I still believe that intelligence mindsets play a huge role in why more women are not in science. Science and mathematics are about solving difficult problems, and it is evident that one would not choose this career path if they had a problem facing challenges. Schools need to encourage young boys and girls with an incremental mindset. It doesn’t matter who is “naturally smarter,” or in my case, who is in ‘TAG’. It matters how much of an open mind one has, and how much effort they put into their work. With this hard work, anyone can achieve success.
AAUW PowerPoint: http://www.aauw.org/resource/why-so-few-women-in-science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-owerpoint-presentation-short/
Image: http://www.hivehealthmedia.com