“Underrepresentation or Misrepresentation?” Doreen Kimura article can crush the dreams of young girls who wish to win the Fields Medal one day, because they just don’t possess the mathematical talent that boys do.
The author points out in the article that there are, indeed, sex differences in innate abilities. Girls have higher aptitude in certain skills but are not as gifted as boys in mathematical skills. The article suggests that there is a correlation between talent in an activity and the choice to engage in that activity which can be attributed for the underrepresentation of women in physical sciences because they tend to avoid the jobs that they are not inherently good at.
What jars me is that there is different distribution in talent – that girls are inherently less gifted in mathematical aptitude than boys are, which probably leads to less interests in jobs in mathematical fields. However, I doubt that the statistics in the article truly represents the difference in innate talents. According to the author, boys have had higher SAT-Mathematics test scores, done better in mathematical aptitude test, and there is a higher number of mathematically precocious youth (SMPY) who are boys. Given theses statistics, we can conclude that there are more boys who are mathematically gifted. But does that also mean boys are innately more gifted? There can be confounding factors other than sexes that cause such discrepancy. One of those might be psychological factor. Social norms have influenced the mentality of young girls that boys do better in Mathematics and eventually jobs that require the skill. Knowing that they are being compared to their counterparts in mathematical aptitude test can lead them to underperformance. Similarly, confidence boosts the performance of the boys. The number of boys who have higher SAT score could be due to the fact that there are more boys who take the test, leading to a higher probability. If we could look into the percentile of girls who score higher SAT scores in the applicant pool, as well as compare the percentage of girls who score above a benchmark in the female pool to that of boys, we might have a different result. This is only my speculation, but I believe the statistics given in the article needs more thorough research in order to validate the predicted innate difference.
Moreover, I do not agree completely with the author that providing female professionals with more opportunities in faculty positions cause injustice to men and affect the level of scholarship. It is crucial that more women realize they have resources and supportive environments for their professional pursuits. Once more women pursue scientific fields with confidence, the probability that there are more women qualified for the scholarship will increase. Some is better than none. The first few initiatives to attract women to the fields of math and science can cause uncertainty, but they are crucial to get long-term result.
So for girls with Fields Medal dream, don’t be discouraged. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Every step is important to get to our dream destination.
References:
Kimura, Doreen., “Underrepresentation” or Misrepresentation?” Ceci, Stephen J. (Ed); Williams, Wendy M. (Ed), (2007). Why aren’t more women in science?: Top researchers debate the evidence. , (pp. 39-46). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association, xx, 254 pp. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11546-003
“Think Again: Men and Women Share Cognitive Skills.” Http://www.apa.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Sept. 2015.
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