Truly Underrepresented? Or just misrepresented?

Are men underrepresented? Are we not looking deep enough to see that the problems that affect women also affect men? Doreen Kimura raises these questions in her essay, “’Underrepresentation’ or Misrepresentation?”. When I started reading her paper, it surprised me because I am so used to seeing people discuss how women are underrepresented in the science fields and here comes a paper that says that we have abandoned the underrepresentation of men in the nursing and education fields. She goes on to talk about other biased views, like how “there are no substantial differences between men’s and women’s cognitive profiles that cannot readily be altered by appropriate socialization” (39), and how women are better in some areas, like verbal memory and object location, while men are better in spatial tasks, mental rotation tasks, mechanical reasoning, and throwing accuracy (40).  She also talks about how hormones influence our natural ability to do some of these tasks.

Yet, she started talking about how even though women test higher on math tests, they only do so because they can remember solutions to problems rehearsed in the classroom better than men. I disagree with that because then it sounds a lot like we are better at memorizing and that we do not have a talent for math. I believe that not one gender is born with an innate ability to do science or math because each of our minds works differently. This might mean that for some women, math and science comes easier to them rather than the arts and English, and the same can be applied to men. I know plenty of men who are very good at math and science, yet I also know men who actually hate math and science (mainly due to not understanding the material or bad teachers). The same can go to the women that I know in my life. All of the experiences that we have in childhood regarding school and learning help shape us as we grow older. It might be due to hormones or natural abilities that come easier to us, but the experiences between us and teachers and other students give us a feel for an area to study. For example, one of my best friends didn’t have good experiences with math and science due to not understanding what the teachers were saying and thinking that these two subjects were too hard. Yet, he had wonderful experiences with foreign languages and English, leading him to want to pursue a major in linguistics. This just shows that even if men or women are naturally better at certain skills, it does not dictate what they will pursue later in life as a major and job.

I also was surprised and angry at the way Kimura started talking about how colleges/universities and employers reserve spots just because it’s “free” to hire the women. This kind of thinking can cause women to believe that even though they get the job, they don’t deserve it and that they took the spot of someone better. This can cause women to feel even more like they cannot do a good job. I also don’t believe that women have lower representation due to lack of interest or ability to do it. I believe that it is a combination of things, and while those two reasons can partially affect how women do in math and science, it is not entirely due to them, but rather a compound effect of all the reasons we believe that women are not good in math and science. I believe that misrepresentation by the media of what women should do and look like in the work force is a factor in why women are underrepresented. The misrepresentation can cause women to see themselves in the light that is casted, causing more women to believe that what they truly want to do is something that women should not involve themselves in. Overall, a factor of different things can cause women and men to be underrepresented or misrepresented in different fields.