![\"WOMEN\"](\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fyswns15\/files\/2015\/08\/WOMEN-292x300.png\")
<\/span><\/p>\nWriter Virginia Valian of Chapter one in <\/span>Why Aren\u2019t More Women In Science<\/em> 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 \u201cwomen are less talented than men\u201d 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).<\/span><\/p>\n 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 \u201ccapable of increasing\u201d (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\u2019s ability? We go to college to learn and expand our ability.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s personality and ability. There is a reason why parents overemphasize compliments to young children when their child completes a simple task. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019m blood type A and I\u2019ve been told that I\u2019m 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 \u201cnot capable of science\u201d categories are negatively influenced to think they aren\u2019t capable when they really are.<\/p>\n Chapter one states, \u201c\u2026even in a work environment in which everyone intends to be fair-and believes they are being fair-men are likely to receive advantages\u2026\u201d(Valian 33). Due to sexism and stereotype, males are given an upper hand. That is probably why\u00a0there 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 \u201cbrainwashed\u201d into thinking that females are \u201cdumber\u201d than males. We need to educate people about how stereotypes are not true and break the limitations that society sets upon females.<\/p>\n 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 \u201ctest performance cannot explain the low representation of women in math and natural science.\u201d 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\u2019t really prove anything because it is difficult to measure one\u2019s ability through a piece of paper.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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