Culture, not biology, underpins math gender gap

[AlphaCentauri]

For more than a century, the notion that females are innately less capable than males at doing mathematics, especially at the highest levels, has persisted in even the loftiest circles.

This was one of the primary reasons posited in 2005 by Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University and current economic adviser to President Barack Obama, for the extreme scarcity of tenured women math professors in top-ranked research universities in the U.S.

Now, however, in an analysis of contemporary data published 1 June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison report that the primary cause for the gender disparity in math performance at all levels is culture, not biology.

'It's not an innate difference in math ability between males and females,' says Janet Mertz, a UW-Madison professor of oncology and one of the authors of the article that analyses and summarises recent data on math performance at all levels in the United States and internationally. 'There are countries where the gender disparity in math performance doesn't exist at either the average or gifted level. These tend to be the same countries that have the greatest gender equality.'

In the new PNAS report, Mertz and UW-Madison professor of psychology Janet Hyde set out to answer three key questions: Do gender differences in math performance exist in the general population? Do gender differences exist among the mathematically talented? Do females exist who possess profound mathematical talent? The answers, according to the Wisconsin researchers, are no, no and yes.

http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09060410-culture-not-biology-underpins-math-gender-gap

[BlooInBloo]

1. Duh.

[UndertheOcean]

2. double duh

[comtec]

3. Well... DUH!!!! Look at Samantha Carter! hot AND 5x smarter than me!

mmmmmmm intelligent sex *drools*
ok, so she's fictional, I do know of plenty of fucking brilliant women!
The smartest (and I do me by a country mile) girl in my geometry class in HS was a blond... gods hot and smart!

Society UNDER values it's smart women. Nearly every smart woman I know is very hot, genius, competence, etc is a V E R Y attractive trait in a woman... but that's just me.

I'm a geek =]
and she-geeks are the rarest (and imho hottest) of breeds.

on edit: yes I know, that was a totally sexist post... I don't care. I'm being honest - smart women are attractive, damned attractive, kinky as hell, and generally very pleasant company to keep. The entire thread, if you think about it, is sexist. Humans are humans, we're exactly the SAME in the womb till what 6 months? after that boys have to be created, because we're all female to that point.

and what's wrong about being honest about what turns you on anyway?

[redqueen]

5. Thanks for all the comments about looks.

Very helpful, really.

[omega minimo]

7. so one way or another it's really just all about men and what turns them on.

what's wrong about being honest about that?

[redqueen]

9. What's wrong with thowing out a bunch of shit about "hot" women and what turns you on...

in a thread about math skills?

Really?

[TZ]

4. I learned about this in 1991 in a Women and Science class.

old news.

[omega minimo]

6. Women are smart enough to add up all the centuries they HAD NO RIGHTS until recently

and wonder if that might have something to do with the discrepancy :think:

[valerief]

8. From the DUH file. nt