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Gender gap in math--sexist/non-sexist factors

Posted on: June 4, 2009 - 4:02am

ragdish

Posts: 461

Joined: 2007-12-31

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Gender gap in math--sexist/non-sexist factors

Greetings all! I read this interesting article on Skepchick regarding the gender gap in mathematics being largely the consequence of gender inequality: link

I also took the trouble to browse through the referenced article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately, I am not able to refer you all to the url.

What was traditionally suspected was a greater variability in male mathematical performance compared with females. The mean scores in aptitude may be the same for men and women. However, because the bell curve for females is more narrow compared with males (ie. greater variability), the gender differences are most striking at the extreme ends of the curve. That is, there is either a greater proportion of males who really suck at math as well as males who are extremely brilliant at math:

Darker curve is for males Based on this data, it has been presumed that the greater variability in males is due to innate factors. However, in the article, the gender differences at the extremes disappear among different ethnic groups and in different nations wherein there is more gender equality (eg. Netherlands). What this article does not mention is that the gender differences can also disappear in countries wherein there is sexism. From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, here are the list of exceptional female students who competed in the International Mathematics Olympiad: Table 3.

Females scoring among top in world in IMO

NameCountryRankYear

Zhuo Chen	People's Rep. of China	12	2008
Lisa Sauermann	Germany	12	2008
Maria Ilyukhina	Russian Federation	6	2007
Livia Alexandrra Ilie	Romania	7	2007
Sherry Gong	USA	7	2007
Maria Colombo	Italy	16	2006
Galyna Dobrovolska	Ukraine	16	2004
Ana Caraiani	Romania	6	2003
Greta Panova	Bulgaria	10	2001
Suh Hyun Choi	Rep. of Korea	15	1999
Sachiko Nakajima	Japan	7	1996
Maryam Mirzakhani	Islamic Rep. of Iran	1^*	1995
Chenchang Zhu	People's Rep. of China	1^*	1995
Theresia Eisenkölbl	Austria	1^*	1994
Catriona Maclean	United Kingdom	1^*	1994
Marianna Csörnyei	Hungary	14	1993
Eva Myers	United Kingdom	14	1992
Evgenia Malinnikova	USSR	1^,1^,11	1991, 1990, 1989
Jun Teng	People's Rep. of China	1^*	1987
Olga Leonteva	USSR	5	1985
Karin Gröger	German Dem. Rep.	1^*	1984
Tatyana Hovanova	USSR	2	1976
Lidia Goncarova	USSR	3	1962

In countries such as Iran, China and Japan there are few who would argue that those nations have achieved gender equality. I completely agree with the authors that the gender differences in the US are not due to innate factors but sociocultural. Where I disagree is that the sociocultural factors are wholly due to sexism. The authors do not mention the most apparent non-sexist factor that the United States is increasingly a nation that celebrates mediocrity and devalues math and science. In a society that devalues intellect in both genders, women are more likely to suffer when sexism is factored in.