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Do women have a biological disadvantage in math?

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Do women have a biological disadvantage in math?

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  1. No. There ARE differences in how the sexes approach problem solving (spacial thinking vs landmark etc) but both are equally capable of coming to the same conclusion. Any other differences are social.


  2. No, and men do not have a biological disadvantage in language. It's all a stereotype set up to make insecure people feel better about themselves by putting members of another group down. Besides, stereotypes are basically meaningless anyway. Every person is an individual who varies from the stereotypes applied to them. Why not just decide to value ourselves rather than trying to devalue others? Seems to be a better approach, more direct, solves the self esteem problem, doesn't hurt others. Win-win-win.

  3. only if you say to them they do, psychologically they listen to what people tell them...There was a study and they told one group of women they were worse at math, and they had worse marks.

  4. No. In fact....

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25836419/

  5. No, but men in general are better than women when it come to mathematics.

  6. No.

    Have a good day!

  7. They are disadvantaged by their biology to this extent:  girls hit that first bump in the mathematical road, algebra, just as they are being stirred by hormonal cravings.  Guys get hit by hormonal cravings just the other side of that hump, but they're already past it; if them flinks some post-algebra math course, so what?   They can get by, or try again--after all, they got past algebra, didn't they?.  

    But that poor dear who in the seventh grade discovered boys instead of the fundamental lemma is marked as a math dummy--and not encouraged to have another go at it.  

    Those who DO have another go at it DO get it, unsurprisingly.  What troubles me is how many girls who've come to me for tutoring came with an "I'm a girl, algebra's too tough for me" attitude.  Who told them that?

    So, if I'm making myself clear, you should understand that I am not laying the blame on biology, but on the hasty judgment of ability from performance at the first significant mathematical hurdle.  Girls are often (shall we say) distracted at that instant, and more of them falter there than do boys; it's a noticeable disparity, if you count only the stumblers.  The great majority of both sexes pass algebra.

    There is a shadowy parallel with regard to statistics, which (in the usual road to math) lies in the 'distractible' period for boys.  Compare performances there by s*x and you should see something similar (but somewhat less) to that you see at the algebra hump.  If boys seem to falter less there than the girls did, remember that they're a couple of years older now, and presumably more stable.  Ya gotta make those corrections, else you're not making a fair comparison.

    I made this theory up from whole cloth.

  8. In general no. However there is some evidence that men do better in specific mathematical tasks e.g. problem solving http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

  9. According to the latest research, no...or to be more succinct, females have caught up to males in the area of math.  I still do not enjoy it, but its a necessary evil, so I use it.

  10. No, it's entirely social.

    I'm a math tutor, and most the girls that I help are much better at math than the guys....but, the girls come to me because they lack confidence, whereas the guys come because they lack skill.

  11. No, a study was published this month that discounted that assumption. The assumption originated because men tend to use the "math" areas of the brain to a greater extent in everyday thought than women. Apparently this doesn't mean that women can't use it when they need to.

  12. Not that I'm aware of.  Maybe sometimes women are less inclined to math intensive careers for a variety of personal and social reasons. . . but I've never seen any good evidence to support that there's some kind of biological block preventing women from excelling in math.

    Some of the most competent people I've met doing graduate-level research in math are female, actually.  They'll be talking about what cool stuff they do and lose me in seconds. . . which does take some effort considering that I'm in engineering.
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