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girls , why don't you do science degrees (maths,compsci,engineering,physi cs)?

Original post by GenghisKhan'sDNA

right. girls do better than boys at maths/sciences on avg. i know plenty of girls who were better at math than most of the boys and had all the support they could possibly get. so why is it that when you get the top of the top girls are basically invisible? like the IMO.

Are we talking undergraduate level? Or professors and whatnot? I don't know why there's a total famine of female professors (not just in science actually, over academia as a whole, my department doesn't have a single female professor but we've got more female doctors than you can shake a pipette at). Anyway, http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/18/girls-physics-boys-other-subjects-gender-disparity this article's really interesting, it makes the point that actually, boys are sort of found in a relatively small range of subjects, as a whole, whereas girls stretch out over a wider range of different subjects. Which when I think about it, seems to be true.

But anyway, I don't think women are invisible in the higher positions in academia because we're stupid, there's clearly something else at work and we need to fix that. I don't know what, before you accuse me of blaming men, but I think there is still a problem with gender roles in society.

Reply 61

redferry

19

Original post by GenghisKhan'sDNA

but the boy/girl average result is about the same in maths in GSCE's . so why are boys 98% of the top achievers in the national and international competitions?

there is an interesting article on it here: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/03/07/the-truth-about-gender-and-math/

basically boys in the UK are either REALLY bad or REALLY good.

Girls are just middling.

Reply 62

ChaoticButterfly

20

Original post by redferry

And this is why we don't do maths. People making us feel stupid when we find it hard.

I really really struggled and worked hard for my maths GCSE and A-level.

This as well. Maths is very binary. You either get it or you don't. The fact you have an a-level maths qualification already puts you at a higher mathematical ability than most of the country.

There is nothing that makes you feel more stupid and useless than not being able to do understand maths that eveyone around you gets. :cry:

Original post by redferry

basically boys in the UK are either REALLY bad or REALLY good.

I would say I am middling

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 63

ClickItBack

18

Original post by Octohedral

I'm one of the exceptions (I do maths, my Mum did maths and my Dad did English).

However, I went to a girls' school, and these subjects were quite under-represented amongst non-Chinese girls. There seemed to be a culture of not wanting to be nerdy, or finding it 'cool' to say maths was difficult.

I wouldn't say vast majority - about 40% of the people on my course are girls. However, there's certainly a large imbalance across the board.

Wow, that's massively different to the Cambridge course. I'd guesstimate the proportion there was like 10-15%. Wonder why that is.

Reply 64

nisrinxo

Original post by GenghisKhan'sDNA

i know there are exceptions, i am not talking about every single girl in the world. but the degrees i mentioned have very few girls in the compared to boys. so i want to hear from the girls (the vast majority) who didn't choose to pursue them , why did you avoid them?

Well currently in my A Level classes I'm the only girl in Physics(out of 14), and only two girls (out of 26) do maths.
I'm also planning to do either Physics or Engineering :wink:

Reply 65

redferry

19

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

This as well. Maths is very binary. You either get it or you don't. The fact you have an a-level maths qualification already puts you at a higher mathematical ability than most of the country.

There is nothing that makes you feel more stupid and useless than not being able to do understand maths that eveyone around you gets. :cry:

So true. I felt like everyone at school found it so much easier than me that even when I got an A at AS I still dropped it.

Reply 66

Hitler/Fuhrer

I don't know even what engineering is.

Reply 67

ChaoticButterfly

20

Original post by aspirinpharmacist

But anyway, I don't think women are invisible in the higher positions in academia because we're stupid, there's clearly something else at work and we need to fix that. I don't know what, before you accuse me of blaming men, but I think there is still a problem with gender roles in society.

Do we though. I mean people who want to get high up tend to want to dominate in some respect. Academia may not be the best example as it is less hierarchical as say a ceo of a giant company. Maybe there are differences between the genders, maybe women are more likely to kinder to other people and not want to peruse a career for all eternity? If that was the case would that be a bad thing?

Reply 68

ChaoticButterfly

20

Original post by redferry

So true. I felt like everyone at school found it so much easier than me that even when I got an A at AS I still dropped it.

¬¬

I ended up with with a C in A-level maths. :redface:

Was one mark of a B which will annoy me for the rest of my life :mad:

Reply 69

Vae

15

Original post by Shadoo

From my experience the girls are only doing better because:
A) they put in the effort to revise etc...
B)School is more biased towards women
C) Women have better memory recall whereas males are more abstract

Basically to sum it up most girls aren't naturally clever they are a group of text-book memorisers which is a reason to the OP. Men question things more whereas women just accept it.

Excellent empirical analysis with valid evidence, I see you're a born scientist.

Reply 70

redferry

19

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

¬¬

I ended up with with a C in A-level maths. :redface:

Was one mark of a B which will annoy me for the rest of my life :mad:

Straight As at A level :tongue:

would never have managed it if I had carried on with Maths though.

I took the easy route into University.

Reply 71

Viva Emptiness

20

I don't know what this "social conditioning" is that people are talking about :confused:

No one ever told me or inferred that I couldn't do maths because I was a girl. Does anyone have any actual examples?

Reply 72

Another

21

Original post by GenghisKhan'sDNA

but the boy/girl average result is about the same in maths in GSCE's . so why are boys 98% of the top achievers in the national and international competitions?

There is a very, very large difference between GCSE and actual mathematical talent. I breezed though my A level Maths exams with a decent result, however if I tried to do Maths at the undergraduate stage I'd break down crying in year 1.

Reply 73

ChaoticButterfly

20

Original post by redferry

Straight As at A level :tongue:

would never have managed it if I had carried on with Maths though.

I took the easy route into University.

Would be interesting if I could go back and do it again. The maths I do now is so much harder. (I need to big myself up now you have shamed me :tongue:

)

Reply 74

Shadoo

12

Original post by qua

Excellent empirical analysis with valid evidence, I see you're a born scientist.

I was merely stating my opinion not a fact based on inference of my worldly experiences. Problem? you know where the x button is.

Reply 75

Zeegie

16

It's a bit of a shame really, I'm not quite sure what the actual reason is but there is definitely a distinct shortage of females doing science subjects at high levels and actually becoming leaders in the field. I do Chemistry and just in my year I think there's probably a ratio of 3:2 of boys to girls, and hardly any of the phd students that supervise us during labs are females. Having said that, I know more female doctors than men. Another thing though, out of those female doctors, I'd probably say 90% of them didn't want to carry on the stressful hospital work and became GPs.

EDIT- the above isn't my assumption, it's the answer that I got after asking them why they didn't want to specialise further and continue in hospitals.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 76

Antifazian

16

As a kid I wasn't aware of the usefulness of these subjects, all I knew was that they didn't come naturally, and I found them anxiety-inducing, so I avoided them and no one pushed me to persevere. Plus I didn't go to a particularly good secondary school, so that didn't help at all - I took the fact that I didn't do amazingly at GCSE in these subjects to mean that I was bad at these subjects, not realising that actually it was just a case of not working enough at them and not having the best encouragement or teaching in them.

These subjects were dominated by boys by the time it got to A Level, and this sent out the message that they weren't the place for girls, and as an insecure young girl you're unlikely to push against that unless you already know that you have significant natural ability in these subjects, which I already lacked confidence in hugely thanks to my experience in secondary school.

I really do wish someone had pushed me and made me realise that these were options for me when I was younger, as once you've made A Level and uni degree choices, it's already too late.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 77

ChaoticButterfly

20

Original post by Viva Emptiness

I don't know what this "social conditioning" is that people are talking about :confused:

No one ever told me or inferred that I couldn't do maths because I was a girl. Does anyone have any actual examples?

They don't now but they used to.

Also social conditioning is often more subtle than society holding up a giant sign saying "this is for boys!" and "this is for girls!" :rolleyes:

Reply 78

Viva Emptiness

20

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

They don't now but they used to.

Also social conditioning is often more subtle than society holding up a giant sign saying "this is for boys!" and "this is for girls!" :rolleyes:

*sigh* yes I know that. I thought it was obvious from my post that I meant that I'd never encountered any attitude of the sort. What do they mean?