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

I actually slightly agree. I'm a girl (surprise surprise) who's applied for MPhys this year, and I'm sick of being the only girl on the visit days. Please, we need more intelligent girls!!

*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?

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.

I don't know even what engineering is.

i saw some of your paintings, they weren't half bad.

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

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

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?

I don't think the 'maths isn't cool' thing applies exsclusively to girls, or young people. How many people do you know, of all ages, who appear to wear their 'I was never good at Maths' badges with pride??

What course specifically do you do? In my experience it tends to be that the amount of girls on science courses generally goes Biology>Chemistry>Physics. From the modules (as part of a chemistry degree)I have done, the ones which have a more biology leaning (BioChem) have double or triple the amount of girls than those with Physics leanings (Quantum Mech + ChemPhysics).

I think a lot is made of the amount of men, compared to women at the top of science and it is an issue, but if girls aren't applying to the courses neccesary to qualify for those roles then there isn't much we can do about it at such a high level, the change has to happen long before that stage, at GCSE/A-level type age.

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

that's good to hear. but why is that the IMO elite is 98% or smth male even today? i'm not even mentioning fields medals (0% women, as i'm sure you know) since that could bring in other issues like family life etc. these are teenagers who are brilliant at maths, boys or girls. so why do boys make up almost 100% of the apex? especially when girls score better across the board and on average.

I do maths at Oxford (with both pure and Quantum modules). I'm pretty atypical as regards gender (I'm also a Navy cadet), but have never really noticed the imbalance on my course as an issue to be honest. There's a slightly odd statistic at Oxford in that girls tend to go there over Cambridge, so perhaps that's led to the skewed figures.

I agree change has to happen early on. I was lucky in that my Mum taught me, but most mathematicians I know have been heading that way from a young age. I'm not closed-minded to the possibility that there are genetic gender factors, but I do think there's a lot of social factors too.

You'll be pleased to hear I'm totally opposed to female only scholarships and other forms of higher level social engineering.



There is an element of girls choosing Oxford over Cambridge, usually to avoid the risk of STEP. And yes, the Cambridge course is harder (as much as I hate to admit it ). I may also have estimated wrongly. To be honest, I never really take note of gender.

I went on the UKMT summer school and there were 5 girls to 30 boys, so I'm not denying there's a massive imbalance at the top end.



There are a lot of possibilities. As above, I'm not closed-minded to the possibility that there are genetic gender factors. Certainly as regards the very top I can imagine boys are far more ambitious and competitive, and perhaps they're more mathematically 'genius' capable. However, I do think there are a lot of social factors too, even now - give it a hundred years and we'll find out for sure.

There are enough women near the top (many of my lecturers, plus historic figures such as Emmy Noether and Sophie Germaine) for me not to be too worried. If the very elite are male, I have no problem with that, so long as any individual is allowed to contribute what they can.

I haven't really answered your question, but the truth is I have no idea. Just thought I'd contribute random personal experience.

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.

This question can be reversed as well. Boys, why don't you do humanities based subjects?

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/18/girls-physics-boys-other-subjects-gender-disparity

I actually slightly agree. I'm a girl (surprise surprise) who's applied for MPhys this year, and I'm sick of being the only girl on the visit days. Please, we need more intelligent girls!!

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?