Here’s a sexist notion that you can get ready to challenge next time you hear it: women aren’t as good as men as math, and it’s because of biological differences. You may remember then-Harvard President Larry Summers’ suggestion to that effect at a Harvard conference back in 2005. After being confronted with contrary evidence and the anger of faculty and donors, Summers eventually admitted he was wrong on the science. But the overriding media myth is that he was the victim of “political correctness” for speaking the truth (for example, see this column by the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus).
Maybe we can dispel that myth forever. In January, Science Daily reported on an international study of boys and girls’ performance on math tests and attitudes toward math. It turns out that girls around the world are not worse at math than boys. On average, there were only small gender differences in the test results between boys and girls.
But the size of the differences between boys and girls varied a great deal depending on what country they were from. For example, in countries that had more women in research-related positions, the girls were more likely to do better in math and feel more confident of their math skills. And the study indicated that despite overall similarities in math skills, boys felt significantly more confident in their abilities than girls. The study’s lead author said the study “shows us that while the quality of instruction and curriculum affects children’s learning, so do the value that schools, teachers and families place on girls’ learning math. Girls are likely to perform as well as boys when they are encouraged to succeed.”
With that in mind, a healthy skepticism is probably the best response to bigoted remarks wrapped in the guise of science. At a recent Thanksgiving dinner, a guest said he thought that urban poverty was largely explained by an article on intelligence differences between whites and African Americans that he’d read in Slate magazine; it suggested that white advantages were related to their higher intelligence. When I asked the guest whether he’d looked at any of the substantial evidence countering that idea, he hadn’t. A week later, a devastating rebuttal appeared in Slate that showed that the original author’s sources were members of a white supremacist group. Both the author and Slate’s editor apologized.
When people trot out “evidence” that supports male privilege, we should be ready to ask tough questions. “Have you considered the arguments on the other side?” is a place to start. Time and again, “facts” about male superiority are found to be based on an author’s worldview rather than a dispassionate look at the data.
Steve
