are men naturally better at math than women?

Question

alright, so if someone's good at math they're more likely to be male, that's just a statistic more or less. The question is, is this because of the way society treats the genders differently, or is this an inherant genetic differences?

Answer 1

There must be more men who are left-brain dominant; it sure seems that way, they use more reasoning, thinking, and less emotion. More women must be right-brain dominant which leans more toward emotions, arts, language skills. I am a woman who is left-brain dominant and found I do well in math and science and understand it better than the languages or literature. To answer your question, it's probably both. Remember though that our society was once male-dominated with women having few rights. Women have had to work hard to infiltrate some fields of study, especially the sciences.

Answer 2

There is an exception to every rule and a rule to every exception. The math classes I have been In as well as the accounting offices and tax offices where math is used widely are fulled with more women than men, however, society rules that men remain to be the major controller of these offices and so the assumption that men are better is not really true. Because of the general classification of the brain matter (I'm laughing as I type this) we are the same. And its the person, not the sex that determines math abilities.

Answer 3

there are no inherent genetic differences that make men better at maths than women. as you say, its the way society treats the genders and this is particularly apparent at school. boys will be encouraged to do well in areas such as science and maths, whereas you will find that girls are praised more in subjects such as literature. this is not just an unfounded generalised statement, there has been extensive research done into the curriculum and the differing ways in which girls and boys are encouraged or discouraged from subjects. often this is very subtle and most times, we dont even notice it. this is because its been ingrained into our society that men have 'minds and reason' and women have 'emotion and their bodies'. of course, this is untrue, but unfortunatley, we live in a society which still largely upholds that belief through its customs and traditions.
by the way, have you never heard of carol vorderman?!? ;p

Answer 4

Researchers wondered about this way back in the 1960s and began studying gender-based differences in math aptitude over many years. To make the long story short, here's what they found. First, socialization did have a role, but to their surprise, it turned out to be almost trivial. Seriously. They had expected a HUGE impact here, but after the studies were repeated in subsequent decades, they found the same result--some, but not that much impact. Second, males do perform better at math, on the whole, than females.

Further research into WHY this seemed to be true revealed an important influence of testosterone in the amniotic fluid of developing fetuses (which is in much greater concentration around males than females). Testosterone dissolves HUGE amounts of oxygen into the fluid which causes an asymmetric development of the left hemisphere of the brain...thus giving boys an edge. To verify this, they asked some pregnant women to volunteer to be put in hyperbaric chambers throughout their pregnancies. After these babies were born, every last one of them tested out (years later, of course) with genius-level IQs, and were all absolute whizzes with math---among other things. Unfortunately, a number of the women died during delivery from uncontrolled hemorrhaging which they blamed on the hyperbaric treatments...so this isn't done anymore!

Answer 5

There isn't any conclusive evidence of inherent gender differences regarding Mathematical ability that exists. Cultural factors are very evident. Although women have the right and opportunity to develop Math skills, they still don't receive the encouragement to do so. So, therefore, by implication their attempt to develop those skills is thwarted. The gender differences in Math scores in both the ACT and SAT College Entrance Examinations are only one year or a bit more. That, despite strong implicit cultural factors, indicates that a gender difference in Mathematical performance is culturally based rather than biologically or genetically.

Answer 6

WRONG!
I am an 18 yr. girl and I started doing geometry when I was 8 and was explaining it to my teachers.
I believe that what you're good at comes from both your mother and your father. My father was good at math and engineering, like me.
So, no I don't believe that men are better at math because of society or genetic differences, but because most girls don't pay attention and are worrying about they're nails or some sort of junk like that.
I am a very strong believer that whatever a guy can do a girl can do better :)
Hope this answers your question.

Answer 7

Actually, yes. However, men tend to reach extremes in any subject. Meaning, given any subject, the worst and the best are generally men. In other words, again, men will most likely be the failures and geniuses in any subject. This is a statistical fact.

However, just because men may be better at a field, doesn't mean they pursue it, directly. For instance, there are, probably, more female accountants than men. That doesn't disprove this truth. It only proves that more women chose this as a career than men. Nothing more.

Answer 8

One of the reasons males are statistically better at math than women is that males are encouraged to do well in math and the sciences- it's not always the case with girls. Your "statistic" will crumble if you look at it more carefully. I don't believe that it's genetic at all- I'm a math minor and better at math than a lot of the boys in my classes, as are the majority of the girls that are in my classes. It's a socialization.

Answer 9

I think it must be inherent genetic differences because in my math class I can almost never compete with the boys (the ones that try at least) no matter how hard I try. Yet I always blow the rest of the class out of the water.

Answer 10

it's societal if there is any basis in fact to the statistical analyses.
Stats can be made to show anything.

while there may be more men who appear to be good at math, I just think it shows that more men than women were tested.

Some of the greatest mathemeticians of this or any time were women.