Opening a can of worms?

Question

Are there less females in the fields of math & science due to an inherent inabilty on the women's part or is it merely b/c of how women are raised?

Answer 1

Worms, ineed. But, as the then President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, discovered, more of a shipping container than a mere can:
"Summers spoke during a working lunch. He declined to provide a tape or transcript of his remarks, but the description he gave in an interview was generally in keeping with what 10 participants recalled. He said he was synthesizing the scholarship that the organizers had asked him to discuss, and that in his talk he repeated several times: ''I'm going to provoke you."
He offered three possible explanations, in declining order of importance, for the small number of women in high-level positions in science and engineering. The first was the reluctance or inability of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks.
The second point was that fewer girls than boys have top scores on science and math tests in late high school years. ''I said no one really understands why this is, and it's an area of ferment in social science," Summers said in an interview Saturday. ''Research in behavioral genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialization weren't" due to socialization after all.
This was the point that most angered some of the listeners, several of whom said Summers said that women do not have the same ''innate ability" or ''natural ability" as men in some fields.
Asked about this, Summers said, ''It's possible I made some reference to innate differences. . . I did say that you have to be careful in attributing things to socialization. . . That's what we would prefer to believe, but these are things that need to be studied."
Summers said cutting-edge research has shown that genetics are more important than previously thought, compared with environment or upbringing. As an example, he mentioned autism, once believed to be a result of parenting but now widely seen to have a genetic basis.
In his talk, according to several participants, Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them ''daddy truck," and one ''baby truck."
It was during his comments on ability that Hopkins, sitting only 10 feet from Summers, closed her computer, put on her coat, and walked out. ''It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women [at Harvard] are being led by a man who views them this way," she said later in an interview.

Hopkins was the main force behind an influential study documenting inequalities for women at MIT, which led that school's former president, Charles M. Vest, to acknowledge the pattern of bias in 1999. A member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, she is also a Harvard graduate.

She doesn't argue that there can't be any differences between the abilities of men and women, but she said there is vast evidence that social factors do affect women's performance. For example, she mentioned studies that indicate that women score higher on math tests if there are fewer men in the room while they are taking the test.
The five other women who were offended by Summers' speech also argued that their objections were based on research that indicates women do perform at the highest levels when given the same opportunities and encouragement as men.

2." These results may not yet be fully applicable to women at all universities, since not all universities are math-science-based like MIT. Yet these results demonstrate that women in a demanding environment achieve success comparable to that of men. A university in which this situation does not exist should evaluate its treatment of women (both overt and subtle) and "not resort to finding the excuses within score data that were obtained when the women were in high school, an environment much less likely to foster confidence in women with regard to math and science ability."

3. Finally, even if it turns out that important biological differences underlie some of the difference in the distributions of mathematical talent, their effect may be quite small compared to the effect of these psycho-social factors. Vanderbilt professor Camilla Benbow, a specialist on gifted children, stresses the mutability of some of these factors. She points out that where there has been a concerted effort to encourage girls in mathematics, the ratio of mathematically high-achieving boys to mathematically high-achieving girls declines considerably.

The bottom line is that we can do much more to induce girls and women to study mathematics. We can make pedagogy and applications more palatable and stress the beauty and utility of the subject as well as its algorithms and calculations. Moreover, whether students of either sex go on to careers in science or not, there is compelling evidence that if they take more math, they will considerably increase their likelihood of finding higher-paying, more rewarding jobs."

4. Research studies suggest that many factors contribute to the attitudes, access, and achievement of young women in mathematics and science: encouragement from parents, preparation of mathematics and science teachers, interactions between teachers and students, curriculum content, hands-on laboratory experiences, self-concept, attitudes toward mathematics, high school achievement in mathematics and science, availability of mentors, and resources available at home.
This essay reviews the most current data on women’s progress in mathematics and science achievement, attitudes, course-taking patterns, and college majors. The final section summarizes earnings differences between women and men who majored in mathematics and science in college."

So, the message I'm getting from all this is that there are fewer (not less) females in the fields of math and science primarily due to environment, rather than genetics (i.e. inherent inability.) And I suspect that Madame Curie, two-time Nobel Prize winner, would agree.

Answer 2

I think it is more due to a general disintrest in math and science from the female gender. I have taken math and science classes with young ladies that did better than any guy.

Answer 3

One school of thought states that women make more decisions on emotion than fact, which is basically contradicts how scientific decisions are to be made. One school of thought is that the way girls are brought up they tend to be "led" toward other jobs. Little girls want to be teachers, cheeleaders, etc. Personally, I think it is the second. I am an engineer and some of the smartest engineers i've met are female.

Answer 4

Because usually women are more concerned with other aspects of life itself. Scientists are people who are devoted 24-7 to their work. They barely have a life, don't go out, don't have fun, nothing. It's just work. And most women cannot live like this.
That's my humble opinion.

Answer 5

Shhhhhh

Answer 6

The latter. males work hard to retain as many bastions as possible.