Girls Can Do Calculus and Physics and Astronomy and Look Nice!

Joan Ryan of the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed a psych professor who claims that girls don't do calculus in high school because they didn't do well in algebra in middle school (training their brains). Funny, she's also got a book coming out. Her comments don't jive with the research or studies, but, hey, it reinforces stereotypes and makes her money, right?

Perhaps we should interview middle school teachers on what they see "in the trenches", or maybe we parents should take a glance at the honor roll lists. Girls are usually the A students in these subjects. Often the validictorian is a girl, which meant all A's. More girls than boys are on the highest honors (all As). By this simple objective measure, clearly girls on average are training their brains by " reinforcing and strengthening their skills in math and science" just as boys are.

All this nonsense about outside activities compensating for middle school boys increased ability ("building blocks and train sets"? - come on, she seriously thinks middle school boys are into this stuff?) without any serious objective measures and studies is academic doubletalk.

It turns out that girls do read more outside of school than boys, but this doesn't mean that boys are on average building up math and science skills outside of school. If this were so, why all the hand-wringing over television and video games (and no, video game playing doesn't build these skills - only video game programming and design build these skills, but the number of boys and girls who do this in high school is very small)?

So this professor's claims are absolutely bogus given the objective metrics, and there is no serious objective study which credibly substantiates outside school activity to explain this difference. But maybe we should keep this simple - just ask any parent what their son is doing in his free time, and I guarantee you they won't spend much time talking about building math and science skills, unless they forceably enrolled him in a math / science summer camp.

So why do people keep saying these things? Well, as my old anthropology professor used to say, "Man is a naming creature", and people want everyone to fit into little stereotyped boxes, no matter how absurd or ill-fitting they are. And there will always be opportunists who will sell books to people who want to find a basic biological reason to map out 50% of the population.

If you want to know about how social pressures in science and math affect girls' career choices in high school and college, we should talk to the American Association of University Women, who organize the Stanford Tech Trek every summer for promising middle school girls all over California (see Girls Just Want to Have Astro Fun).

I had the privilege of speaking to these girls about opportunities in physics and astrophysics. I led my discussion with the reports that women in these fields earn the same as men, find far less discrimination in their professions, and love the cutting-edge nature of their work. It's a great time to be in the sciences.

Look at the Spitzer team - Dr. Yvonne Pendleton of NASA spoke at Foothill last year on this ground-breaking look beyond the dust obscuring the galaxies, and it was inspiring to young women and girls, my own daughter included. NASA currently has women on many teams - some teams are predominantly women. Look at the new Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, Dr. Denice Denton. Hey, better yet, we should interview her about women in the sciences. I'm sure she'd be great.

I found these girls bright, exciting, and curious. My own daughter (then nine years old) brought along her telescope and demonstrated to them that instruments are fun and sturdy (see Rebecca Jolitz Demos Telescope Techniques at Stanford Tech Trek). None of these girls had any trouble playing with the instrument, but then again, no one had ever told them "Go ahead, move it. Play with it. If a nine year old girl can use it, you can too." It worked.

I've written about this topic as a mother and a woman in science for years, but I guess I'm not catering to prejudices enough to be heard. But I'll say it again - girls are worried about working with instruments bacause they may look stupid and unattractive in learning how to handle them.

We are all clumsy at first with any new toy, whether it is a computer or a piano, but to girls at the middle school age - so terribly self-conscious and unconfident - the fear of being told she looks stupid or ugly is real and palpable. This is enough to discourage the formation of the habit of exploration through experimentation, even if it means looking a bit inept. It is not a biological issue - it is a social issue. And it is easily corrected - just let them play with the instrument without fear of ridicule! It really works, and it costs just a bit of time and encouragement.

It's time we got over this obsession in our society with using pseudoscience to justify prejudice. People all have different skills, and instead of trying to avoid our societal responsibilities we should be facing them to make sure our citizens, all of them, reach their full potential. That's what makes our country the greatest in the world - that we are a country "of the people, by the people, for the people".

That's what made Silicon Valley great, too.