Females are shite at Maths

[AutisticHedgehog]

According to a fucking hilarious Mumsnet cliche-meme on the FB feed.

FFS this is appalling. Why are Mumsnet of all places perpetuating the myth that girls can’t do maths.

I know plenty will say “lighten up, it’s harmless fun” but it’s not. It’s continual nonsense-shite that pervades and influences girls and their views that maths is a boys’ subject.

Maths is for everyone.

Shame on you MN.

[OutwiththeOutCrowd]

I wanted to return to this thread to add this graph showing changes over time in the ratio of males to females in the upper tail end of the maths SAT scores distribution.

Clearly there has been considerable improvement in the ratio in the elite ‘tail of the tail'. This is probably indicative of shifts in perception of the capabilities of females at society level.

However, it's also clear that in more recent years progress has tapered off and we remain a considerable way away from parity of representation.

Other exacting maths tests probing the extreme upper end of the ability curve have a similar story to tell about the gender gap.

Various contributory factors have been suggested. For example:

• Females could do better but aren't interested.

• Females still have to contend with demotivating cultural and social pressures that males are not subject to.

• Females are intrinsically less able at maths.

• Females just aren’t as competitive as men.

Of the above, the one I would be ditching immediately is the notion that females lack a keen sense of competition. If anything I would say that girls are more goal-oriented (not in a football sense ) than boys at a younger age and more prepared to put the necessary training hours in! They certainly achieve better exam results in most school subjects.

I don’t think anyone would disagree that sociocultural effects and ‘stereotype threat’ can influence performance, and many will even acknowledge that males as a group may be more likely to gravitate towards STEM subjects, so I’d like to concentrate on addressing the more controversial assertion made by some researchers that ‘females are intrinsically less able at maths’.

For me, mathematical intelligence is a complex mix of integrated competencies such being able to make connections, to see patterns, to create a sustained chain of deductive reasoning and to bring together old ideas in novel configurations. I have come across no evidence to persuade me that men are more capable of engaging in such higher order thought processes.

But the highest does not stand without the lowest. There is a considerable body of evidence showing that certain basic visuospatial sub-skills are stronger in males and that these may feed into manifested mathematical ability. So it could be that it is simply harder for females to realise their latent mathematical intelligence.

It would be interesting to have a breakdown of results for the SAT test and others like it to see if females are underperforming relative to males in questions with a greater ‘visuospatial loading’, so perhaps in geometry rather than algebra. If this is the case, it would suggest that further narrowing of the achievement gap could be facilitated through spatial skills training for girls. (Neuroplasticity means that spatial abilities can be improved with practice.)

I think that we need to be open-minded in this contentious matter. The rigid ideologue who refuses to contemplate possible areas of relative weakness in the female cognitive profile in favour of a ‘just the environment’ credo may be hindering progress.

[The3]

Female is an adjective.

[OutwiththeOutCrowd]

Ok, apologies! Would you like to comment on the main thrust of my argument?

[AssassinatedBeauty]

"The rigid ideologue who refuses to contemplate possible areas of relative weakness in the female cognitive profile in favour of a ‘just the environment’ credo may be hindering progress."

Does anyone say it's down to "just the environment"? Suggesting that additional spatial skills training for girls would improve their abilities is about changing their environment surely? Girls may not be exposed to the same opportunities to practice spatial skills, compared to boys. Change that, and see different results. Where does the relative weakness come from? Is it innate, and not able to be improved very much? Is it innate but capable of being developed? Is not innate but totally down to lack of exposure to activities that practice these skills?

[DadDadDad]

I don't know if anyone else is reading, but that's interesting stuff.

I also find it hard logically to think that female brains are intrinsically less able to do (advanced) maths than male ones. Fundamentally, maths is applying deductive reasoning to specific types of abstract objects and if you are inclined to put in the practice then that should be possible for any human brain.

I have clear memories from when I was a young child of trying to do demanding long multiplication in my head (working out how many seconds in a day). Maybe that brain training made the next stage of my maths education that bit easier, which encouraged me on to the next stage and so on, until my male brain ended up doing a maths degree at Cambridge. With the right encouragement, I can see nothing (other than unhelpful societal messages) that should stop a female brain taking the same route.

However, I hadn't thought about the spatial awareness point. I remember being told that most mathematicians think in pictures (not just for geometry, but even for quite abstract algebra or analysis) - I know I tend to represent mathematical relationships visually in my head. So, does that give men an advantage over women?

[DadDadDad]

[Slanetylor]

I wonder do boys excel in only maths or do they excel across the board?
In Ireland for example you must take at least 6 subjects at 2nd level terminal exams. They must generally include maths and languages as well as other subjects. I’m interested I knowing if males are better at concentrating their skills on one subject? Do females who do great at math tend I do better at other subjects than their male equivalent? Does anyone have any data on that?

[OutwiththeOutCrowd]

Slanetylor it seems be the case that girls are over-represented as you move into the upper tail of the writing ability curve.

You can read about it in this article on sex differences in the right tail of cognitive abilities.

I've also read that of those within the top 1% in maths, the girls show greater verbal ability - supporting the idea that girls tend to be all-rounders.

[OutwiththeOutCrowd]

From what I have read, it seems there could be a small innate difference in some spatial abilities and that difference could be amplified by boys tending to play more with toys that develop spatial awareness and/or by hormonal influences at puberty.

By the time children are taking the sort of maths tests mentioned here nature and nurture could both be playing a role.

There is some evidence in the literature that there is a curvilinear relationship between testosterone levels and spatial ability. The testosterone ‘sweet spot’ for optimal spatial reasoning appears to be higher than the natural female range but in the low-average natural range for men. (Hooray for geeky non-macho beta men!)

Girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia are exposed to raised testosterone levels in the womb and have enhanced spatial abilities relative to girls without the condition. Female to male transsexuals show improved visuo-spatial abilities after testosterone treatment and a concomitant shrinking of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas associated with language skills.

But in the end, while the provenance of the visuo-spatial skills gap is of scientific interest, on a practical level it’s more important to have initiatives in place to enhance spatial abilities if required to help women to be happy, productive and creative in mathematically-oriented occupations if that is their wish.

[DadDadDad]

Hooray for geeky non-macho beta men!

Thanks - it's rare for us to get a shout-out on MN!

[Semster]

How does the fact that Asian girls do much better than all boys at SAT math fit into the nature/nurture argument?

[OutwiththeOutCrowd]

The only data I could find on that following a cursory search is that in 2016 boys of all ethnicities had a higher mean score than their female counterparts. Asian boys had a higher mean score than Asian girls but it's true that Asian girls did better than all non-Asian boys!

It would be interesting to know the detailed breakdown in the upper tail of the ability curve.

[Semster]

This article is quite interesting - although it's about race rather than gender.
www.brookings.edu/research/race-gaps-in-sat-scores-highlight-inequality-and-hinder-upward-mobility/

[DadDadDad]

Wow - those scores for Asian boys and girls are massively higher than other groups - what is going on there? It certainly suggests that the female brain is quite capable of high attainment in Maths.

I've seen videos of children in (I think) China competing in arithmetic tests where they have been trained on abacuses resulting in them having very quick mental skills. But the Asians in the above table are presumably in the US - are they all being drilled on abacuses by their (tiger) parents from a young age?

[Katgurl]

Appalling. I am a maths teacher in a mixed school and one of the few times I completely and utterly lost my was when one of the boys made a comment about girls not belonging in the honours class and way way worse... The girls that were there tittered politely.

[noblegiraffe]

Chinese students outperform all other ethnic groups at GCSE too, with Chinese girls outperforming Chinese boys. It’s not just an abacus thing.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

@noblegiraffe, do you have a link for that data? I can see it's a govt issued spreadsheet - is it publicly available?

[noblegiraffe]

Yep, it’s here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/584146/SFR03_2017_national_characteristics_tables.xlsx

[Slanetylor]

Had never heard a whisper of boys being better than girls at maths until I was well into my twenties. Is this stereotype getting more traction or was I vary sheltered? ( I went to mixed schools where girls outperformed boys in all subjects)

[DadDadDad]

noble - I was being a bit flippant about abacuses, but I'm ignorant of what is explaining the Chinese superiority. Is it that stereotype of the tiger parents endlessly drilling their children on their times tables?

[Semster]

According to my daughter (who goes to a US boarding school with a lot of high achieving Chinese students) a big part of it is that the Chinese are so focused on tutoring students for SATs. This article seems to say much the same. www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/magazine/asian-test-prep-centers-offer-parents-exactly-what-they-want-results.html

So I guess environment and expectations really do have a big effect.