"gifted" a gender problem

[iggly2]

Not so much the percentage of females or males that are gifted but the consequences......

Don't women dominate Vet-medicine because they have higher levels of empathy, including with animals? Plus women will put up with relatively low end salaries (considering the yrs of slog & education to get there) to get higher levels of job satisfaction?

DD is wildly ambitious & high achieving; has even said she'd be a City Banker if that's where the money is (am trying to gently steer her away).

If OP is saying that clever females cope more poorly with frustration, worse than the other 3 cohorts, I would want to see controlled psychology research on that specific issue of frustration. May still be down to biological or cultural factors different from whatever OP means.

I am still trying to find the part of the book -which I now think was "Nurture Shock" . This is hard as I lent the book to a friend!
As books go it tends to reference the research it quotes pretty well. I believe the different groups were assessed via IQ test (I can not remember exactly what sort) and I would hope children of similar sibling positions, social status and emotional state were used. I would also hope no gender stereotyping language was used before hand, or in the test. I am honestly not trying to be deliberately evasive about the research.

When preliminary research such as this study was done there may not be fully comprehensive reports as to what causes the frustration. The fact that there were significant differences in the results of the groups is the interesting part. "Further study required" is a very common postscript in science.

what's wrong with your daughter being a city banker?

Maybe the research just shows the, higher performing on an IQ test, females did not listen to the advice they were given to continue if they could not do a question!

Sorry iggly2, I'm not suggesting in any way that you're being evasive about the research. It's just that social science research does tend to get picked up and used in ways that were never intended by the researchers. There were various interesting examples I thought in Delusions of Gender, and of course Ben Goldacre in his Bad Science column has made something of a niche in picking up such things.

Hmm I would say that people become vets as they
Like people
Are good problem solvers
Can think laterally
Like a challenge
Are methodical
Empathy is important, but it's fairly far down the list.
Of my non-vet female colleagues at University I have by far the greatest income, so I would say you don't need to settle for low salary if you are ambitious.
More of the big private referral centres are owned by women than men. In general I would say the women of my profession are more ambitious than the men.

This type of research will be preliminary and it will take decades to work out exactly (if ever) what maybe being represented with the dip in the results of that cohort. I am really interested in the anecdotal stories that may show (potential) differences in the resilience of the genders to the questions. I do not see a troubling perfectionism in my son but see perfectionism in some of his female friends. I actually read the book years ago! Enjoyed some wine and stupidly posted about it!

From what I recall one study but large numbers (so resasonably robust, with statistically significant results, p

what's wrong with your daughter being a city banker?

Well I suppose she could choose to be a sexual predator if she wants to aim higher in the Public Enemy Number 1 stakes.

I thought I had Nurtureshock on my shelves but no joy.
The only thing I'm going to say as an academic is that it's very easy in non-peer review pop-science books like that to selectively quote things that fit your argument. Always good to read the criticisms, too.

City bankers have predominantly been to the very top universities, they almost always have additional qualifications in accountancy/actuary. I guess I would have no qualms with DS wanting to go into finance if he was that way inclined (though if he chose law I would be horrified).

Believe me I understand the importance of peer reviewed journal articles.

why would you be horrified by law? (plenty lawyers in my family)

Hmmmm lets just say the lack of ethics I have witnessed have disgusted me.

I'm very thankful that Ds likes the idea of creating computer games

All the city bankers I know are Imperial Engineering graduates. Though all of them gave their late twenties and early thirties to banking, that is what would have me putting my child off from it. Though all of them are stinking rich.

I think a lot of professions/careers require long hours at the start. If you like that career you may not think too much about the hours placed. Alternatively, if you dislike it you can move out of the "City" and look at other things/options.

Given binary thinking from a "pop-science" book written by journalist types in this kind of area there is a strong possibility it is a take on Dweck's research.

Yet again.

Does anyone have the book? My first bet is that they're saying clever girls are more inclined towards a 'fixed mindset' so melt-down a bit when they can't hack the impossible questions, whereas clever boys are slightly more in the 'growth mindset' direction so were not quite so dismayed. Or something like that.

If that is the case the my next (more tentative) bet is that this result fell out of an experiment where one group spent few weeks being told they were very clever and the other group were all process praised. But is this really a result you can safely apply to an eclectic bunch of children in a random classroom who haven't had their minds tampered with by the researchers?

This might be a teensy bit offensive to some, but I've always wondered how bright children can turn into the non-resilient stereotype who simply can't handle any failure or real challenge. Younger more credulous children perhaps, but if the older ones are that clever then why haven't they reasoned their way of that box? If there really is a problem then I suspect a significant part of it is something besides the labelling.

My dad studied to be a lawyer & is easily one of the most highly principled people I could ever manage meeting. I'll be happy if DD chooses law.

throckenholt, I grew up in the US and I'm afraid ime failure was not seen as opportunity for growth at all. It was seen as a sign you should do something else. But then I went to a results focused all girls school so that may have had more to do with it.
Piqueaboo, in my experience, it's really hard to get out of if your family reinforces that message. However, I moved away, attempted and failed at a PhD and the world didn't end. Plus I had DH who has taught me how to learn.

Hmm about the law. Even those who appear respectable I have found to have very dubious ethics (read utterly disgusting), this includes standing up for their own regardless. Bear in mind I have seen solicitors can happily lie in court. Daddy dearest may well hide his true nature.

DS would not be supported if he chose such a career path.

"This might be a teensy bit offensive to some, but I've always wondered how bright children can turn into the non-resilient stereotype who simply can't handle any failure or real challenge. Younger more credulous children perhaps, but if the older ones are that clever then why haven't they reasoned their way of that box? If there really is a problem then I suspect a significant part of it is something besides the labelling."

Perhaps this could be explained by the links between aspergers and gifted. I have read about them being on a contiuum or being strongly related. The Misdiagnosis book describes gifted characteristics being on a continuum that finally tip over into becoming aspergers and suggests that the two may be linked. This is of course not to say that all gifted people have aspergers or that all people with aspergers are gifted.

"Perhaps this could be explained by the links between aspergers and gifted"

I think that's a good suggestion. In truth I'd have said something like that myself but I'm completely out of my depth in this area and didn't want to idiotically ruffle any feathers: I know very little about Aspergers, spectrums and continuums etc.

What I do know is that when DD was at primary there was another quite bright child in the class who seemed to struggle to decide what was an appropriate action or response in some mundane social scenarios: a quite subtle difference in a five year-old's behaviour that snagged my sub-conscious as being not quite 'right'. By-and-by that child went on to have quite a few serious melt-downs when their result wasn't in the top few in a test, when they weren't amongst the best at some other activity or couldn't master something relatively quickly. This was clearly their nature.

I'm even more certain my DD was born with her quite resilient character and the contrast between those two children is quite enough for me to question why so much of the discussion around resilience problems appears to treat (the wrong type of) nurture as the entire cause.