Are you there, science? It's me.
I’ve always wanted to know everything about everything, and I’ve always loved the way everything connects to everything else. Except science.
( Is it just me, or is this a hard subject to get into? Is it just me, or does it seem like kids will more likely be interested in anything else more than science (or possibly math)? And is it just me, or does it seem like the latter are more often girls? )
( Is it just me, or is this a hard subject to get into? Is it just me, or does it seem like kids will more likely be interested in anything else more than science (or possibly math)? And is it just me, or does it seem like the latter are more often girls? )
I'm working in computational chemistry at the university now and what I find interesting is how some natural sciences start to have a lot more women, while others still keep up the old myths.
Chemistry hasn't many women, but it is still better than physics or engineering. Fields like Pharmacy or Biology are actually becoming female dominated these days at least as far as students go.
In natural sciences there is a lot of hot air blown around and sometimes I think women fall easier to the myth that everything there must be hard and complicated, when it's really not that hard and people just pretend it is to look smarter.
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Really? That begs the question of why girls would believe that myth more than guys. It's not as though girls are stupider. Do we think we are? Or is it that so much of our history and culture is built on the myth that girls aren't as smart, so we assume we can't do smart things?
Because I was a star at math and science, and better at it than both my brothers and most people in school, I assumed that my complete and utter lack of interest in math and science had more to do with the myth that girls aren't interested in science, rather than the myth that they're not good at science. But I can't draw conclusions based on just me...
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With girls often the first thing you have to get out of their noggin is that this is (and has to be hard). You wouldn't believe how often I've heard the sentence "But it can't be that easy" from girls. It's really scary, because I see so many who just see a calculation and dispair.
With boys it's often the other way round. They will go at it, even if they don't have the faintest notion what they are doing.
I tend to think these tendencies come from enforced genderroles, where girls are rewarded more for being nice, modest and quiet, while boys tend to get more attention via bragging. It's also interesting to talk to the parents, sometimes I could hit them over the head, when they tell me things like "well, she's a girl" as if it was an excuse for a girl beign crappy in natural sciences.
I really think this XKCD strip sums it up perfectly what goes wrong:
http://xkcd.com/385/
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My sister in law linked me to this: http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~taylor/WomenAndMathematics.ppt
which I recommend if you can dl/have powerpoint. It's about girls in math.
The problem is, I have trouble understanding the confidence issues, because I'm very self-confident (and downright arrogant, most the time). I used to go around talking about how great I was all the time. I stopped doing it when I hit puberty, and that really may have something to do with being a girl.
Anyway, the slideshow talks about studies in which girls didn't better on tests after being told the tests didn't matter, or that the tests were gender neutral. In general, the less threatening the tests seemed the better girls did on them. It even suggested that something as simple as checking a box stating your sex before a test might influence scores.
It's also interesting to talk to the parents, sometimes I could hit them over the head, when they tell me things like "well, she's a girl" as if it was an excuse for a girl beign crappy in natural sciences.
This shouldn't shock me but it does. Ugh!
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