QuickCheck: Do Men Have an Advantage in Learning Mathematics?

The Star ^ | Tuesday, 26 Sep 2023 | Jaayne Jeevita

[airborne]

Depends on who’s asking.

Any liberal would say, “No, and that’s sexist!”

I would say, “Depends on how complicated the math is. I’m good at basic math but bad at advanced math.”

[WVNan]

Age does have consequences, I hated math from day one. Reading and writing was printed on my brain at a very young age. Now my brain is rebelling. It’s very Disconcerting. I have forgotten both Greek and Hebrew which I was so proud of actually learning both during my Masters. I suppose 90 is not a bad record.

[nickcarraway]

Two trains are approaching each other from 120 miles apart. One train is going 60 miles per hour...

[Bullish]

I dare the author to perform the same analysis along the politically perilous racial lines.

I think they know full well what kind of stats that study would generate so it would never be conducted. People want to live in their comfort zones and the truth makes them way too uncomfortable.

[Bounced2X]

[T.B. Yoits]

Women understand math just fine; "Your money is our money, and my money is my money."

[Georgia Girl 2]

Just stop! 😂😂

[Varda]

LOL, I may have to steal that!

[Chode]

boys, real boys, doing boy things, are always looking at size and shape of things, how parts fit/go together, measuring lines and angles by eye, how strong something is, all without even thinking it/let alone knowing they’re doing it, and they do it their whole lives...

when it comes to math i’d say that is where headstart comes from

[Dr. Sivana]

Somebody has to say it. Men are better at math than women.

Like with a lot of things, the shape of the bell curve is different.

You will find more males outpacing females at both ends of the spectrum in math, and a variety of other things.

Sure, gals do fine in college level Calculus if they have natural overall intelligence and are conscientious in their studies, but like with Chess, the related field of physics, and other STEM fields, the men ace them out at the top. Conversely, there are men who cannot make change from $500 on the purchase of Boardwalk in a game of Monopoly (I am not kidding).

Chesterton stated that Man was the great specialist, and woman the Great generalist, like a pencil sharpener versus a knife. The sharpener is unequaled in its one task. Knife can do many tasks well enough. For that reason, he believed that most women were happier in the home, where they can run a great many things.

[FamiliarFace]

In my family growing up, 3 boys and 3 girls, I was the most math proficient in the family, and I think my little sister was next. All of my brothers are older than me, and one of my brothers needed remedial math in junior college. My brothers all struggled with algebra, but were some better at geometry. None of the 3 were better than I was at any type of math class.

However, my husband is an engineer, and he is definitely better with numbers than most anyone I know.

What this proves, I don’t know. I may have been the outlier growing up, but my brothers weren’t geniuses in math. In fact, they weren’t much genius at any school subjects. The one brother who is terrible at math is quite a historian, though. He knows all sorts of historical information.

[FamiliarFace]

Shopping is awful; give me a math problem! ;)

[Bounced2X]

I still can’t figure out how long it takes the hawk to catch the pigeon
Two trains are approaching each other from 120 miles apart. One train is going 60 miles per hour..

[SauronOfMordor]

Looking at the high end (perfect score of 800 on math), there are a lot more math-gifted boys than girls.

“Specifically, at the highest level of math performance on the SAT test last year for perfect scores of 800, there were 11,098 males and 5,570 females achieving those scores, meaning that nearly 2 males achieved perfect scores for every one female (male-female ratio of 1.99-to-1). Adjusted for the fact that more females (903,719) than men (794,802) took the SAT test in 2015, the percentage of males who earned perfect scores of 800 points was 1.4% compared to the percentage of females with perfect scores of 0.62%. That produces an adjusted male-female ratio of 2.26-to-1 (vs. the 1.99 unadjusted ratio) for high school students who had perfect 800-point scores.”

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/actually-50-years-of-test-scores-do-confirm-that-boys-outperform-girls-on-the-sat-math-test/

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

So, math is “Racist” AND “Sexist”! Who knew!

[FamiliarFace]

Guys have always been interested in figures.

[nickcarraway]

LOL

[CodeToad]

Well, it does take patience, attention to detail, and the ability to not multitask while solving a math problem.

[Verginius Rufus]

Hypatia of Alexandria was a brilliant mathematician. But if you showed her a page with mathematical calculations using Arabic numerals, she wouldn’t have the slightest idea what they meant.

[alternatives?]

Why does society insist that women are better or equal to men in ALL categories and ALL LEVEL of categories, primarily the upper levels of categories? Ditto by race?