Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man? - Women earn most of America’s Ph.D.’s but lag in the...

The American ^ | March/April 2008 | Christina Hoff Sommers

[neverdem]

Women earn most of America’s Ph.D.’s but lag in the physical sciences. Beware of plans to fix the ‘problem.’

Math 55 is advertised in the Harvard catalog as “prob­ably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country.” It is leg­endary among high school math prodigies, who hear terrifying stories about it in their computer camps and at the Math Olympiads. Some go to Harvard just to have the opportunity to enroll in it. Its formal title is “Honors Advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra,” but it is also known as “math boot camp” and “a cult.” The two-semester fresh­man course meets for three hours a week, but, as the catalog says, homework for the class takes between 24 and 60 hours a week.

Math 55 does not look like America. Each year as many as 50 students sign up, but at least half drop out within a few weeks. As one former student told The Crimson newspaper in 2006, “We had 51 students the first day, 31 students the second day, 24 for the next four days, 23 for two more weeks, and then 21 for the rest of the first semester.” Said another student, “I guess you can say it’s an episode of ‘Survivor’ with people voting themselves off.” The final class roster, according to The Crimson: “45 percent Jewish, 18 percent Asian, 100 percent male.”

Why do women avoid classes like Math 55? Why, in fact, are there so few women in the high echelons of academic math and in the physi­cal sciences?

Women now earn 57 percent of bachelors degrees and 59 percent of masters degrees. According to the Survey of Earned Doctorates, 2006 was the fifth year in a row in which the majority of research Ph.D.’s awarded to U.S. citizens went to women. Women earn...

[M203M4]

“We had 51 students the first day, 31 students the second day, 24 for the next four days, 23 for two more weeks, and then 21 for the rest of the first semester.”

That is good (or bad, depending on your philosophy) for a freshman course. It is humane to start weeding out early on, rather than wait until 4th year to cull the weak (lol).

For a contrasting situation, during my undergrad, we had some untouchable profs near retirement teaching the 4th year math and theoretical physics (AKA math) courses. One particular (required) course in partial differential equations began with 35 solid students (solid enough to finish 3rd year) and ended with 14 students, with a posted class average of 56%. Two women remained, with no non-Asian minorities. Because of this course, the rest switched majors or dropped out.

Intro to quantum field theory started with 12 students and we ended with 2 (though the average this time was in the 90's), both of us Caucasian males, FWIW.

The hard sciences can be merciless, and there is no room for subjective excuses for personal failure (like "the prof doesn't like me" - you either get the correct answer/perform a sane analysis or you don't, end of story).

[DugwayDuke]

Math 55? Big deal. Obvious, they never heard of math 201 at OU under “Big Daddy” Earl Lafond. Over fifty percent failure rate. One A in 15 years.

[LongTimeMILurker]

Just teach the subject! Don’t try to weed out the near geniuses from the geniuses. Chances are what the near geniuses can learn will handle about 99% of the work out there. They might be used to working harder already, and it gives them a better work ethic than the geniuses who didn’t have to study as much or at all. I saw too many of the near geniuses that ended up majoring in Psychology because they were weeded out by courses like these. That’s a waste of talent. I recommend that they don’t go to Harvard, and that they go to a small underrated school that will teach them instead of weeding them out.

[varyouga]

My last 2 years in college, there was not a single female in my classes. Maybe a handful the first 2 years.

The last woman I did research with ended up being my secretary because she was better at talking to sponsors. As far as scientific work went, she had no idea.

But she got the same research credit I did and an AMAZING job offer. I wonder why I didn’t get ANY offers?

[M203M4]

One mechanism related to that is rooted in fairly solid science. Since most genes related to neurological functioning are located on the X chromosome, a mutation in one of these genes, whether “positive” or “negative”, will thus have a higher impact in males (who have only one x, guaranteeing the associated mutated phenotype) than in females (where the second, non-mutated copy will dampen the effect of the mutated one, to put it colloquially).

[varyouga]

Math 55? Big deal. Obvious, they never heard of math 201 at OU under “Big Daddy” Earl Lafond. Over fifty percent failure rate. One A in 15 years.

haha. As you go higher up, those first year courses that you thought were impossible seem like child's play.

I remember the joys of advanced gas turbine theory. 46% class average. If you got at least a B, you were guaranteed a job at one of the big players(GE, P&W, etc).

Then there was this one robot kinematics course with equations that went on for PAGES. The sadistic prof wanted us to solve them by hand. 5 people were left in the class by the end...

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

You succinctly expressed what I was trying to say in #16.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

I’m the third generation example in my family, of a female with boy brains! Grandma was an accountant, Mom and I enjoy math and mechanical pursuits. What’s more, we don’t talk much, and when I hear other women talk on and on, I get impatient.
We don’t run masculine in the looks, fortunately :) and when lost, I ask directions. But I can believe there’s a genetic factor at work here.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Probably self-identified.

[lepton]

At the level of ordinary undergraduate math and science, men and women are, for all practicle purposes, equally able.

It may be only blatantly obvious at the extreme...but it's pretty substantial within several sub-areas of math...like geometry...not far past the median. ...Like the spacial manipulation capabilities of which the 50th percentile male is equivalent to the 90th percentile female.

[Ditto]

I wonder how the breakdown determined 45% were Jewish?? Asians are obvious but not Jews.

Yes, it is obvious if you think about it and for the same reason as Asians. Culture.

I saw it 40 years ago in my high school. The Jewish kids where predominant in the advanced placement courses, especially in the sciences. Not all of them were 'scholars' but they sure as hell had a very high percentage that were. The were far more likely than others to study hard, work hard and they took learning far more serious than most of us did as teenagers. .

My parents would have been happy if I were honor roll, but they they didn't demand anything other than 'average' from me. I just wanted to pass and get through and for the most part the did minimum amount of work necessary. Many of those Jewish kids would be in real trouble at home if they weren't on the honor roll. It was expected of them.

That was part of their culture that came from Europe with them and their parents enforced it on them. They knew that to succeed in anything, they could not be 'just as good' as their competitors but better than their competitors. They didn't hope for some job at the mill and a nice car after high school. They deferred gratification and prepared themselves to became the doctors, the lawyers and the business owners who could succeed on skills and knowledge.

Frankly, it's good to see that all these years later, that culture has not disintegrated. I personally don't subscribe to the genetic stuff where some races are smarter than others. I am convinced that it is culture and how the kid was raised and the expectation placed on that individual that make the difference.

[Ditto]

Wanna bet those male students all have coke bottle glasses and pocket protectors?

Wanna bet that 20 years from now some of them will have as much money as Bill Gates?

[grey_whiskers]

I'd love to hear Lisa Randall's opinion on the class.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

First time I've seen you on FR.

Clicked on your name to see your homepage.

Consider yourself highly commended^TM, sir!

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Just clicked on your FReeper home page.

Welcome aboard, sir.

Cheers!

[DugwayDuke]

“haha. As you go higher up, those first year courses that you thought were impossible seem like child’s play.”

My mistake. OU had a strange class numbering system back then. Math 201 was a third year class. 0XX courses were first year. 1XX course for sophomores, 2XX for juniors. Math 201 was Differential Equations for Engineers and Scientists. There were eighteen semester hours of other math prerequisites.

Lafond was just a the kind of professor who delighted in flunking folks. In fact, there was another equivalent course in Differential Equations restricted to Math majors. Lafond was not allowed to teach that course. IOW, Math 201 was ‘too difficult’ for math majors.

I remember the first day of my first attempt. Lafond walked in, looked around the room, and noted that at least half the class was back from last semester and that he expected fully half of us to be back the next semester. I dropped the course later that day.

The trick to 201 was to take the class at 8AM when there were two sections offered. If Lafond showed up, you dropped and enrolled again the next semester. Lafond taught all other 201 classes.

The problem was Lafond gave really tough exams. Did not grade on the curve and any error was a 25 point deduction.

On my second attempt I got a different professor, took my C and went on to complex variables.

“I remember the joys of advanced gas turbine theory. 46% class average.”

We had one of those too. Think it was called Advanced Gas Dynamics. Taught by a 24 year old PhD who wrote differential equations faster than you can write sentences. Actually, passed out xeroxed class notes since most in the class couldn’t take notes as fast as he wrote. Extremely disdainful of ‘practical engineers’. Not one of my favorite classes.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Do you have some references -- preferably URLs -- that show these differences in sub-areas?

Here's a chart illustrating the point that I was making:



The chart shows that there should be plenty of women able to handle undergraduate math or science scores (requiring, say, two SD above average ability). It also would show (if the scale were much larger) that there's a far smaller proportion of women than men able to handle PhD level math or science (requiring > 3 SD above average ability).

Note how the male Normal Curve is flatter and wider than the female curve -- i.e. there are more men at the extreme ends, but close to the same numbers around the "average".

More here:

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

scores = courses

[Chickensoup]

My daughter is a physics major. She loves her classes and labs. The young men are so attentive. She is the only girl there and they swarm to her and help her with her homework.

[therut]

Well I double majored in Chemistry and Math. Math was easy. But hey I went to Medical School. Problem is what woma who is the type to do physical sciences will be that way after a lefty indoctrination at expensive Universities. I never got the lefty message. No womyn studies and such for me.