# Do women "enjoy" math as much as men? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 18, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308 "2008-11-18T17:18:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![datasos\_adv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@datasos\_adv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/datasos_adv)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/41 "2008-11-19T07:15:48Z")
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**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/42 "2008-11-19T10:00:07Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > It’s not in itself an argument for anything, but anyone who holds the “nurture” position could easily account for it and its effects by virtue of the fact that mainstream culture markets cute and cuddly things to little girls in a way which it does not with little boys (the My Little Pony vs. G.I. Joe divide, so to speak). > > That is to say, the fact that women are found in large numbers in biology/veterinary medicine/etc. in a way which they are not in physics is not a very strong argument against the “nurture” position, because the response is to claim that fondness for cute and cuddly things is itself culturally-induced rather than innate. Sure, and anybody holding the nature position could also use the same evidence: namely that females have an [innate fondness](http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/babies.html) for anything cute and cuddly ([for some obvious biological reasons](http://www.firstscience.com/home/articles/humans/science-of-cuteness-page-3-1_22207.html)), and the reason why female children are given dolls to play with is because, on the whole, [they prefer those types of toys](http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200804/why-do-boys-and-girls-prefer-different-toys). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/43 "2008-11-19T10:00:12Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > I don’t doubt that women are just as good as men in regurgitative knowledge. I’m a null at regurgitative knowledge. I enjoy any subject (including math) when it’s taught as something I can reproduce logically; I hate any subject (including math) when it’s taught as “there’s no logic to it, just learn it by rote” (a direct quotation from my 6th grade maths teacher, who evidently didn’t understand her subject). > [@WormTheRed](#): > > I’d say that that behaviour wouldn’t have anything to do with your gender. QFT > [@AK84](#): > > My collage level physics class; 132 boys 13 girls large group, 12 boys one girl small group. My Ingeniería Química Superior, which can be translated as either “Chemical Engineering” or “Industrial Engineering, emphasis on Chemistry,” depending on which legal organization you ask: 70-80 students per graduating class, first female students accepted in the 1976-1977 course, my own graduating class entered in the 1986-87 year and was 40 females, 38 males. Mind you: many of the women (including me) were in that particular engineering because our parents accepted it and they wouldn’t accept something “harder” like Physics or Electrical Engineering. That’s a rant for another forum, though. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/44 "2008-11-19T10:25:14Z")
> [@seodoa](#): > > You cannot possibly prove it one way or the other. There can always be an odd exception. The point is, all the “odd exceptions” appear to be male. ---
**Author:** ![seodoa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@seodoa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seodoa)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/45 "2008-11-19T10:34:28Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The point is, all the “odd exceptions” appear to be male. Can you totally and exhaustively list every single odd exception in the entire world from the beginning of time until the end? Could you even do so for the present? Also, can you cite reliable sources that agree with your assertion? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/46 "2008-11-19T14:22:39Z")
I know women are severely underrepresented in engineering disciplines, which have a strong math backing them, but what about other mathematical disciplines? Someone above mentioned statisticians or economists, are women more evenly represented there? I’m sorry, but all the gender equality handwaving aside, if women are significantly underrepresented in mathematical disciplines then it is probably safe to say “No, overall women don’t enjoy math as much as men.” What the proximate or ultimate cause for this is, who can say. We can point to socialization phantoms all day but I think the question is still answered. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/47 "2008-11-19T14:25:27Z")
I can safely report computer science is steadfast in its refusal to yield to the female onslaught. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/48 "2008-11-19T14:42:01Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > I can safely report computer science is steadfast in its refusal to yield to the female onslaught. Interestingly enough, my graduate program in CS is roughly one third female. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It’s only fallacious if it’s wrong. Is it fallacious to say the same about physical strength too ? A line of argument can be fallacious without being wrong. **Bacillus Cereus** is making the claim that even if men and women have the same mean math ability, men’s abilities have a higher variance, and therefore the most mathematically able person must be a man. That’s not correct. It may be highly likely that the most mathematically person is a man, but it’s not guaranteed. Physical strength is a bad analogy because it’s so highly dependent on size, and most men are larger than most women. If you can control for that, you might have something, but you don’t until then. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/49 "2008-11-19T14:52:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Interestingly enough, my graduate program in CS is roughly one third female. Really? As an undergraduate, we had around 250 people in the initial intake, around 90-95% of which I’d estimate as male. This only got worse as the course progressed. My PhD seems to be even worse—there’s hardly any women at all, and the female computer scientists tend to be clustered in the more applied areas. One conference I went to had about 100 participants: only two were women (one was the organizer)! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/50 "2008-11-19T15:18:55Z")
About 30% of math Ph.D.'s awarded in the past several years in the U.S. are female. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/51 "2008-11-19T16:11:41Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > Cite [here](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3538/is_/ai_n29115471). From a journal article in _The Psychological Record_. Of particular relevance, the third paragraph; male students in the humanities outperformed female engineers at spatial reasoning. Also, note the second author of the article linked to—the chances of misrepresenting the findings of the study are slim. Need to read a bit more. The conclusions are not all that clear except to note it is not easy to draw conclusions without very careful analysis of the inherent bias present in any given test and controlling for it. From your link: > [@](#): > > The distinction between superficial appearance and cognitive requirements could help to explain the observed male advantage. Although males outperform females in both the verbal reasoning and dynamic spatial tests, the sex difference in the test superficially verbal turn to be nonsignificant when the sex difference in the dynamic spatial test is statistically removed. Note that this is not to say that only spatial processing is affecting such differences. > > The findings discussed in the present study weigh against the frequent practice of evaluating sex differences in a given cognitive ability through a single test. Colom and Garcia-Lopez (2002) have demonstrated that this practice can produce very different conclusions. Those researchers measured sex differences in fluid intelligence through a test based on letters (the inductive reasoning test from the Primary Mental Abilities Battery) and through a test based on figures (the Advanced Progressive Matrices Test). Females outperformed males in the fluid test based on letters, while males outperformed females in the fluid test based on figures. > > The present study adds another consideration that could be crucial: The evaluation of sex differences in a given cognitive ability must rely neither in a single test nor in the test superficial appearance. The cognitive (information processing) requirements imposed by a given test must be investigated before using it to evaluate sex differences in the main cognitive abilities (Halpern, 2000). Unfortunately, those cautions are frequently forgotten. > > SOURCE: [News Articles - FindArticles](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3538/is_3_54/ai_n29115471/pg_4?tag=artBody;col1) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/52 "2008-11-19T16:14:23Z")
My favorite niece, who is wonderfully geeky and improbably cute, has been known to say “Uncle, I’m bored…can you make me up some trigonometry problems to solve”? That is only half of why she is my favorite. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/53 "2008-11-19T16:14:38Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Even assuming she’s right, that just looks like a case of self selection to me. Unless NO women liked & were good at math ( or whatever ), I’d expect close to equal scores simply because that’s where that sort of woman is going to go. Eh…I don’t know. The talk was a few years ago. I’d like to think a doctor at the University of Chicago conducting such studies and being peer reviewed is fully aware of the issues you point out. I do not recall her saying the testing of the University of Chicago students was somehow statistically meaningful but rather one of those quirks that she, as a researcher, noticed and found interesting and simply remarked on it. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/54 "2008-11-19T16:30:33Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Need to read a bit more. The conclusions are not all that clear except to note it is not easy to draw conclusions without very careful analysis of the inherent bias present in any given test and controlling for it. From your link: I guess I don’t see your point 🙂 They’re removing any advantage that men have in spatial reasoning from a test that is supposedly verbal. Once that advantage is removed, the scores even out between females and males on the “superficially verbal” test. At no point is that paragraph talking about testing for spatial or quantitative ability, according to my reading. Inherent is the implication that females are inferior to males, on the whole, at spatial reasoning, and the first paragraph of the paper points to a whole body of research from the 1970’s onwards that confirms this, as well as confirming, that in fact, the results _are clear_ when it comes to spatial and quantitative reasoning: > [@](#): > > The huge number of available databases facilitated the publication of several key meta-analyses from which some **robust conclusions have been extracted**. Hyde (1981) published the first meta-analysis from the data summarized by Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) in their classic book, The psychology of sex differences. The results showed that boys outperform girls in overall spatial and quantitative abilities, while the later outperform the former in overall verbal ability. > … Bolding mine. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/55 "2008-11-19T16:44:05Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Slightly off-topic, but I’m curious what this rather elementary proof is. Elementary doesn’t mean short, necessarily. The argument is longer or shorter depending on where you are starting from. If you know elementary high school algebra (and can square an expression of four terms), are comfortable with modular arithmetic and with induction, then it is not even that long. Here is a web site that includes the full argument. I guess it is three or four pages long, which I had forgotten: [Every positive integer is a sum of four integer squares](http://www.alpertron.com.ar/4SQUARES.HTM) Incidentally, the author of this web site, Dario Alpern, has many usefull mathematical functions on his site. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/56 "2008-11-19T16:56:21Z")
> [@seodoa](#): > > I’m not claiming anything is not PC WRT biological differences. But it is fallacious for Bacillus Cereus to claim that no woman can be as mathematically inclined if not more so than the most mathematically inclined man. “Can be”, no, no one can demonstrate that. But “is” is a different matter. There are, in any generation, a handfull of mathematicians doing spectacularly innovative work. I mean the kinds of things that all the rest of us DON’T say, “I wish I’d done that”, because we know we are incapable of it. Galois and Abel in the early 19th century, Hilbert is late 19th, early 20th. Grothendieck in the mid-century, Perelman more recently until he dropped out, they are always there and are not women. Come down to the next level and you will find women. Not many and there may well be sociological explanations for that. Incidentally, AFAIK, women dominate linguistics departments. Is this because women got in first and are now preventing men from rising in the field (demonstrably false) or because women have a special affinity for, and interest in,language? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/57 "2008-11-19T17:29:30Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > I guess I don’t see your point 🙂 > > They’re removing any advantage that men have in spatial reasoning from a test that is supposedly verbal. Once that advantage is removed, the scores even out between females and males on the “superficially verbal” test. At no point is that paragraph talking about testing for spatial or quantitative ability, according to my reading. > > Inherent is the implication that females are inferior to males, on the whole, at spatial reasoning, and the first paragraph of the paper points to a whole body of research from the 1970’s onwards that confirms this, as well as confirming, that in fact, the results _are clear_ when it comes to spatial and quantitative reasoning: > > Bolding mine. Let me add their final paragraph: > [@](#): > > The present study adds another consideration that could be crucial: The evaluation of sex differences in a given cognitive ability must rely neither in a single test nor in the test superficial appearance. The cognitive (information processing) requirements imposed by a given test must be investigated before using it to evaluate sex differences in the main cognitive abilities (Halpern, 2000). Unfortunately, those cautions are frequently forgotten. I am in no way qualified to discern if all those tests in the 70’s that they pulled data from meet this criteria. My reading of what they are saying is that there are biases inherent to any testing of this. Those biases need to be well understood and controlled for, presumably, by administering multiple tests that balance the bias. So, if the tests in the 70’s were skewed to engaging the spatial processing of male brains when working at verbal tasks it will seem men are better but that is not a reasonable conclusion. Again, I do not know if they controlled for all that historical data or not (sounds like they do not think such things are generally done) but the bottom line seems to be you have to be very cautious in analyzing such data as it can easily be misleading. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/58 "2008-11-19T18:21:36Z")
> [@](#): > > So, if the tests in the 70’s were skewed to engaging the spatial processing of male brains when working at verbal tasks it will seem men are better but that is not a reasonable conclusion. Well, for one, the opening paragraphs of the paper indicate that the evidence shows females fair better on verbal tasks than males. The whole point of the paper, that I linked to, was demonstrating that males may outperform females if the verbal task is “superficial” (again, this is according to my reading), and really a spatial task at heart. At no point was any claim made about the validity of the evidence, from the 1970’s forward, that males are better and spatial and quantitative reasoning than females. In fact, the study only serves to reinforce this evidence, by presenting a “verbal” task that is really spatial in nature and showing how women fair worse than men at the task. But, I’ve got to be honest, as a non-expert, three decade’s worth of research on the matter seems pretty conclusive, and I think it absurd that nobody would make the obvious connection and vary how the tests are carried out, trying to isolate any cultural factors. If you find a concrete problem with the studies mentioned, then sure, I’ll change my mind. However, as far as I’m concerned, all available evidence suggests one thing only. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/59 "2008-11-19T19:01:20Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > But, I’ve got to be honest, as a non-expert, three decade’s worth of research on the matter seems pretty conclusive, and I think it absurd that nobody would make the obvious connection and vary how the tests are carried out, trying to isolate any cultural factors. If you find a concrete problem with the studies mentioned, then sure, I’ll change my mind. However, as far as I’m concerned, all available evidence suggests one thing only. Seems they have looked at culture and they have evidence that suggests something other than you suspect. I finally found an article talking more about the Science article I linked to earlier (since I cannot read that article without paying for it): > [@](#): > > A group of researchers studied 276,000 teenagers in 40 countries by having them take the same tests in math, reading, science, and problem-solving ability. They also assessed the prevailing views about gender equality in each country, e.g. how people answered questions such as “Should women work outside the home?” and “Is it more important for a man to get a college education than a woman?” > > The first finding of interest is that the gender gap in math is huge in some countries and non-existent in others. If biology were mostly to blame, we wouldn’t expect to find such wide differences. > > \ > > Adding more evidence are findings that women’s scores on math in America have been improving over time, which further suggests that abilities in math are culturally determined. > > SOURCE: [http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-stereotypes/200806/explaining-the-math-gender-gap](http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-stereotypes/200806/explaining-the-math-gender-gap) ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308/60 "2008-11-19T20:34:17Z")
I ran across [an article](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/business/16digi.html?_r=1) in the NY Times discussing the lack of women in computer science. Interestingly enough, in the early 80s, there were approximately equal numbers of women and men in CS classrooms, but that’s changed pretty radically today, despite the fact that we’ve been moving towards parity in other science and engineering fields. There are a couple of hypotheses offered, but I don’t find either of them completely convincing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-women-enjoy-math-as-much-as-men/473308.md?page=4)