Why do smart girls play dumb with their peers?
I agree whole-heartedly with the recent study (June 1, 2009) at the University of Wisconsin- Madison- that definitely culture, not biology, accounts for the differences in math performance among men and women. Professors Mertz and Hyde say the data just do not support the stereotype. http://www.cardinal.wisc.edu/article/23150.
In fact in elementary school, girls are usually ahead of boys in math. It isn’t until middle school that girls start falling behind. And why, on average, do they fall behind?
Early teen years are when girls begin to realize the patriarchal order that exists in most societies. They begin to see that they are quickly approaching womanhood and what that means in relation to men. They also quickly understand that boys have sensitive egos about being ‘bested’ by girls. So they often downplay their intelligence and physical abilities to win the attention of the boys.
A woman named Joyce hosted a Japanese businessman’s visit at work, who brought his wife on the trip with him. It was obvious that the wife spoke better English than him, but she held her tongue in his presence. Many cultures subtly- or not so subtly- discourage a female from embarrassing a male in front of others. She has to hide her talents to be accepted. In the name of “respect”, the often better person has to play dumb. Isn’t that sad?
One woman says, “Lucky for me, my 8th-grade algebra teacher was a woman, Mrs. Barton, who was also a mother of 4 children. She became my role model. She taught math so well, so understandably, and juggled motherhood, too. From that moment on, I excelled in math, going all the way through calculus in high school.
“Doing well in math spilled over into doing well in physics and chemistry, too. College was the obvious next step. I realized that I didn’t have to give up using my brain to be a mother or give up motherhood to use my brain. Because of Mrs. Barton, I have always excelled at math and science and motherhood.
“And I was the older sister of several boys, so I was used to out-performing males. I had a bit of an ego myself. In fact, I liked to prove that I was smarter and better than most of the males around me. I figured a guy could like me and my intelligence, or I didn’t need him.”
Girls today have more social freedom to choose a professional career than the previous generation did when they were young. However, most of the magazines for girls and women still focus on hair, nails, clothes, and being sexy. So the messages that other women editors in society give to girls, still focus on traditional feminine interests.
This makes it harder for women of science and engineering to get their message heard. The narrow focus ‘to be attractive’ is stronger than ‘to be intelligent,’ even in these modern times. Society needs to blend the two. A smart woman can be attractive, and vice versa, and she usually attracts a better caliber of men.
In this way, it is the social messages that girls get at puberty, not necessarily the hormones, which draw them away from mathematics in the adolescent years.
Without these preventatives, the cracks in your child may be math dyslexia, being teased at school, rage, low self-esteem, insecurity, childhood depression, low self-confidence, lack of imagination, lower IQ, slower learning capacity, math incompetency, caught in the downward educational trend, and/or low-paying jobs. They all may be preventable or curable. You, mom and dad, are the key. It’s not rocket surgery!
http://thegodfreymethod.com
