Math and Girls

Echidne has an awesome post taking down yet another sexist take on "Why don't more women go into math, science and engineering?"

So I am going to tell the story of one of my closest friends. R is easily the most brilliant woman I know. I adore her, respect her and am occasionally in awe of her. The only reason our relationship hasn't fallen into hero worship is that she feels the same way about me. We very much compliment each other in weaknesses and strengths.

R has one of the most awesome feminist boyfriends ever- B. They are both math majors. They take all the same classes, do all the same tests, work on research projects together.

They had the same teacher for several classes. As usual, they did the same homework, etc. Their work was very similar, though not exactly the same because they didn't copy off each other, but did work together to find the right answers occasionally.

B got consistently higher grades on homework and tests. On one final the professor only graded a few of R's answers and then guessed what he thought her grade should be. B got his entire test graded and got a higher score. Their answers were similar.

So already, not even in grad school yet, and R is getting graded less fairly than a male with similar skills and abilities.

But here is where I have hope- and I brag a bit about B's feminist cred. They are applying to grad schools and want to stay together. Getting into a good grad program is difficult enough, but getting two people into a good grad problem is exponentially more difficult. B, before returning to school, was a successful programmer. He has said that if it came down to only one of them going to grad school, R will. And he will follow her. He can get a job making good money anywhere. He is very aware that as a woman R must have her grad degree to be able to work in her chosen profession.

But R is lucky in this. Most women don't have that option. It is normally the women who follow the men and their careers around.

So perhaps more women don't enter into math and science careers because 1) despite what you may think gender bias in education is still very real and 2) the responsibilities we put on women to maintain relationships through personal sacrifice preclude them from spending 8 years getting a degree in a place that may not allow their partner career or education options.

That and I've seen the kinds of work they have to do to keep their GPAs up. I don't know that if R & B had the responsibilities of children or even the necessity of working full time while in school, that they could keep up like they need to, despite their utter brilliance. But those kinds of responsibilities usually fall on the woman.

So I go back to thinking about the recentering piece from Feminist Philosophers earlier today. We know there are fewer women in math and science. What can we do to make it easier and more tempting for them to go into that kind of study is a much better question to ask than why don't women like math. I can think of a few things right off the bat, like having more women math and science professors to begin with. Perhaps monitoring of grades to make sure professors aren't consistently underscoring female students so that the onus for calling out sexism isn't on powerless students who may have no idea that their classmates are getting graded easier than they are.

That's just a start.