Toxic Stereotypes about Girls vs Boys
Dear friends of women in science,
The December issue of the American Journalism Review included work from professor Caryl Rivers from Boston University and Rosalind C. Barnett, senior scientist at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center. Their paper was called "The Truth About Girls and Boys: Challenging Toxic Stereotypes About our Children." The authors point out that Science ran an article in September in which eight prominent scientists examined the evidence for the need for single sex (SS) K-12 education and concluded the so-called brain differences were based on shoddy and un-replicable brain science experiments. The lead author was Diane Halpern, former president of the American Psychological Association and a prominent expert experimentalist on issues of family and career.
In this piece in Science, the authors in AJR note, the scientists did not mince words about how journalists use science. The Science authors, prominent psychologists or neuroscientists, find the performance of the news media sorely lacking. "Novelty-based enthusiasm, sample bias, and anecdotes account for much of the glowing characterization of SS education in the media," they write. The AJR article goes on to debunk, following the Science evaluation, such notions as that "Boys are biologically programmed to focus on objects, predisposing them to math and understanding systems, while girls are programmed to focus on people and feelings." The evidence for this idea is based on the work of one scientist and others have not been able to substantiate the supposed brain differences. Many other such myths are debunked as well.
Yet, there is strong evidence that women's colleges contribute disproportionately large proportions of the women who go on in STEM fields. That evidence isn't based on any assumptions about brain specialization but on percentages of graduates pursuing different fields over decades. So why do women's college succeed? What do you think?
cheers,
Laura
"Yet, there is strong evidence that women's colleges contribute disproportionately large proportions of the women who go on in STEM fields." Reference, please. I know this was the case in the past, as documented by the work of Elizabeth Tidball in the 1970s and 1980s.
However, whether or not this is still the case, it's useful to note that graduates of women's colleges are not a random sample from their cohort. (Exactly what the relevant cohort might be is also a consideration. Is it age? Or socio-economic status? Or . . . ?) Education at women's colleges may certainly encourage women to stay in STEM. But, applying and being admitted to a women's college certainly seems like a major selection factor.
It took me a while to figure out why women's colleges were getting mentioned in connection with single-sex K-12 education and the Science article discussed by Rivers and Barnett. The situation appears to be somewhat different with for children and for adults with respect to development of gender stereotypes.
Hi Rose,
Yes, I think some of the books we discussed last year, like Cordelia Fine's and Rebecca Young's really took apart the apparent media darlings' evidence and showed how worthless it was. But they still got quoted! I love that the article I quoted was by journalists!
cheers,
Laura
These fake pundits really make me mad. And the journalists are right to criticize themselves for doing it wrong...they quote these guys whose reputations THEY have built up. The scientists discredited these guys almost as soon as they published. As soon as someone tried to repeat their poorly designed experiments. Geez.
