as it seems almost certain i will be pursuing graduate study in mathematics of finance this fall my mind wandered back in time wondering how i got to this point. then i thought about the gender make up of my class. then i thought of a hapless larry summers. why is it that the class i will join will probably be overwhelmingly male? i tend to agree with the science that speculates that the endogenous variables responsible for the predominance of males among the autistic population are correlated with the substantial number of male outliers at both tail ends of the math performance spectrum.
why is it wrong to speculate there may exist a handful more men than women predisposed to be math virtuosos? it must be wrong in the same way that it is "wrong" to speculate that african males will be faster than caucasian males because of the physiology of their muscle tissue, or that ashkenazis will fill the ranks of great physicists because of sphingolipid mutations in the brain whose effects can range from heightened intelligence to peculiar neurological diseases. there are always differences between genders and ethnic cluster groups. we should not shy away from discussing differences so long as we first build the foundations of equality of opportunity for all and address the unjust initial conditions of the past.
why should it matter so much if men outnumbered the women in a math department? well a large portion of that discrepancy derives from the sexist paternalistic culture of the past (and present?) which deprived women of the opportunity to progress to that level of studies. it is only fair to rectify such past injustice. but one must also consider: why didn't such an all pervading male culture hold back those women who DID succeed? there must have been a factor of motivation strong enough to drive these women to transcend the ceiling placed above them. in this light i believe that if women today are to truly conquer the territory of mathematical sciences that was once kept out of their reach they cannot do it just by ability; there must also be that complete and utter compulsion to the field which sustains esoteric pursuit.
mathematics at an advanced level is such a pursuit and calls for a coupling of the requisite ability with a thorough and almost obsessive enjoyment of the subject matter. what i have seen in my experience is that women have the ability but seem to lack the level of enjoyment of problem solving in mathematical systems. the last time i brought up a topic very math-y in nature at a bar in new york it took off on many tangents amongst my male friends but was quickly yawned away amongst my female friends (most of whom have strong feminist ideals and would love to see larry summers hung). i found it unfortunate that such a cliched thing would happen amongst the girls because it is indicative of an underlying superficiality, that which often accompanies the evolution of a righteous cause into a commitment to lip serviced slogan-ism. "the number of women amongst math faculty should be equal to the number of men!" that math will only work out if there is an equal number of women who prefer calculus over america's next top model.
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3 comments:
There's nothing wrong with your speculations.
The problem is that most average folks on the street (men and women) aren't as versed in the statistical arts as you are. They'll somehow intrepret the male outlier phenomenon as being meaningful to middle-of-the-curve people. The people they deal with day to day are not the leaders of the mathematics field, but rather regular women who they assume are worse at math-type skills than regular men. That social climate then makes it that much harder for the female math prodigy to stay motivated to pursue the damn thing.
I take issue with your comparison of calculus with America's Next Top Model. While America's Next Top Model is readily available to and understandable by even those children in elementary school, calculus makes an appearance (to most people) only at the end of high school (if you're lucky), and the great majority of students who make it to college see calculus for the first time in college (if the college even requires they take the class).
A proper comparison would be between high-level mathematics and high-level *something else*, such as:
-a high-level discussion of the merits of the shield of liability that corporations provide to their directors and officers
-what Alvin Ailey's dance piece "Revelations" says about black culture
-the meaning of the struggle between Ahab and the whale in Moby Dick as compared to the struggle between the fisherman and the fish in Old Man and the Sea
-whether the US Constitution protects a right to abortion
Having said the above, I've thought several times about the very question you pose: Why is it problematic that men outnumber women in math/sciences? Like you said, if we accept that there are biological differences, won't their always be disparities in all kinds of occupational/intellectual categories?
I think part of the reason we're freaked out about men outnumbering women in math/sciences is the history of women not being given equal opportunity and being discouraged/denied. (You mentioned this.)
BUT we don't equally worry about gender inequalities in every field. Part of the reason we're freaked out about men outnumbering women in math/sciences is the power/respect given to those fields. We as a society place more weight/value on science than the arts. If more women are high school English teachers, we're not too worried about all the men out there who want to be English teachers but can't break through some glass ceiling.
If there are more female than male dancers, you don't see people fighting for ways to equalize that field. Interestingly enough, I think that it HAS been difficult for many men to break into the dance world. As boys, they had to struggle against the view of dance as extremely un-masculine. But, again: does society care that much about their plight? Not really. Dance is an art, dance isn't financially rewarding. A dancer doesn't garner the kind of power/respect that a mathematician does.
As for law... I don't think law (or business/management) fits neatly into either science or the arts. It is extremely lucrative, and there are as many women as men graduating from law schools today. BUT partners of law firms are not 50male-50female. Does that speak to the greater innate ability of men in law, regardless of the equal graduation rates? Or the greater innate ability of men to concentrate their efforts on one pursuit (getting to partner)? Or the greater innate ability (or choice?) of men to devote more time to career rather than child-rearing?
Even if we rethink our current understanding of which professions are valuable, sciences/math will continue to be more powerful professions for the foreseeable future, so discussion of gender inequality will focus on those fields.
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