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Men And Women Think Women Are Bad At Basic Math
sciencehabit writes "Think women can't do math? You're wrong — but new research (paywalled) shows you might not change your mind, even if you get evidence to the contrary. A study of how both men and women perceive each other's mathematical ability finds that an unconscious bias against women — by both men and women — could be skewing hiring decisions, widening the gender gap in mathematical professions like engineering."
Women and men are equally bad at math. Specially at teaching math. It's not an easy subject and it's not a natural way to think about anything.
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
Because we all know that women are better than men at some things, but men are never better than women at anything.
What a shame that "ability at maths" is seen by TFA as the ability to "add up sets of two-digit numbers in a 4-minute math sprint".
Yes, of all the people in the world, it was my mom who taught me basic math.
Without her, I wouldn't know how to count. I wouldn't know how to add, to subtract, to multiply and to divide.
Of course I did learn more advanced math in the school, but the foundation of my math was laid by my mom.
Thanks, mom !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Handing knowledge down through the years based on personal experience was once, and for many generations, the best way to save information. It is better than no system at all (we're talking pre-widespread literacy), but the risk of passing along stereotypes and prejudices certainly existed.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I worked as a part time waiter while I was in college. One night I was waiting on a party of over 40 people (5 tables in all) and when I added up the final bill (it was in the '70s and there was no PC-based POS back then) manually (over 80 items in total, including drinks and desserts ) and handed it to the folks, an old guy looked at the bill and scolded me for "not doing it right".
I was right and he was wrong, but, as he was the customer, I couldn't tell him that his math sux, so I did the next best thing - I call the manager and let him add up the total bill.
It came up the same. (I did say I was right).
The moral of this story is ... don't be harsh.
Joe sixpacks don't do much math, and you don't get them to do extra-ordinary level of math without them feeling very sorry for themselves.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Hardly anyone thinks this because there is ample evidence to the contrary. Moreover, the average woman is probably about as good at math as the average man. But when you're hiring in a "mathematical profession" you're not looking at the entire population; you're looking at the set of men and women with relatively high mathematical ability. Within that set, at least in the United States, men outnumber women. This could very well be the result of socialization; I'm not necessarily arguing from physiology. But it's hard to argue with numbers. The ratio of men to women among the set of SAT takers with a perfect math score, after adjusting for the fact that more women than men take the SAT, is 2.5 to 1. So, all else being equal we should expect about 28% of engineers and mathematicians to be women. Interestingly, if you look at the percentage of Math Ph.D.s granted to U.S. citizens (in 2010) women earned exactly 28%. With respect to engineering and computer science, approximately 20% of bachelors degrees (in 2008) were granted to women, so there may be work to be done there. My guess is that this is due to the stereotypical reputations of CS/Engineering (bearded hackers with poor hygiene and huge egos) being less appealing to women than to men.
My ex-girlfriend was once helped through a math problem by her teacher, and they figured out that the solution was the half of x, so the teacher told her to write that down.
She wrote down '/'.
In Venezuela women are perceived as better in math and sciences. And usually they are.
In my experience, being a doofus does not significantly decrease mens self confidence. Employers tend to hire confidence, women tend to marry confidence. Any measure of "perceived ability" is measuring confidence. Male birds tend to puff their feathers out, and also to self report their superiority to mates, and if we can translate bird, no doubt the male peacocks report they are better at math.
Gently reply
Obligatory RTFA, (the comic is at the top of the second link)
Gently reply
In the rush to kumbaya and make it out to be "the sisterhood versus the patriarchy," a lot of women and male feminists don't notice that there is a sizeable contingent of technically qualified women who by and large have little respect for most women. I saw this in college with the women who took CS seriously feeling like they had to work twice as hard because half of the girls were getting by, in their minds by "flipping their skirts and smiling the guys" to get them to do their work for them. A good friend of mine who was a mechanical engineering major observed the same thing in his department at a different university. In fact, our oldest female professor was notorious for being ruthless on the girls because she literally wanted to drive out any girl who had in her mind that women in CS should be allowed to get by in any fashion that even resembled "advancing on their backs."
So if anything, I would say be careful about letting female engineers interview other potential candidates unless they are known to be genuinely fair-minded. You very well may find that it's actually the women, not the men, who are discriminating.
I could be that PERHAPS there IS a difference in some math skill between males and females?
I know it's heinously non-politically-correct to suggest that the sorts of hormonal variations that developmentally result in gross anatomical changes might actually have an impact on the subtle chemistry of brain development as well...we're perfectly willing to recognize that (speaking broadly) women are in fact better at multitasking or that men are better at 3d shape understanding. Is it impossible that there isn't actually some real difference in, say, instinctual math that vanishes in a focused, testing setting?
I'm 46; I've found over my life that often these sorts of 'common perceptions' commonly HAVE a kernel of truth in them. Often misapplied, misunderstood, or blown out of proportion, but nevertheless a root in fact.
I will say that I've far more often seen women spend 15 minutes trying to precisely divide a dinner tab more precisely than men, who'll tend instead to just throw down roughly their share plus some, even if that results in the wait staff getting a huge tip. I know that's not specifically a math skill, but it's one of those real-world anecdotes that feed this perception.
-Styopa
If their clothes had pockets, they could carry money on their persons and get more counting practice in.
Pockets. Think about it.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
That's because men keep telling women that 4 inches is actually 8 inches.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
True story. I was at the doctors office yesterday. The female nurse assistant was getting blood pressure, weight, and height. 6" 7'.
"Hey Julie, can you do math?" she called to the receptionist.
I looked up at her. She repeated her question. I interjected "Huh?"
"Oh, well I need your height in inches." "Well it's 12 times 6 and add 7." "I know, but I don't do math."
"OK then, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, that's 5 feet, and one more makes 72, and then add 7."
She looked at me like I had two heads. Well I do, but you know what I mean.
"So that'd be seventy-nine, right?" She looked at me, I THINK she then looked at her friend for confirmation, and then wrote it down and said, "I never liked math in school. I even managed somehow to skip some of the mandatory classes." "I can tell", I thought.
I just shook my head, wondering if she was a nurse or an assistant. Or maybe an assistant's assistant.
Maybe she was new, maybe she was a temp, maybe it was just really a bad day. But I've never had someone who was so seemingly ?dumb? as she was. But she wasn't dumb, she just "didn't do math".
I'm not a PhD at all or theoretical physicist or anything, but I just can't imagine. "I don't do math" is just like "I don't do words" to me. I couldn't imagine life without either of them.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
All my mom knows how to do is multiply...but that is why I have seven siblings.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
As a math and science teacher, I've seen multiple studies on performance of different genders in math and science. There is a gap in North America, although it's closing rapidly. (In the past 40 years, men have gone from having 20% higher averages than women to having 2% higher averages than women. Evolution doesn't act that quickly; it's a purely social bias.) Men still perform slightly higher than women in this region because there are still teachers out there who expect more from male students and push them harder. In other words, if the teacher *expects* female students to get 60s and down and *expects* male students to get 70s and higher, then that teacher who sees a male and a female student with 68% averages, then the teacher will work with the male to improve his performance, but not put in the same effort with the female student. It's a horrible thought, but it's still happening out there. The same is true for race factors, for "learning disabilities" (which I would rather call "learning anomalies" but that's another story) and more.
Bottom line: there is a slight and closing gap between men and women in math and science in North America, not because there is any biological difference in this particular area, but because social biases that exist in the system are failing the female students more often than they are failing the male students.
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com
The job was simple: As accurately and quickly as possible, add up sets of two-digit numbers in a 4-minute math sprint.
So really the article is bogus as they are two different things (and if you think otherwise, it's probably because you've only every done arthimetic and don't really know what mathematics is).
As it is, anyone in the UK who's ever watched Countdown will have been disabused very rapidly of any anti-woman bias in arthimetic skills.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Hardly anybody hires based on gender bias. You do not hire a gender, you hire a person. It doesn't matter if women in general are or are not as good as men in general at a given task, as long as the particular woman you are interviewing is.
All this whining about "gender bias" and the following excuses to try to take responsibility from people for their own failures sickens me.
Now, more on the topic, regarding gender differences, the average is not very different from men and women, so for basic math there is not much of a real difference. On the top, though, which is considerably more relevant to math and logic related profession there is a real biological gap, and no it is not social:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Men and women are quite different in many things, it is a politically correct idiocy to try and force the concept that these differences are only aesthetic.
There are experiments about what helps pupils best to get better with mathematics, and it has been shown that drill and constant exercise is the most effective way, even for complexer mathematical problems.
The trouble with americans is that they think there is only one. (Math)
But it is plural - Mathematics
In the rest of the world its called Maths
There are experiments about what helps pupils best to get better with mathematics, and it has been shown that drill and constant exercise is the most effective way, even for complexer mathematical problems.
That's a great way to train drones who don't understand the how & why, but not a great way to make people truly understand mathematics. I do what I do because I love it, and any facts I memorize I memorize because I happen to see them often, not because forced me to sit around and work out pointless problems. That sort of thinking is why math education is so abysmal.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Until we come up with a solution to the difficulties posed by overpopulation and start living sustainably, life extension is probably a bad idea, it'll only aggravate some already major challenges:
Option 1) Life extension is expensive - it doesn't directly complicate population issues notably, but it keeps the same rich bastards unfamiliar with modern technology and carrying really old prejudices in power even longer, making adaptation more difficult
Option 2) Life extension is cheap - oops, now we've just aggravated the population explosion. Maybe it's only by another ten percent on top of the 40-70% coming out of Africa and Asia (who presumably mostly still won't be able to afford it), but that's still an extra billion people to deal with.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I disagree. Well, you are likely correct that there are ways to improve the teaching of math. But even people who aren't drones need to train themselves in the basics, it is only when the lower level stuff comes without thought that the higher level stuff becomes more accessible. And the only way to make the foundation second nature is practice. Someone who enjoys it has an advantage since they are more likely to get enough practice. It is the same in most endeavors, for instance sports. I've been mountain biking for years, I love it, but it was only after building the body memory for the basics like balance, braking, cornering, etc. that the higher level stuff like jumping became possible.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Maybe I incorrectly assumed he was talking about the same kind of rote memorization I was thinking of. When I talk about that, I'm saying that they force pointless repetition on people, have people memorize meaningless facts, and skip the process of trying to get people to understand how and why it all works to begin with. What I'm not saying is that you never need to retain any information.
But really, attempting to understand how and why it all works gives you a lot of practice all by itself, from my experience.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Performance in the SAT is not uncorrelated with effort put forth in the math classes prior to the test. That's a variable that's strongly influenced by socialization.
Given the example of things like chess, it would seem that socialization should probably be the default explanation until and unless evidence of other explanations comes to light.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
This researcher found statistically significant differences between boys and girls at the high-end of mathematical ability as early as Kindergarten. So we're talking about 5-6 year-olds. Of course this is just one paper and (for all I know) it's been refuted elsewhere in the literature.
If students learn something for the first time they tend to use their memory mostly without much understanding.
Which is part of the problem.
Only through training, execises they learn to use the concepts behind it and find out about the subtle problems behind it.
One thing I hate is when people tell me how I learn and force me to do repetitive assignments that test only for memorization and do nothing to bolster one's understanding of the material, which is the sort of thing I was talking about. I had to deal with that garbage too much in the past, and never bothered to do any of the assignments.
Thank you Dave Raggett
One thing I hate is when people tell me how I learn and force me to do repetitive assignments that test only for memorization and do nothing to bolster one's understanding of the material, which is the sort of thing I was talking about. I had to deal with that garbage too much in the past, and never bothered to do any of the assignments.
A few points: (1) A well-structured set of problems in a basic math textbook is often intended to gradually allow students to work through various difficulties. The first few problems start with some new idea or skill, then a few more introduce some complications and special cases, then the next few combine it with previous knowledge and skills, and finally we arrive at greater fluency in using the new material. I, probably like you, never needed that many exercises to figure things out. I probably could have done 10% of the problems assigned, and I still would have absorbed the new material. But as someone who has actually taught high-school math, I can also tell you that you and I are NOT the norm. I tried not to assign too many repetitious problems, too. But many students need to work through at least some of this build-up of skills when incorporating a new idea into existing knowledge.
(2) Even for cases where there is more-or-less repetition to learn skills, it is sometimes useful to learn skills. This is different from memorizing facts (though with really basic arithmetic, there is a need for actual memorization too). Basic math is often about internalizing algorithms, to give you tools to be able to higher math. If you don't internalize these algorithms, higher math will become increasingly difficult to follow and understand.
(3) Also, sometimes the algorithm IS the goal. For >99% of people in the world, math is only useful as a tool, not some sort of higher-level "play in an abstract world and have cool insights" kind of thing. They need to be able to do basic manipulation of numbers and symbols to solve very particular types of problems -- with real-world applications. That should be the focus in math education for those not actually going on into higher math -- no need to do all sorts of wacky advanced algebra or memorize stupid facts about geometry in high school... let's teach students how to solve real world problems, and make sure they practice those skills to internalize them.
It sounds like abstract ideas came quickly to you. They came quickly to me as well. But that's not true for many students. Part of the problem is our curriculum structure, which seems to assume all students past middle-school math should be headed toward higher math, instead of focusing on applications and skills that could be useful. But part of the issue is that many students need significantly more repetition to get things, or they need a gradual build-up in difficulty when dealing with a new idea.
It's not always "garbage."
If "Maths" is plural, shouldn't that be "In the rest of the world they are called Maths"? Ipso facto: Math.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.