Painfully true

The claim usually made is not that women on average have a lower mean math ability than men on average do but rather have a lower variance of mathematical ability than men.

The politically correct like to pretend that when anyone compares the variance of math ability between men and women they are really talking about means. This makes it much easier for the politically correct to mock their opponents.

Here is a blog post about how much of the media did this when reporting on a new study:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/summers-vindica.html

Anyone want to calculate the % of ensuing commenters to this post who will assume the comic is strictly about whether or not girls are good at math?

Too subtle for James D. Miller, apparently.

dfreelon,

Right. Nobody missed that Summers was talking about variances, and so claiming that there just weren’t enough women on the high-end of the curve for Harvard to hire. What everybody was objecting to was his claim that the variance was innate, and not socially conditioned. Which is why James D. Miller’s comment is simply misdirection.

The slightly off thing about this cartoon is the “Wow” in the second frame. After all, the speaker clearly isn’t *at that moment* arriving at the conclusion that girls suck at math, but is instead taking this to be an instance that confirms an earlier belief that such is the case. Reminds me of the many times I’ve witnessed a woman proving a result or raising a point of central importance and being dismissed on the basis of a trivial misstep made along the way; also reminds me of cases where the value of the contribution can’t be dismissed and so the focus veers to the matter of why the contributor isn’t ‘really’ a woman.

Thanks for the repost of a good cartoon.

Completely OT but academic types might want to forward this long list of diploma-mill buyers to their friendly registrars.

That is indeed a great xkcd … I wish he (she?) had that and the “Someone is wrong on the internet” panel available on T-shirts.

Reminds me of a cartoon in the New Yorker ~ 20 years ago. The usual white males (like me) and one woman sitting around a boardroom table, the person at the head of the table saying something to the effect of, “Excellent point, Ms. Smith. Let’s wait until a man brings it up before we discuss it.”

Hmmm — I wonder how many more years it will be before the sheer weight of numbers will make it seem absurd to think that women are the disadvantaged sex in higher education? A nearly 60-40 ratio of female to male undergraduates is obviously not enough. Would 70-30 do it? Maybe not, since, for example, Veterinary medicine has shifted, over the last couple decades, to 70 percent female students without anyone thinking it’s a particular problem — any more than anybody really worries much that nursing is 95% female or K-12 education is 75% female and increasing..

But there has to be a tipping point somewhere, doesn’t there? Or perhaps not — maybe advocates won’t concede female underdog status until every field at every level, from freshman to department chair, is minimum 50% female (the max % does not matter, of course). Which is to say–somewhere between a very long time and never.

But there has to be a tipping point somewhere, doesn’t there?

Yes indeed there does, Slocum. Once the ratio of female to male undergraduates surpasses 63:37 in the United States, people all over the globe will stop making the assumption that a woman’s personal strengths and/or weaknesses are to be attributed to her gender. Mark my words.

pushmedia1: My hypothesis is that you just weren’t paying much attention, and selection bias makes you feel like it’s unusual. I regularly hear this sort of thing is alive and well, from colleagues and students. Ask any female math faculty if she’s run into this or not. And then consider what’s it’s probably like for students who aren’t already at the top of their math classes.

Slocum 07.29.08 at 5:04 pm
“Hmmm—I wonder how many more years it will be before the sheer weight of numbers will make it seem absurd to think that women are the disadvantaged sex in higher education? A nearly 60-40 ratio of female to male undergraduates is obviously not enough. Would 70-30 do it? Maybe not, since, for example, Veterinary medicine has shifted, over the last couple decades, to 70 percent female students without anyone thinking it’s a particular problem—any more than anybody really worries much that nursing is 95% female or K-12 education is 75% female and increasing..”

If veterinary medicine is 70% female, doesn’t that prove that women are genetically superior at it? The main thing which convinces me that the various ‘Bell Curve’ people are lying is that the percentages of women in various fields has been increasing over the past few decades; which would lead to any honest and competant person figuring that there’s something non-genetic going on.

But when the percentage was 1%, these guys used that as proof of innate differences;

When it was 5%, ” ” ” ”

When it was 15%, ” ” ” ”

When it exceeds 50%, that, of course will be used by the same people to argue that there’s discrimination in favor of women.

Larry Summers, to name somebody totally at random, has seen large shifts in gender distributions in economics since he graduated. Anybody who’s seen that and still assumes innate skills as the or a major factor is not worth listening to.

I get it! I get it! In the second frame, the bald guy should be saying “Wow, people with hair suck at math”, right? right? Good puzzle!

Related parable, not original with me:
A teacher enters a grade school classroom and says, “good morning, boys and girls.”
A teacher enters a grade school classroom and says, “good morning, white children and black children.”

This is the same XKCD that had a strip with the slogan “Science. It Works, Bitches”, right?

And didn’t some Swedish study …

Yup, that’s about the level of ‘thought’ and ‘scholarship’ one expects here. While you neanderthals …or would that be negynothals.?.. are still reading Foucalt and spinning your wheels about ‘power-relations’ and ‘social construction’ of whatever, the data are coming in. In can’t be stopped, it won’t be stopped. Humans are animals, and our genes matter at least as much as ‘environment’. Indeed, as environments become more equal, genetics matters that much more.

Now, who was the last woman Noble winner in a hard science?

Seriously guys (and gals) try googling ‘La Griffe du Lion’ — you’ll learn some stuff.

Wow lefties suck at math.

Oh great.
Another discussion where a paleo-Falangist and a net.schmibertarian team up to prove that patriarchy was invented at 10:05 this morning by a cabal of hairy-legged feminist grad-students, and that if it weren’t for the interference of those meddling liberals, full gender equality could have been achieved by lunchtime. I love those!

That should of course have been 2004, sorry.

Oh, there’s nothing more painful than a vestigial colon.

Ooh, wait, thought of a perfect example. Group of co-workers out to lunch, a woman in the group tries to calculate the tip and jokes, “I’m no good at this,” somebody else says “Yeah, girls can’t do math.”

Stupid, petty, but part of the fabric of the culture.

Not to pick on pushmedia, but your comments make me wonder: Did you ever do study sessions or homework on math with female friends from other high schools? No? Ever wonder why that was? (Or yes? Were you a close enough friend to have heard about incidents like that, even if it was not presented as A Problem?)

Well, I guess I’m from the old school, but I was under the impression that was a derogatory term for a woman.

@pushmedia1 You misread me. This sort of thing happens to women all the time in college (and graduate) level mathematics also. Just because you failed to notice it doesn’t mean much at all. I’m asserting that your anectdata is unusual. To be fair, I’m only offering my own in return — but it’s broader than yours would be as a student, at least.

Yes. I’m biased. Also, I understand this sort of stuff “happens all the time”. Can I get a personal anecdote please? Also, I’m looking specifically for stories regarding doing higher math in university.

I’m specifically interested in math because that is the subject of the comic. I’m interested in higher maths because that’s what the larger conversation is about, i.e. the Summers thingy and the new research confirming no differences between the sexes on mean score but fatter tails in the distribution for men.

PS – I went to a small school because I lived out in the middle of nowhere. College was the first time I had even met a woman interested in math except for the math teacher at my high school. In college, I mostly studied with women because half the math majors were female. Also, in grad school I’ve asked a female colleague her experience and she said she wasn’t discouraged from math (maybe a little by her folks) but economics has been hard for her because there’s so few role models.

maybe one more frame with 2 girls, and one says, “try it again”

I refer thee to comment 4 in this thread.

I don’t know the terms of art, but I don’t think the subject of the comic is stereotyping. The subject is math and gender. The subtext or the lesson or the moral of the story or whatever is stereotyping.

Maybe I was being to subtle with my understanding earlier when I said “This is why math/gender is different from crime/race and why I “get” the cartoon in general but not specifically” or when I said “I “get” the cartoon for other things—- a black man is convicted of a crime and then all black people commit crimes—- but I don’t get it for math”.

Perhaps I should have jumped to my feet, waved my hands and yelled “I get it!” into the Grand Canyon.

pushmedia1: The generalization I read you as claiming was that a) such conversations didn’t happen to women around you as a student and moreso b) this would be unusual in math majors/graduates because “clearly they are good at math”. Sorry if I misinterpreted.

I suspect a) is not actually true (hence the “not paying attention”, which perhaps I should have put as “not noticing”). Really this reads to me a bit like men being surprised/disbelieving to find out that women are very commonly sexually harassed in the street, because they haven’t witnessed it.

I’m certain that b) is at least often not true.

Every one of the female math profs I’ve discussed this with (a dozen, anyway) has related stories of their talents being dismissed or underplayed along the way somewhere because of their gender. Many from years ago, sure, but others even as graduate students and junior faculty. Mathematics is probably as merit based as any discipline, but the undercurrents of this attitude exist in even the highest levels (where, of course, they are difficult to distinguish from more garden variety sexism). Many friends relate more questioning of if they “had what it takes” to pursue a research career than I ever encountered, that’s for certain.

From undergraduate students and even graduate students I often hear stories of being discouraged from pursuing math & hard sciences, even when they were at the top of their high school classes. I’m sometimes surprised we have as many female students as we do.

Actually, if it is the case that the math-ability distribution has wider tails for men than for women, then you would expect to see *more* of the reaction in the comic in higher ed than in grade school, since that’s where the statistical differences would be more pronounced.

The subject is math and gender.

OK, now I see how we are talking at cross-purposes. I hadn’t explicitly articulated it, but when I read your post I thought, “No, the comic is about inappropriate generalizations and how damaging they can be, and the vehicle for illustrating that is math.”

So we have a pretty darned different understanding of what this comic is “about.”

Anyway. I don’t think there is an easy way to resolve this and I see you’re already getting some of the anecdata you’ve asked for with regard to math. No need to keep batting our respective interpretations back and forth.

One thing I’ve never gotten about the whole “women are just worse at technical disciplines”: there’s a clear counterexample–linguistics. Linguistics is a highly technical discipline (think of much of it as applied set theory), and yet many of its best and most prominent practitioners (especially in semantics) are women.

“you would expect to see more of the reaction in the comic in higher ed than in grade school”

I’d have to think about this more, but this doesn’t seem right. Each stage in the selection process is proving more and more math competence. By the time you’re in a grad program, your 4 sigma status should be plain to your colleagues.

“credibility threshold was a bit higher”

I think this happens all the time, (and not particularly with respect to gender). I think that as an educator, it’s difficult to avoid or even catch yourself doing. If a good student gives you an argument that is clearly outlined, you may not push much for details because you believe they understand it. A student you have less faith in, you’ll be more likely to ask for justification.

But topically, if you have a bias (unconscious even) against a female student, you might be more likely to push for justification, to mark conservatively, to ask questions. And even if it doesn’t affect her standing much, it will be harder for her to be confident in her own abilities when she see’s that you aren’t. If you have a bias in general against female students, this will happen for them generally in your class.

Yeah, now I’m remembering (again) why I don’t blog that much anymore.

(Anyone calculate that % yet?)

notsneaky: or for men in vet schools, linguistics or nursing.

you could read this cartoon as being about women and maths, but you could also read this cartoon as an illustration of the claim that ‘if a male person is performing poorly, it is attributed to their talents; if a female person is performing poorly, it is attributed to her sex (and generalised to all female persons)’.

Incidentally, that claim has not just been backed-up with loads of annecdotal evidence, but also with scientific studies in social and cognitive pyschology; of the top of my head, a good place to start fr those who think this is all ‘Women Studies Fiction’ would be Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women by Virginia Valian.

If we have readers who are activily doing research in this field, it would be great if they could give us some further (and perhaps more recent) references. I really wish Professor Valian would make a revised version of her book with the latest studies included. I have found this one of the most powerful books I’ve read when I was workign on my PhD dissertation.

I read a book once, “The Mind has no sex”, which discusses the problem of women’s relative underrepresentation in maths and physics from a historical, sociological and political perspective. It is very interesting and quite eye-opening about the history of women’s involvement in maths. Bit old now though.

Witt: Note to Slocum–I recommend reading up on some history of nursing, circa the Crimean War (Florence Nightingale’s era). Oddly enough, people were thoroughly convinced that women did NOT have an inherent interest in that sort of work as a career.

What of it? That was during an era when people were thoroughly convinced that women did not (or should not) have interest in ANY sort of career outside the home (as in the Victorian “Angel in the House”). That women have long become the absolute dominant majority in some previously male-dominated fields should suggest that there’s something other than social prejudice going on in fields where that has not happened, shouldn’t it? And, obviously, if the numbers of men & women are roughly equal, and if women are going to have lower workforce participation than men (which they do), then the existence of some jobs that are mostly female (nursing, teaching, etc) necessarily means that there will be male dominated fields (do the math).

Vivian: Slocum–I am amazed that someone as thoughtful as you (usually are) can put together a sentence like “so, in general, women still have to worry less about being the main source of support for their families, and don’t have much incentive to push themselves to maximize their income or job status to attract a mate.”

Why not trip off to the Census website and see how ‘in general’ that ‘have to’ turns out to be?

And I’m amazed when people can deny the completely obvious. In general means, for example, that women are far more likely to spend time out of the labor force completely or work part-time during their adult lives. It doesn’t take much googling to discover this:

“First, women, married women in particular, are much more likely than men to work part-time, either for their entire working career or for part of their careers. In 2004, about 25 percent of married women in the labor force aged 25-54 worked part-time as compared to only 5 percent of men. Second, women have fewer years in the labor force than men. Among retired workers, women spent 32 years in the labor force as compared to 44 years for men.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/11/earlyshow/contributors/raymartin/main2080349.shtml?source=RSS&attr=_2080349

Obviously, there are many women who’ve always had to work to support themselves — but there are also lots of women (but almost no men) who haven’t. Hence the statistics.

Then just for laughs, explore the premise that maybe women who take jobs in fields where one can easily leave the workforce and return, just maybe that’s not a free choice so much as a forced choice or lack of choice.

Yep, you did give me a laugh. I know a number of men who’ve kvetched about their wives not working, but I know none at all who’ve complained that their wives won’t quit. Sometimes it’s just funny, but sometimes not so much. A while ago I had lunch with a 40-something guy stuck in a job he despises, but he has no choice because his wife’s ‘job’ is selling Tupperware (or something similar) — which activity, last year, may have almost broken even. When women have a man around the house who won’t get a job, they’re often encouraged to “throw the bum out”. That’s not really a viable option for men, though.

I mean, hell, even feminists have noticed and are arguing about whether ‘opting out’ is a sensible or foolish choice for women to make (but not whether or not it’s a choice):

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/working-moms

Eszter: Thanks to Watson Aname, Witt, Vivian, Dfrelon, Jdkbrown, Nitish and others for taking on the various commenters here who just don’t care to see the real purpose of this cartoon.

Oh, c’mon–the real purpose is political. As is the trumpeting of the results that ‘prove’ there’s no difference between male and female math abilities, which results can be then used to justify the application of title IX to technical fields in academia that are still male-dominated. Or are you suggesting that the purpose of the cartoon was to start a discussion about ‘confirmation bias’ where the fact that bias in the cartoon was about women and math was purely incidental?

73: What of it?

Well, upthread you contended that women are inherently more interested in that kind of work (meaning nursing). Obviously we agree that there are lots more factors at work than “inherent interest,” but you did say it was a factor and I was pointing out that 150 years ago, some people were equally convinced that women were NOT inherently suited to nursing.

That was during an era when people were thoroughly convinced that women did not (or should not) have interest in ANY sort of career outside the home (as in the Victorian “Angel in the House”).

Upper-class white women, maybe. I’m not a social historian and can’t pretend to have a thorough understanding of this time period, but I don’t buy your depiction as a general rule.

That women have long become the absolute dominant majority in some previously male-dominated fields should suggest that there’s something other than social prejudice going on in fields where that has not happened, shouldn’t it?

Or it could suggest that social prejudice works powerfully to guide people disproportionately into certain career paths based on gender. I know a man who applied to be a public school teacher in Boston in the 1960s. He was told that men were not allowed to teach elementary school, only junior and senior high school.

That women have long become the absolute dominant majority in some previously male-dominated fields should suggest that there’s something other than social prejudice going on in fields where that has not happened, shouldn’t it?

Why should it suggest that, and not just the opposite? Doesn’t the fact that women have succeeded in so many areas they were formerly thought inherently unsuited for (by talents or inclination) once social barriers were lowered, suggest that something similar will eventually happen in the remaining male-dominated fields?

Witt: Well, upthread you contended that women are inherently more interested in that kind of work (meaning nursing). Obviously we agree that there are lots more factors at work than “inherent interest,” but you did say it was a factor and I was pointing out that 150 years ago, some people were equally convinced that women were NOT inherently suited to nursing.

And my point was that, during Victorian times, people were convinced that women were not inherently suited to ANY kind of work outside the home. It was certainly not the case that people thought women might make naturally good coal miners but certainly not nurses. See for example:

Civil War Nurses: “The Angels of the Battlefield”
http://www.civilwarhome.com/civilwarnurses.htm

Seems it wasn’t such a leap from Victorian “Angel of the House” to Victorian “Angel of the Battlefield”. I googled in vain for a story about Victorian “Angels of the Coal Mine” however.

Why should it suggest that, and not just the opposite? Doesn’t the fact that women have succeeded in so many areas they were formerly thought inherently unsuited for (by talents or inclination) once social barriers were lowered, suggest that something similar will eventually happen in the remaining male-dominated fields?

But there are no male-dominated fields where women have not succeeded (with a few obvious exceptions like ‘infantry soldier’ or ‘NFL quarterback’). Just as males have succeeded in K-12 education and nursing. Just not in equal numbers.

Do you really think it’s a legitimate goal of government to try to move women from teaching and nursing to hard-sciences, engineering and heavy construction and men the reverse? If so — why?

Should government be trying to equalize women’s and men’s years of labor-force participation and engagement in part-time vs full-time work? Again, if so…why?

@80: who failed, who’s discussing “failures”?

And of course it’s a cultural problem, “masculinity” is a cultural trait…

I’ve listed a few groups who probably can provide resources about women in mathematical disciplines.