<p>So what do you guys think do you think there is a physical reason why the majority of women don't pursue science /technology</p>
<p>The Evolutionary and Psychological Roots of the Gender Gap</p>
<pre><code>While some people find it hard to accept, there is a clear gender gap between males and females in the fields of science and technology. By better understanding the reasons for this gap we can better understand how or if we can close it. Most people agree that the gender gap is rooted in the sociological development of females throughout history (Lee). Since the beginnings of the civilized world men have generally dominated the fields of math, science and leadership: “There is not, nor has there ever been, any society that even remotely failed to associate authority and leadership in suprafamilial areas with the male. There are no borderline cases.” (Goldberg) Only recently have women been given equal opportunity to even participate in these fields. However a question arises: why were men ever dominant over women in these fields? And more so… now that women are given equality what factors stop them from being equivalent to males in these fields? The fact that men were ever superior to women in these fields shows that early on in the development of the human specie males became specialized to perform certain tasks, while females were specialized for other tasks. This suggests that differences in the brain due to fundamental evolutionary characteristics could (in addition to social factors) play a role in the gender gap today.
Critics disregard this simple theory that differences in the male and female brain lead to the gender gap as “chauvinistic” and cite examples of Marie Curie or other renowned female scientists. One must always remember that when dealing with biological pools there will be huge amounts of diversity, and there will always be outliers. In order to better understand things on a broad level, we must also simplify things down to a broad level. On a personal level these findings should generally be disregarded due to the huge variances in the biological pool. There certainly ARE females that may excel at math and science; however they are significantly less than the amount of males. This produces another complex social problem: because there are fewer females in the human race that excel at math, the young females that could possibly excel at math or science have fewer role models (Symonds) and are less likely to pursue math and science. This creates a self-inducing loop, which leads to fewer and fewer women pursuing science and technology.
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<p>While we can certainly say that the lack of female role models in math/science is a factor in the gender gap, it still does not fully explain why males of all ages outperform females in math and science. On a broad level today males outperform females at early ages on visual-spatial reasoning tests (Lee). A test was conducted on 780 3-6-year olds asking to identify 3d objects that were “unfolded” flat. Males performed better than females on 8 of 11 tests. Females on the other hand outperformed males on verbal measures. If we look at the development of the human specie through time we can clearly see why males are so much better at visual spatial reasoning while women supercede men in emotional and verbal measures. Tricia Lee and Mike Brzozowski, researchers at Stanford university explain: “men had to manufacture tools, weapons, transport devices – things had to be symmetrical so better spatial skills might have developed. Hunting also required spatial abilities.” On the other hand: “Women gathered food, cared at home for children so had to have better recall of location of objects.” These two widely differing roles led to different evolutionary traits being passed down. A 1995 study of MRI scans at Oxford University showed women have a stronger connection (posterior part of corpus callosum is larger and more bulbously shaped) between the two hemispheres. This means that women use both the right hemisphere (Visual patterns, music, emotions, spatial relationships) as well as the left hemisphere (Speech production and comprehension) when solving visual spatial problems (Pearlson). This may be a disadvantage for things that require more organization in the brain. Conversely, females do much better on verbal tests than males due to this same connection because “the language centers of both left and right hemispheres can communicate with greater ease” (Lee). MRI scans in a John Hopkins University study show inferior parietal lobule (responsible for spatial abilities) is 6% larger in men, left parietal lobes larger as well.
“Scientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered "striking" differences between men and women in a part of the brain linked with ability to estimate time, judge speed, visualize things three-dimensionally and solve mathematical problems. The differences, the researchers say, may underlie well-known trends that vary by sex, such as the fact that more men than women are architects, mathematicians and race-car drivers.” (ScienceDaily) These vast differences may have developed due to the separate evolutionary function of the male human in contrast to the female human.
Another study was conducted at Stanford University in 1991 that showed the influence of testosterone and estrogen on visual spatial and verbal reasoning scores. Men with low normal range of testosterone did better in spatial tests with additional testosterone. Women during times of high estrogen levels scored higher on verbal fluency tests, low estrogen levels led to higher spatial test scores (Lee). The influence of the male and female hormone were clear in the results of the test, showing that there are natural factors that may influence the gender gap.
These studies again, in no way imply that ALL females should pursue humanities, and not science. Once again, due to the huge amount of diversity in the human gene pool no single person can ever be classified into a category based on one trait alone (be it race, gender, orientation etc.) But general trends do reflect reality; the studies simply clarify why there is such a large gap between men and women in the field of math and science.<br>
The genetic differences between men and women are clear, yet people are still skeptical about there being inherent psychological differences. Of the 23 chromosomes in each cell men and women share 22 but one is different. One chromosome of female humans has two X chromosomes while males have a single X and a single smaller Y chromosome. It is this Y chromosome "that sets the machinery of sex development in motion and results in all the genetic differences that there are between a man and a woman." (Scheinfield) Skeptics of the evolutionary theory do not believe that a fundamental difference in men and women (right down to the very basic cellular level) could result in why male children are more interested in certain types of things (cars, weapons, building things) and female children in others (nurturing, dolls, tea parties). The alternate theory explaining the disparities between males and females come primarily from the fields of psychology and sociology (Bradley University). This theory is known as “Sex role typing”. The sex-role-typing theory states that from an early age children are able to understand gender roles and stereotype themselves to those roles: girls see other girls playing with dolls and associate that with themselves; meanwhile boys see other boys playing with Lego’s and associate that with themselves (Wikipedia). Anyone who has seen or had children can see the differences, boys take interest in vastly different things than do girls. A study was conducted by McGhee and Frueh (1975) which showed that at young ages children exposed to more television had even more biased gender roles than those that were not. Their viewing time was measured, and then the children were administered the 'it' scale. The ‘it scale’ is where “the child is given a drawing of a stick figure (it), before being asked to select what objects 'it' would prefer, from a host of pictures of objects which have associations with stereotyped sex roles.” (Ingham)
The aim of this test is the ‘it’ provides a measure of the strength of the childrens' gender role preference. This study showed that children are very perceptive of social and gender roles they view; even at very young ages, and readily apply them. Furthermore a survey done by the science camp Actua found that the second highest reason that the girls did pursue math and science was because they had a relative that was an engineer or scientist. Stanford studies also showed that females that participated in video games and action-adventure games through male siblings were more likely to pursue “techie” fields as opposed to regular females. This shows that the gender gap is not completely due to inherent lack of ability but that there are also social factors.
The question of why the gender gap exists is much like the age-old question of the chicken and the egg. Are women not participating in math and science because there are gender differences? Or is it due to the fact that women do not participate (Sex role typing) that gender differences become prevalent? It is impossible to have a definite answer. However research has shown that both the factors of Sex role typing and genetic differences play a role in the creation of the gender gap. If one is to take an evolutionary perspective it seems obvious that the genetic differences early on in our development created different roles for both men and women, and while these do not play as large a part in modern society; they still lead to small disparities in ability which are corroborated by sex-role-typing and social influence. The gender gap is not a single faceted issue, but like most complex social issues has causations rooted in many realms: ranging from psychology to neurology to sociology.</p>