| I haven't seen anything suggesting women are less interested, but there is some support for the idea that before college girls who are interested in math., etc., are more likely than boys to have other subjects that interest them more. There was a study published a while back that looked at PISA data and found that girls and boys were pretty evenly represented among the kids who were at the top in STEM [1]. But it also found that for the boys in that group quite often STEM was the only thing they were outstanding at. In other areas they were average to good. For the girls, on the other hand, they were often excellent at something else in addition to STEM, with them often even being better at that something else than they were in STEM. People have a tendency to pursue a career in one of the areas they are very good at. This suggests that boys who are very good in math, etc., are more likely than similarly good girls to pursue it as a career because that is their only choice if they want to go into something they are very good at. The girls are more likely to have math, etc., as one of two or more possible careers in areas they are very good at. In pop culture terms, STEM boys are more like Martin Prince, and STEM girls are more like Lisa Simpson. [1] I didn't save the link and have failed to find it with Google. Anyone have it? |