[cmiles74]

In my opinion, that was outside the bounds of the study; Cantlon was being asked to speculate. That said, sexism is the mechanism and it's a pretty big part of our society; there are lots of studies on this already. So much so that some people think one gender is "naturally" better at math then the other.

[cygx]

If there is indeed a biological reality underlying the stereotype, supposedly it's because there are various genes affecting mental functions that reside on the X chromosome. Guys only get one copy, and the story goes that this leads to more outliers in either direction (ie more geniuses as well as knuckleheads).

Not sure how much water this holds...