The uproar over the Harvard president’s suggestion that women might be genetically inferior to men in math and science illustrates the politics of scientific research. It also shows how flawed science can drive out better science.
Lawrence Summers caused an international flap over his remarks at an academic forum, where he said that it was possible that women failed to achieve high-level jobs in substantial numbers in science and math not because of discrimination or socialization, but because of inborn sex differences. He called for more research on gender differences in math and science. (He later apologized for his comments.)
But some of his defenders now say that those who objected to his statement were simply indulging in “political correctness” and being anti-intellectual by opposing more research.
The fact is, however, that there have been well-designed studies in the last decade that repeatedly come up with the same conclusion: Differences in math ability between males and females is trivial to vanishing. Once this level of certainty has been established, few researchers want to go over the same ground and do not see the necessity of doing so.
What does sophisticated research tell us? The evidence is convincing that women are not innately inferior to men in math:
– Psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, in a meta-analysis (a combination of many studies) of the math scores of 4 million students, found few differences. Boys outperformed girls in 51 percent of the studies, girls outperformed boys in 43 percent and there was no gender difference in 5 percent of the studies.
– Psychologist Diane Halpern of Claremont McKenna College, in a definitive overview of math and cognitive abilities that are supposed to show substantial sex differences, found such differences to be trivial.
– Some argue that male hormones give men an inborn advantage at math. Since these hormones kick in at puberty, we should see a striking difference in boys’ and girls’ math scores at this time. Researchers Erin Leahey and Guang Guo at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, followed 20,000 4- to 18-year-olds to track specific math abilities. They noted, “Based on prior literature, we expected large gender differences to emerge as early as junior high school.”
It didn’t happen. Instead, they found the trajectories of male and female math scores nearly identical all across the age range.
But just as important to the issue of men, women and math is the mountain of evidence showing that girls get steered away from math and science at an early age.
Children learn at a young age that boys are supposed to be better at math than girls, and the downward spiral begins:
– In the 3rd and 4th grades, boys and girls like math equally. There’s no change in 5th and 6th grade for boys, but girls’ preference declines.
– Between 4th and 12th grades, the percentage of girls who say they like science decreases from 66 percent to 48 percent.
– In those same years, the percentage of girls who say they would prefer not to study math anymore goes from 9 percent to a whopping 50 percent.
– As grade levels increase, both girls and boys increase their perceptions of math as useful for men.
It’s hard to believe it’s coincidence or choice that makes girls’ enjoyment of math and science dip so severely. Rather, the culture has convinced them that girls don’t belong in these fields.
The power of stereotypes has been documented by the work of psychologist Claude Steele on “stereotype threat.” Certain groups–such as African-Americans and women–can suffer an extra burden of anxiety because they are aware of the negative stereotype of the group to which they belong. When they are told that women aren’t good at math, women do much worse on a test than when they are told nothing at all before the test. Without the negative information, they score nearly as well as men.
But beliefs about girls’ inability in math persist even when the facts say the contrary.
In one study of college women majoring in math in 2004, 25 percent believed that males do better at math. Women who held this belief were less likely to go on to grad schools or have math related careers.
Given these facts, you don’t have to talk about genes to explain why there aren’t more women who seek math careers. But stereotypes remain immortal when they are endlessly repeated by the media. They are not supported by science and can do great harm.
Academic freedom is one thing. But for the president of Harvard to make a statement so at odds with known facts, suggesting that one group is genetically inferior to another, is intellectually uninformed at worst, or incredibly careless at best. Given the harm that can be done by such a statement, scholars have an obligation to check their facts before they speak–especially white men in powerful positions.
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Rosalind C. Barnett is a senior scientist at Brandeis University and Caryl Rivers is a professor of journalism at Boston University. Their book “Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs,” was published last year by Basic Books.
