Topic - Girls and Boys and Science. Irving Berlin wrote a tune called, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” for the musical, “Annie Get Your Gun”. A male and a female singer try to outdo each other in the spirited duet.
In the world of science and engineering, the boys have noticeably outdistanced the girls. Why?
In 2005, Harvard president Lawrence Summers announced that male brains are more suited to math than girls because of something he called the greater male variability hypothesis, he resigned soon afterwards.
But his pronouncement caused a fuss and the race was on to find the reasons for science being top-heavy with males.
A 52-country study proved that it’s not about brains, but about cultures and the way societies are structured.
When girls are subtlely pushed towards the soft sciences and liberal arts, they sure don’t go charging into physics.
Now, there is a push to get girls into the hard sciences and engineering. We’ll see if the girls buy into it. Check back with me in 20 years.
