I wouldn't argue with any of this, but the rarity of female math geniuses is very unlikely just another instance of keeping women down.
Who would argue against fairness in admissions? In STEM work? There has been more progress since 1980 in this kind of equality than in the millennia previous. May it continue to full equality.
I wouldn't argue with any of this, but the rarity of female math geniuses is very unlikely just another instance of keeping women down.
Who would argue against fairness in admissions? In STEM work? There has been more progress since 1980 in this kind of equality than in the millennia previous. May it continue to full equality.
I need to add something though and I don't seek to be offensive ... I recently removed myself from a blog community where three members would shoehorn unfairness to women into the most unrelated topics, daily bitter rants that got very old. They could not accept that any man was with them. In this chapter of this forum we're discussing gender issues. I don't deny a word of what you wrote but please don't make a habit of it. Thanks in advance.
My degree is in mathematics and I've been reading the history of mathematics since before my voice changed. I don't think you can make the case that the gender inequality of these trailblazing mathematicians can be lain at the feet of misogyny.
Poetess Emily Dickenson was unpublished in her lifetime; when her writings were discovered she was elevated to the highest esteem in poetry, and that was long before feminism. There have been stellar female mathematicians and physicists (Emmy Noether springs to mind) but the Galois/Gödel class seems reserved to young men.
As for representation in STEM I think it's more complicated than that. I'm a software developer and technical writer (my boss is an American woman though the company is in London) and concede that I have worked with very few women. There are a lot more of them in HR and the business side of the industry than writing code.
As you have said, the super geniuses are too rare to learn more statistically.
But it appears that in many related species, and across a surprising number of dimensions, males tend to have a higher standard deviation then females, so that there tend to be more at the high end and more at the low end even if the mean or mode or medians are basically the same. This can be true of, say, height or speed, and likely intelligence or many specialized aptitudes.
It's possible that this has some evolutionary advantage for a species, where there is a tension and tradeoff between "conforming to what works best today" and "preserving alleles which might help adapt to future changes". Maybe the relatively more expendable males have a slightly different setpoint.
This can mean an unequal distribution of sexes at the top or bottom end, even with equal opportunities and without external discrimination or cultural factors.
And obviously, this does NOT justify any sort of discrimination!! It says nothing about any individual, who may be typical or atypical.
It is however yet another reason to not automatically assume that discrimination can be assumed to be the only explanation for observation of unequal representation in situations requiring relatively rarified skills or interests.
I wasn't arguing that men are solely responsible for keeping women down, or that there'd be more female math geniuses if there were more fathers like Hypatia's. My father, who helped me with my math homework, NEVER taught me I couldn't do math, or that girls couldn't do it well. In fact I *told* him that and he refused to believe it. He was right, of course, and he dragged me through like ten years of math classes until I was no longer required to take them. I was NO budding Hypatia.
I suspect you're right, that there's more going on to the lack of female math geniuses than male holding back, and we're in less position to argue 'misogyny' now because I keep seeing the integration of women and POC in places they weren't in the last ten years. Like corporate websites and leadership pages and in higher-level positions.
I suspect we may spend awhile playing catchup due to historical male obstructionism, but I think we're making progress already. I'm seeing more female CTOs and VPs of IT; ten years ago, women on corporate websites were almost always VPs of Marketing, Communications, and HR. Is it affirmative action or merit? Who knows? Like it was in Hedy Lamarr's time.
We may *never*, in the best of future times, acheive parity with men in certain spaces, but that's okay, as long as the next baby Hypatia is allowed to pursue her talents and skills without being flayed alive by ignorant Christians :)
I wouldn't argue with any of this, but the rarity of female math geniuses is very unlikely just another instance of keeping women down.
Who would argue against fairness in admissions? In STEM work? There has been more progress since 1980 in this kind of equality than in the millennia previous. May it continue to full equality.
I need to add something though and I don't seek to be offensive ... I recently removed myself from a blog community where three members would shoehorn unfairness to women into the most unrelated topics, daily bitter rants that got very old. They could not accept that any man was with them. In this chapter of this forum we're discussing gender issues. I don't deny a word of what you wrote but please don't make a habit of it. Thanks in advance.
My degree is in mathematics and I've been reading the history of mathematics since before my voice changed. I don't think you can make the case that the gender inequality of these trailblazing mathematicians can be lain at the feet of misogyny.
Poetess Emily Dickenson was unpublished in her lifetime; when her writings were discovered she was elevated to the highest esteem in poetry, and that was long before feminism. There have been stellar female mathematicians and physicists (Emmy Noether springs to mind) but the Galois/Gödel class seems reserved to young men.
As for representation in STEM I think it's more complicated than that. I'm a software developer and technical writer (my boss is an American woman though the company is in London) and concede that I have worked with very few women. There are a lot more of them in HR and the business side of the industry than writing code.
As you have said, the super geniuses are too rare to learn more statistically.
But it appears that in many related species, and across a surprising number of dimensions, males tend to have a higher standard deviation then females, so that there tend to be more at the high end and more at the low end even if the mean or mode or medians are basically the same. This can be true of, say, height or speed, and likely intelligence or many specialized aptitudes.
It's possible that this has some evolutionary advantage for a species, where there is a tension and tradeoff between "conforming to what works best today" and "preserving alleles which might help adapt to future changes". Maybe the relatively more expendable males have a slightly different setpoint.
This can mean an unequal distribution of sexes at the top or bottom end, even with equal opportunities and without external discrimination or cultural factors.
And obviously, this does NOT justify any sort of discrimination!! It says nothing about any individual, who may be typical or atypical.
It is however yet another reason to not automatically assume that discrimination can be assumed to be the only explanation for observation of unequal representation in situations requiring relatively rarified skills or interests.
I wasn't arguing that men are solely responsible for keeping women down, or that there'd be more female math geniuses if there were more fathers like Hypatia's. My father, who helped me with my math homework, NEVER taught me I couldn't do math, or that girls couldn't do it well. In fact I *told* him that and he refused to believe it. He was right, of course, and he dragged me through like ten years of math classes until I was no longer required to take them. I was NO budding Hypatia.
I suspect you're right, that there's more going on to the lack of female math geniuses than male holding back, and we're in less position to argue 'misogyny' now because I keep seeing the integration of women and POC in places they weren't in the last ten years. Like corporate websites and leadership pages and in higher-level positions.
I suspect we may spend awhile playing catchup due to historical male obstructionism, but I think we're making progress already. I'm seeing more female CTOs and VPs of IT; ten years ago, women on corporate websites were almost always VPs of Marketing, Communications, and HR. Is it affirmative action or merit? Who knows? Like it was in Hedy Lamarr's time.
We may *never*, in the best of future times, acheive parity with men in certain spaces, but that's okay, as long as the next baby Hypatia is allowed to pursue her talents and skills without being flayed alive by ignorant Christians :)