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I'm not sure ability at six years old reflects your talent at math.
This article is not really about mathematical talent. It mentions that stereotypes might be reproduced by attributing success in girls to diligence and in boys to talent, but it's about mathematical ability.
At the start of the first school year (when children are five or six years old), there are no differences, on average, between boys and girls in mathematical ability. But after just four months, boys have pulled ahead. The gap widens throughout the year.
So do boys have better mathematical talent or not?
I would argue that a lot of the computational based problem solving , from middle school through early undergraduate years, focused on topics historically oriented to boys’ interests, aren’t a good measure of innate math talent either.
But those have historically left a lot of female students behind.
Male or female, most students are really looking to get through math requirements with plug-and-chug replication of algorithms to get to an answer - not genuine problem solving or abstraction. However, being able to reproduce an answer on a very slightly different problem, or just one with different numbers to plug in, does very little towards using mathematical as a means to model problems independently and find solutions.
they already closed the gap and surpassed men on biology related degrees and are able to get jobs in thier field. not so much on the engineering or the physics fronts. it is a matter of time before they surpass men on that too.
Close the biology gender gap!
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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