right well I've decided to once again turn my attention to a topic that I am hugly knowelable and authoritive on the matter, having had a collosal 2 weeks of experince of studying engineering in a co-ed enviroment. There is still a lot of discussion about the lack of girls in the physical sciences, and what can be done to help this. However there is a lot of black lash (from males) that girls simply just aren't good at math, and why should we be enoarging anyway, if they aren't interested, and the most important, are girls just over senstiive.
Firstly I can definitly attest to the fact that there are way more guys than girls, I'd say at least 80% in some of my math classes and physics, and while there is sexism, I'd definitly say that none of the guys, well the ones I've meet at least, and admittedly,the ones that go out of their way to talk to girls, are far less likely to be sexist, well in the idea that girls aren't good at sciences, definitly don't mean to be sexist. However there are quite commonly small little comments, ie commenting that there are more girls than he'd been expecting. These are small little comments, but they perk up on my radar. What actually triggered this article was the music backing of a video of "the boys are back in town"and I mean its fairly catchy music, so its reasonable enough for them to play it, but the whole notion of bys seriously erked me. But none of these things are actually sexist, they're all really perked up by my imagination right.
Well yes and no, while I'm sure that the person making the video didn't intend it to be sexist, and I definitely get announced myself when people try to make things so uberly politically correct, I can't really fault them for that, but what it did was propagate the general feeling that I and and many girls have, that, but they were just doing what they aways do, it feels like an old boys club. And because it feels like such an all boys club, and because there has been such media attention and such a focus on how boy-orientated engineering girls come in knowing that it is such an all boys club, so they come in with such thick armoer, that we do perk up about these things.
So does that mean that there really is no sexism, and it is just us girls, well yes and no and I think it is almost entirely due to the lack of girls in the sciences. Because there are such limited numbers of girls, us girls come in on the defensive, and the boys treat it like an all boys club, and some of them, well quite a lot of them, think that since there are so little girls in the sciences, that because they are jus bad at it.
So what we have here is really just a recurring circle that unfortunalty isn't going to go away or do anything until we actually physically get more girls in engineering. But how are we going to do that? Well the response everyone seems to be taking is huge attention and programs, mainly aimed at high school students, scholarships for girls, and media attention over these things. While I think these programs are great, I really actually think they are slightly mis-guided.
Firstly, many boys (although most won't say it to a face of a girl) do have this belief, that the girls are sub-standard to theme, because they got in because of special coaching, or programs, and just general resentment that girls get scholarships and guys don't, so in one way these programs are definitely not helping the intrinsic sexism, but the real way they are not helping, is that these programs start to late.
While High school girls, definitely should be encouraged to do the sciences, so should younger girls. In fact I'd argue that it is more important for younger girls, why,, because math and the sciences are cumulative. Aka if a girl misses out earlier in life, they are always going to be dragging behind, unless they make a real effort to catch back up, one area that is misunderstood can result in a shaky foundation leaving a disastrous ruin for the subject, and the girls confidence. Studies have shown that girls as young as 6 associate math as a boy thing,and with this crucial viewpoint, girls believe they are not good at math, when they dont understand something, instead of working through it, they give up, thinking they are just bad at it, and will never good at math. I can tell from my own experience of tutoring that many girls don't think that they are ever going to good at math, and just don't bother.
And all of these ideas culminate, it takes a lot more for a girl to do a math or science class, especially higher ones, especially if the class if full of boys, thus the only people who do these really really like science and math, which is great for them (and explains some of the initial greater variance of math abilities in girls), but the majority of people are not expextionally passionate about the sciences, or never have the chance to find out.
Thus while I love all the programs available, they are far to late, girls have missed out on the crucial early years of working hard or just taking those math and sciences classes, and thus they don't participate in these programs, because they have fallen further behind in the sciences, and thus because they've always been struggling, they don't realise if they actually enjoy it, thus these programs catch only a small net of girls, which is great, but misses out on the majority of girls.
Thus if we really want to address this sexism, we need o start early, its the culture of our society, beauty and the geek, with girls being stupid dumb blondes, not academic, and boys the smart ones, boys growing up play with lego's construction sets, while girls play with cooking sets and dolls. So really the only way to avoid this sexism, is to avoid the sexism of the entire society, which is unfortunalty not going to happen anytime soon, but is definitely something we can attempt to fix.
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