Tag Archives: math

NYT Infographic: Gender which excels on science exam is location dependent

Posted on by
1

The New York Times has a great infographic showing the results from a science test administered to 15-year old students in 65 different countries.  The results are broken down by gender so you can see in which countries girls/boys score higher.  One gender does not have an overwhelmingly higher aptitude for science.  In some countries, boys excel; in others, girls excel (though girls do excel in a more countries than boys).

What should be immediately apparent from this infographic is that the gender that excels on this science exam is strongly location-dependent.  Girls tended to underperform in the Americas (including the U.S.) and in Western Europe, but overperform in Northern/Eastern/Southern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.  This means that gender gaps in science ability don’t have to do with intrinsic ability (as some would suggest), but with other factors, such as cultural stereotypes.  One suggested reason for the observed gender gaps is that stereotype threat is stronger in some countries.  Countries also offer different incentives for pursuing math and science, and value math, science, and education differently.

Hopefully, information such as this will help quell opinions that boys are intrinsically more talented at math and science than girls.

Source: New York Times

Too pretty to do math?

Posted on by
6

This magnet was sold on forever21.com.

Recently, a magnet became available on forever21.com with the statement ‘I’m too pretty to do math’.  After the company received complaints, they removed the magnet from their website.

It’s pretty disgraceful that Forever 21 would sell a magnet that perpetuates such a ridiculous stereotype.  Forever 21 is a stylish clothing outfitter who sells mainly to teenage girls and young women.  A magnet like this would be certain to reach a wide audience of girls.  This quote is tying one’s looks to one’s intelligence – saying that subjects like math (and by extension, science) are only for girls who aren’t “pretty”.  This is bad for several reasons.  For one, it discourages girls from pursuing math-oriented careers for fear of being seen as “uncool”.  It sends the message that girls who want to be pretty and feminine shouldn’t pursue math, which gets the reputation of being difficult and boring.  It also relies on the stereotype that women aren’t as good at math as men.  One article mentions that there would never be a magnet stating “I’m too handsome to do math.”

You would think that as increasing numbers of women pursue careers in science, the stereotype about women being bad at math would die down.  But apparently not!  While it’s good that the magnet has been taken off the website, it’s pretty terrible that it was ever available in the first place.  Because math is cool! And because whether a person is good or bad at math has nothing to do with their gender.

Betty Jean Jennings, one of the first women in IT industry, passes away

Posted on by
Reply

I recently wrote about Betty Jean Jennings in my blog post on the documentary “Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of WWII”.  She was featured prominently in “Top Secret Rosies” for her work computing ballistics trajectories for the army during World War II.  Today I learned that Betty Jean Jennings passed away on March 23, 2011, at the age of 86.

Betty Jean Jennings was born on December 27, 1924 in Missouri.  She attended the Northwest Missouri State Teachers College in the 1940s, and majored in mathematics.  After graduating, she went to work for the U.S. Army, computing ballistics trajectories.   This work eventually led to her being selected as one of six women chosen to program ENIAC, the first electronic computer.  At age 20, she was the youngest woman chosen to participate.  She was one of two women who created the trajectory program for the public demonstration of ENIAC.  After the war was over, she worked on BINAC, another early electronic computer, and UNIVAC, the first commercial computer.  She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 1997.

Betty Jean Jennings made extremely valuable contributions to the development of computers and computer programming and her legacy will live on through her pioneering work.  If you’re interested in learning more about her, I strongly suggest you watch “Top Secret Rosies”, which is instant watch on Netflix!

Ada Lovelace

Posted on by
3

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace is hailed as the world’s first computer programmer.  She was born in 1815, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.  Shortly after Ada’s birth, Lord and Lady Byron separated, leaving Lady Byron to raise Ada on her own.  Not wanting Ada to become a poet like her father, Lady Byron made sure Ada was taught mathematics and science.  When she was 17, Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, who translated Laplace’s works into English.  At one of Mrs. Somerville’s dinner parties, Ada heard about Charles Babbage‘s idea for the analytical engine, a mechanical computer that would be the successor to the difference engine, which was a design for a mechanical calculator.

In 1842, mathematician Louis Menebrea wrote a summary of the analytical engine in an article in French.  Babbage enlisted Ada to translate it into English.  Ada translated it and added a set of notes, which ended up being three times as long as the original article.  Ada Lovelace and Babbage exchanged correspondence about the engine, and Ada predicted it could have many practical and scientific uses, such as composing complex music and creating graphics.  Ada’s notes also included a method of calculating the Bernoulli numbers.  This is considered the first computer program.

Unfortunately, the analytical engine was never built, partially due to a lack of funding.  Ada died in 1852, at the young age of 36, from uterine cancer.

Sources: 1, 2

Female undergrads more likely to answer questions in math class when professor is female

Posted on by
7

Researchers from the University of Amherst recently studied the performance of undergraduate students with male and female math professors.  The differences that appear in the performance of female students is particularly fascinating.  The data breaks down like this:

1) Percentages of female students attempting to answer questions posed to the class (beginning of the semester)

  • With male professor: 11%
  • With female professor: 7%

2) Percentages of female students attempting to answer questions posed to the class (end of the semester)

  • With male professor: 7%
  • With female professor: 46%

3) Percentage of female students approaching professor for help after class (beginning of the semester)

  • With male professor: 12%
  • With female professor: 12%

4) Percentage of female students approaching professor for help after class (end of the semester)

  • With male professor: 0%
  • With female professor: 14%

Finally, the researchers evaluated how much women “identified” with mathematics and found that women were less confident in their mathematical abilities when their teachers were men (even when the women were scoring higher than men on tests).

So what does this tell us?  First of all, we need to make women scientists and mathematicians more visible!  Having female role models is  a significant way of boosting women’s confidence and participation in mathematics, so we need to show students that there are many successful female scientists and mathematicians.  Second, there are subtle factors that may alter a woman’s decision to pursue science or math.  While overt discrimination still exists, it is important to be aware of these subtleties, because they play a role in the under-representation of women in STEM fields as well.

Reference: Psych-Out Sexism by Shankar Vedantam

Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II

Posted on by
4

“These computers, these ladies that computed these firing tables – it was absolutely vital work. And without their contributions to the war effort, we would have lost World War II. We could not have won World War II without that data.”

-Dr. William F. Atwater, Military Historian

Female Computers of WWII

The documentary “Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II” introduces us to the women computers of WWII – women who were recruited to help calculate ballistics trajectories in order to create trajectory tables that were shipped to troops around the world.  Back then, a computer meant a person who did calculations as a job.  During WWII, with men overseas, women saw expanding opportunities in the workplace.  These female computers were recruited from the mathematics departments of colleges and asked to interview for the Pennsylvania Computing Section, a ballistics lab in the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

These trajectory problems required thousands of calculations and the solving of differential equations.  A 60 second shell trajectory problem took a human around 40 hours to complete.  Six women were assigned to work on a differential analyzer, which completed the same problem in 15 minutes.  These women worked hard, knowing that the soldiers in the field relied upon the manuals they sent out.  They worked double or triple shifts if necessary and took no vacations.  

Later on, some of these women became programmers on ENIAC, the world’s first electronic computer.  When ENIAC was designed, the women were invited to interview to be programmers since they had been involved in the human computing work.  Two of them worked day and night to program the press demonstration of ENIAC, which was held in February 1946.  However, these women did not always receive the recognition they deserved.  Of the demonstration, Dr. Jennifer S. Light says, “Many of the men engineers received publicity, while the female computers and programmers did not.  As far as the official publicity that was staged in February 1946 that was organized by the war department and pretty tightly controlled in terms of what journalists and other people attending saw, Betty Jean Jennings and Betty Snyder developed the demonstration trajectory program.  Again, they were the ones who made the machine do the things that we all got very excited about, but their participation was never mentioned in either war department press releases or later news reports that relied on those publicity materials.”

Female Programmers wit ENIAC

These women made massive contributions to the war effort, but went largely unrecognized.  This documentary pays homage to these great women.  They were eager to help and to put their skills to use in whatever ways they could.

In addition to showing us that these women had serious mathematical chops, we also get the opportunity to see how they worked together, how they felt about their work, and what their lives were like during this time.  These women grew very close while working on this project.  Betty Jean Jennings, one of the ENIAC programmers, said, “Well I’ve always said that I was the luckiest person in the world because of working on the Eniac with these women that I really came to love and admire and respect and I had so much fun with them.”  It is clear that they cherished the opportunity to participate.  But while the women computers knew their work was important, they also understood the gravity of what they were calculating.  One computer, Doris Blumberg Polsky, said “For many, many years, even when my older children were certainly old enough to understand what we did during the war effort, I never discussed it with them.  I never mentioned ballistics, I never mentioned the unit or anything like that, and it kind of came as a surprise to them when we finally opened up and told them what we did during the war.  I didn’t feel – I still don’t feel – that it’s something I can kind of brag about.  This was a tough thing to get your mind set on and accept for yourself.”

Throughout history, women have not always been able to contribute because of a lack of opportunity and gender stereotypes standing in their way.  When World War II provided the opportunity, these women rose to the challenge without hesitation, and poured everything they had into the important project at hand.  “Top Secret Rosies” is a compelling and informative documentary, teaching us about WWII, and those women who contributed behind the scenes in integral ways.  In 1997, the female ENIAC programmers were inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame.

Top Secret Rosies

If you are interested in watching “Top Secret Rosies”, it is available for instant watch on Netflix, or you can attend one of the screenings listed on their website.  For anyone in NYC, there is a screening at Hunter College’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute on March 17th at 6:30pm.

Sofia Kovalevskaya

Posted on by
5
Image from www.mai.liu.se

Sofia Kovalevskaya

Sofia Kovalevskaya was a Russian mathematician, born in 1850.  Her interest in mathematics began as a young girl, when she was encouraged by her uncle, Pyotr Krokovsky.  She said she had studied her father’s old calculus notes that had lined the walls of her nursery in lieu of wallpaper, which was in short supply.   Her first proper study of mathematics took place with her family’s tutor.  However, her father decided to put a stop to her studies in math.  When she was 14, she taught herself trigonometry in order to understand a physics textbook that had been written and given to her by her neighbor.  Her neighbor, Professor Tyrtov, was impressed with her talent, and convinced her father to allow her to go to school in St. Petersburg.

After graduating from secondary school, Sofia very  much wanted to continue at the university level.  But as a young, unmarried woman, she was not allowed to travel by herself, and no nearby universities were open to women.  In order to be able to travel, she married Vladimir Kovalevsky in 1868.  After a few months, they moved to Heidelberg, Germany, where Sofia had to convince the school to let her take lessons without being an official student, since women could not matriculate.  In 1870, she decided to move to Berlin to study with renowned mathematician Karl Weierstrass.  After she completed a problem set for him, he immediately started privately tutoring her, because the University of Berlin would not allow women in attendance.  She studied with him for four years, and wrote three papers: one on partial differential equations, one on Abelian integrals and one on Saturn’s rings.  One of these papers, “On the Theory of Partial Differential Equations”, was published in Crelle’s Journal, a leading mathematical journal.  In 1874, she received a PhD from the University of Göttingen, but was unable to find work and returned home to Russia.

For the next six years, she was a writer for a St. Petersburg newspaper, reporting on science and technology and doing theater reviews.  During this time, her and Vladimir even attempted to fundraise to start a women’s university.  She gave birth to a daughter in 1878. Vladimir and Sofia eventually separated, and he committed suicide in 1883.

In 1880, Sofia returned to mathematics, presenting a paper at the Congress of Natural Scientists in St. Petersburg.  A former student of Karl Weierstrass, Gosta Mitag-Leffler, was very impressed with her work and tried to find her a professorship.  Sofia moved to France, and in 1883, was offered a professorship at the University of Stockholm.  In June of 1884, she was appointed to a five year professorship.  She was the first woman to hold a full professorship in Northern Europe.  During her time at the University of Stockholm, she completed important research and became the editor for the journal Acta Mathematica.

In 1888, she was awarded with the Prix Bordin of the French Academy of Sciences for her work on solving the problem of a solid body rotating around a fixed point.  All entries were submitted anonymously, and her entry was deemed so important that the prize was increased by 2000 francs.  This prize gave way to the appointment of a lifetime chair of mathematics at the University of Stockholm.  She also gained membership to the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1891, Sofia died of influenza, at the height of her career.  Sofia was an extraordinary mathematician who helped pave the way for women who came after her, by proving that women deserved to be taken seriously in mathematics.  She was a women’s rights advocate who struggled to obtain her own education, but did what she needed to in order to study.

Sources: Prominent Russians: Sofia Kovalevskaya, Sofia Kovalevskaya, Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya

Gender, culture, and mathematics performance

Posted on by
3

The paper “Gender, culture, and mathematics performance” was published in 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The paper sets out to answer three questions:

  1. Do gender differences in mathematics performance exist in the general population?
  2. Do gender differences exist among the highly mathematically talented?
  3. Do females exist who possess profound mathematical talent?

After addressing these questions, the paper talks about the effects of sociocultural factors on observed gender differences.  I discuss their answers for each question below:

Question 1: In studies published in 1966 and 1974, a developmental psychologist found that gender differences in math performance were well established, and that males scored higher.  She noted that, while their elementary school performance was similar, boys’ skills began to increase faster than girls’ around age 12/13, which created a large gap by the time they reached high school.  In a recent study based on No Child Left Behind data (representing over 7 million students), it was found that gender differences in mathematics performance were close to zero in all grades, including high school.  This pattern was found for all other ethnic groups studied.  Thus, the gap that was found in previous decades has now disappeared.  However, the No Child Left Behind data was not able to shed light on a possible gap in complex problem solving.  For this, the researchers looked at data from the National Assessment of Education Progress, and found that the gender difference was trivial.  The math skills of girls are equal to those of boys.

Question 2: In 1984 it was hypothesized that the variability of intellectual abilities was greater among men; this would mean that there are more men than women at both the low-achieving and high-achieving ends of the spectrum.  To test this hypothesis, they use variance ratios.  A variance ratio greater than 1 would indicate greater male variability in math skills.  Data from state math assessments found variance ratios slightly higher than 1.  They found that the ratio of males to females scoring at the 95th percentile was 1.34, and the ratio at the 99.9th percentile, the ratio was 2.15.  However, this varies greatly from country to country.  For example, as many girls or more girls than boys scored in the 99th percentile in Iceland, Thailand and the United Kingdom.  This challenges the greater male variability hypothesis, which one would expect to hold for all populations.  In another study, it was found that some countries have no difference in variability, and others even had more female variability.  This paper suggests that greater male variability is due to sociocultural factors, rather than biological differences.

Question 3: Of course.  Females with great mathematical talents definitely exist.  The scarcity of women mathematicians in the 20th century is due to a severe lack of opportunity for women who wanted to pursue math and science fields.  The paper cites many superb women mathematicians, such as Ada Lovelace, who is regarded as the world’s first computer programmer, and Grace Hopper, who developed the first compiler for a programming language.  You can find a large list of women mathematicians here.  Just because women mathematicians find themselves in the spotlight far less than male mathematicians doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

From this paper, we can conclude that sociocultural factors have more of an effect on the gender gap than innate biological differences between males and females.  One study listed in the paper concluded that there was a strong correlation between “a country’s measures of gender inequity and the size of the math gender gap both at the mean and the right tail of the distribution.”  The paper concludes that “gender inequality, not greater male variability, is the primary reason fewer females than males are identified as excelling in mathematics and the high and highest levels in most countries.”

Gender inequity can take many forms, including people advising females against taking STEM courses, mathematically talented girls not being supported, a lack of female role models in mathematically based fields, hostile work environments, teachers paying more attention to boys, and more.

(Source: Gender, culture and mathematics performance, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009.)

That Myth about Women and Math

Posted on by
Reply

An unfortunate number of people still hold the view that women are inherently worse at math than men, and that this is the reason why they are so underrepresented in math and science careers.  A more likely reason is that because girls are exposed to this stereotype, it discourages them and results in fewer girls wanting to pursue science. There are also studies that show how reminding women of gender stereotypes can cause them to perform worse on math tests.  I’ll be writing about such studies in the near future, but in the meantime I wanted to share a great essay that was written by Cornelia Dean, the head science editor of the New York Times.  I heard her speak a few months ago about the discrimination she faced/faces as a woman in a typically male position, and how she has dealt with it.  It was in her speech that I heard about several studies challenging the women-are-inherently-bad-at-math myth. So until I can write about those in detail (a.k.a. until finals are over), here is her essay: “For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is That They’re Good At It.”