Where have all the young men gone?

marite
Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:59:01 +0000

Catherine:

I don’t know why, in middle school, girls start dropping out of math & science. Is it subtle hints from their parents? from teachers? from peers? The fact of the matter is that AP-Calc and AP-Physics have a majority of boys.

During the furore over Larry Summers’ remarks over supposedly innate gender differences, some commentators posted statistics about the gap between the number of women who had received Ph.D.s in math and the number who had gotten tenure (which normally happens after 8 years). That gap was striking. I can’t believe it’s all due to female math Ph.D.s taking time off to raise babies. Summers’ own Harvard has not got one tenured female math prof. That probably sends signals of its own to undergraduates.