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from the this-will-not-be-controversial-oh-no-sir dept.
GungnirSniper writes:
"Catherine Rampell at The Washington Post has 'A message to the nation's women: Stop trying to be straight-A students.'
In her analysis of others' findings, she writes of a discouragement gradient that pushes women out of harder college degrees, including economics and other STEM degrees. Men do not seem to have a similar discouragement gradient, so they stay in harder degree programs and ultimately earn more. Data suggests that women might also value high grades more than men do and sort themselves into fields where grading curves are more lenient.
'Maybe women just don't want to get things wrong,' Goldin hypothesized. 'They don't want to walk around being a B-minus student in something. They want to find something they can be an A student in. They want something where the professor will pat them on the back and say "You're doing so well!"'
'Guys,' she added, 'don't seem to give two damns.'
Why are women in college moving away from harder degrees?"
(Score: 5, Funny) by wjwlsn on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:59PM
I answer your question with another, somewhat related question:
What percentage of the women you know are perfectly happy to admit being wrong about something?
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by O3K on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:05PM
Why do I never have mod points when there's a comment worth modding (up)????
(Score: 3, Funny) by wjwlsn on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:14PM
I actually expect this to continue being modded down... :)
(There's already been one Overrated... now I'm waiting for the Flamebait and Troll ratings to appear. Also, if I manage to get all three of those and Funny and Insightful ratings, I will be extremely happy.)
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:38PM
That percentage may be a few points higher for women but it's not that far off to explain the phenomenon in the summary.
Perhaps what's happening is the result that in the US, we have one-size-fits-most education from preschool to Junior or Senior (last two) years of high school. There are only special programs for those falling behind, not those who are bored to tears with busywork because they are ahead. This results in many students used to near-perfect grades with a certain degree of effort. They're never challenged as fully until they reach college.
It may be related to self-esteem, in the way that someone who is always told they are perfect takes any mistake just a little bit harder. In this hypothesis, the grades though high school tell them are perfect, and the harsher grading of college hits their self-esteem a bit?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [dev.soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:17PM
There are more advanced programs now than when we were kids. My 11yr old son is in one that's part of the public school system but run like a magnet school. Most students graduate by 16.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by velex on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:11PM
How does that explain gender difference in career choice?
Maybe we're socializing cis women to be too emotionally fragile and we aren't emphasizing enough to them that they need to get a "real" job. I think most of us here know from being socialized as boys that it's clear from about day one that you're going to need a "real" job unless you plan to die homeless in a gutter. Perhaps we should be suspending entitlement programs that cis women are the primary recipients of and giving girls that impression as well.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @09:59AM
(Score: 1) by velex on Thursday March 13 2014, @12:35PM
How do you propose I delineate trans women from cis women then?
Or is your real issue that I would dare to be suspicious of individuals born with their reproductive systems on the inside who tend to use a fundamentally sexist worldview as an excuse any time they fail at something?
I don't know why you think the term cis woman is from tumblr. The term was formalized by Julia Serano in her book Whipping Girl. The other term I use, womyn-born-womyn, was promulgated by and is used by feminists themselves to delineate trans women from cis women. I can't think of any other terms that would both make you happy and allow me to effectively express my point about socialization and the error of supposing that these differences are due to the differences in male and female brains.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @02:09PM
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:10PM
A study shows that an estimated 00.3% of Americans are transgender, [thenewcivi...vement.com] so say 00.2% are transwomen, which means they're not all that statistically relevant to this discussion.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [dev.soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @08:44AM
There are only special programs for those falling behind, not those who are bored to tears with busywork because they are ahead.
That's not true in my state. There are a multitude of courses available for free for kids who want them: take a music-intense curriculum at school, if you're gifted take a gifted curriculum, take a science-intensive curriculum, enroll in dual-language programs, there are tons and tons of options. This starts at Kindergarten and continues through high school. Maybe you should move? None of this includes charter schools, which offer even more options.