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Women Avoid STEM Degrees to Get Better Grades?

posted by janrinok on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:35PM   Printer-friendly
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?"

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @10:51AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13 2014, @10:51AM (#15898)

    Perhaps they are 'differentiated' because due various aspects of their genetics they are different?

    That dog sure sucks at flying. Well yes he does, he lacks the wings of a bird, but lets ignore that and throw him out the window anyway. We don't want to treat him any different because of his genetics.

    The analogy above is imperfect because in this case there is an easily observable genetic difference that gives abilities to one animal over another.. why do some of us pretend that all genetic differences are so easily spotted?

    I don't understand the idiotic preconception that genetics should be ignored and we should try to treat everyone as if they are the "same".. which clearly does not gel with reality. That isn't to say that the tests to discover such differences shouldn't be rigorous (correlation does not necessarily equal causation blah blah blah...)