This Saddens Me

Each morning, when I awake before the sun [always the first one up!], I indulge in the pleasure of reading the news.

A few weeks ago, I read an article from sciencemag.org, which published a study showing how on average, as girls age, their belief in their intelligence decreases significantly. The study, published by Science, showed how before the age of 6, girls believed in their brilliance equally to that of boys. However, by the age of 6, that same group of girls, who’d believed in their intelligence as much as boys only one year ago, now assumed that their male counterparts were smarter.

Researchers conducted this study through asking children this question at the age of 5, and again at the age of 6 or 7: “A person in my office is really, really smart—they solve problems faster and better than anyone else.” They found that at the age of 5, boys believed that really smart person was a man, while at the age of 5, girls believed it was a woman. When researchers described this same scenario to a group of kids at the age of 6-7, they discovered that girls were 20-30% less likely to believe that really smart person was a female. This saddens me.

Researchers further studied older girls attitudes towards certain activities versus older boys attitudes. They discovered that boys tended to choose to play games that were described to the them as being designed for “really, really, smart children.” The girls backed out, instead, choosing games that were described as being designed for “children who try really, really hard.” I suppose this study is suggesting that girls tend to be categorized as the children who try hard, and boys are categorized as smart.

Meanwhile, while all these studies suggest that girls believe they aren’t as intelligent as men starting at an early age, Science did mention something I find both fascinating and contradicting, “Boys and girls both acknowledged that girls get better grades, indicating that children don’t necessarily associate success in school with brilliance.”

Yet the facets of all of these studies that startles me the most is how many girls are strongly influenced by these gender roles, evidenced by them choosing to avoid certain jobs that may require being highly intellectual, such as engineering. And this saddens me the most…girls curtailing themselves from certain decisions based off gender roles established when they were young.

To be quite honest, I’m not sure where to start to improve the mindset in the women in our society. The world is so marvelously vast, that at times, it makes it difficult to fathom where to start change. However, I have seen little improvements here and there that make me really happy to see. Last year, when I was talking to my math teacher about the advanced placement, he told me how each year, there is approximately 2-3 times as many boys in the honors class as girls. I believe that not only is that a low ratio, [1:2 or 1:3 ratio of girls to boys] but it further discourages other girls in the grade to put an effort into math. In a way, I believe it is almost a quiet implication that girls can’t be as good at math as boys. Last year, my math teacher also told me how for this years classes, they were striving to even out the numbers in advanced classes. Although the ratios are more even now, there still consistently continues to be significantly more boys than girls in the honors classes.

I strongly believe that women are needed everywhere, in fact, in order for a company, a business, a military, a hospital, a science lab, a research zone, the government and everything else, to be successful and reach its maximum potential, women need to be involved. Yet still, having so deeply ingrained this belief in my head, I’m disappointed to say that I still do not know where to start improving. But I do know this: it will not happen overnight, and not only is a societal shift is needed, but a cultural shift needs to take place.

-------------

Link to Science study