Welcome to the 19th exploration of the Planet of the Savage Strident DKos Feminist Supervixens!
"Feminist Supervixens" of every sex and gender are invited to participate in this feminists' circle. Our goal is to build a vibrant community of feminists here on Daily Kos. The emphasis here is on camaraderie and support, so if you're looking for an argument, we suggest that you go instead to room 12A, just along the corridor.
Previous "episodes" in this diary series have been written by hrh, with guest-host diaries from mem from somerville, Elise, righteousbabe, irishwitch, and aphra behn. Some more guest-hosts are waiting in the wings. Feminists who are interested in being a guest-host can email hrh at: feministsupervixens (AT) yahoo.com
Who among us Supervixens could forget the Larry Summers brouhaha?
Well, an interesting study has just come out in Science. It suggests that perceived stereotypes adversely affect women's performance in math.
I don't believe this has been diaried here yet, so here are a few quotes from
this article:
Telling women they can't do well in math may turn out be a self-fulfilling statement. In tests in Canada, women who were told that men and women do math equally well did much better than those who were told there is a genetic difference in math ability.
And women who heard there were differences caused by environment -- such as math teachers giving more attention to boys -- outperformed those who were simply reminded they were females.
The women who did better in the tests got nearly twice as many right answers as those in the other groups, explained Steven J. Heine, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
The women were given a math test, then asked to read an essay, and then given a second math exam.
In two groups the women averaged between five and 10 correct answers out of 25 math questions. In the other two they averaged between 15 and 20 correct.
The women in the lower-scoring groups read essays that either contended that there is a genetic difference between men and women in math ability, or discussed the images of women in art -- a reading which did not discuss math but was designed to remind them of being female.
Those two groups not only fell short of the other women, but their performance declined between the two math tests, meaning they scored lower after reading the essays than before.
I'm not really sure about the idea that reading one essay would affect a woman's perception to such a degree, but the difference in the scores is startling.
It does appear to indicate that even casual perpetuation of seemingly-harmless gender stereotypes ("women are weaker", etc.) should be squelched.
What do you Supervixens think of this new development?
BTW, the USA Today headline for this article was:
Experts: Some women perform well in math
...which isn't only a lame headline, but an inaccurate description of the article AND of the study!
In other news: how was your week? What's on your Supervixen minds? Share, vent, rant, chat.