Sugar and Spice and Science and Math

When my now teenage daughter was in first, second and third grades, she was one of her class's top mathematicians. Each of those years, in fact, she competed for that honor against one particular classmate. A boy.

The stakes were fairly low. There were tests and projects and something called "mad minutes." Each day, the kids were handed sheets of problems. Single-digit addition first, followed by subtraction and eventually multiplication and division with more complex numbers. Once you could complete a sheet within the allotted sixty seconds, you could bump up to a more difficult set. 

My daughter was a whiz!

In the years since, her science and math skills have remained fairly high, but her interests have taken her in other directions. Still, I never really thought about the fact that she was following a fairly familiar pattern. Although younger girls hold their own in these subjects, by the time they get to middle school, high school and college, they fall behind.

But this doesn't have to be the case.

Earlier this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development administered a test to 15-year-olds in 65 countries. The results are both encouraging and disheartening. According to The New York Times, which covered the story earlier this year, "girls generally outperform boys in science — but not in the United States." Or, it turns out, in England or Canada either. Meanwhile, in some countries that we might assume would be less progressive than ours, the girls really excelled. In Jordan, for example, girls outperformed boys by 8 percent!

So, clearly the aptitude is there. It has to be environmental factors: teaching, perceived opportunities and rewards, or — more likely — perceived disadvantages and consequences. Girls may not want to be stereotyped as "geeks" in a world that's so busy "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."

A marketing associate of mine, Mélanie Attia, just posted a great piece about how to encourage more girls to explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) careers. With her permission, I'm sharing it here.

My thoughts on how to build interest in STEM careers for girls

Lifting the veil off science, technology, engineering and math

In early June 2014, I was invited on behalf of Silanis, to participate in ScribbleLive’s chat on the shortage of women in the essential “STEM” fields. With me during the hour was an inspiring group of women that included Cecily Carver, Co-Director of Dames Making Games, Tendu Yogurtcu, VP Engineering at Syncsort, Jen Lamere, a 17-year-old who won the TVnext Hackathon, and Laura Plant, Director at Ladies Learning Code. Topics during the hour included how to get more women to enter into the tech field, the obstacles they face, what it’s like to work in the field and what can be done to lower barriers to entry.

Early childhood exposure matters

I was very fortunate during my formative years. My father would have nothing to do with gender stereotypes. I was raised in an environment that allowed me to embrace science, biology and technology at a very young age. Although I was given the typical girl toys, I also got a microscope with bugs to dissect and examine and a telescope to look up at the cosmos. At the mere age of 6, I learned how to code on my own Commodore VIC-20.

Asking the perennial question: how is it made?

There are ongoing debates about how young children should be before they start playing video games and how much time should they spend doing it. Maybe the answer should be:first learn how the games are developed, and then play them.

Who should ask the question?

Realistically, not all parents are technically literate nor interested in coding in general. This is where elementary school and community initiatives like Kids Code Jeunesse come into play. This is the place where minds are opened to the possibilities outside of what is known.

The same way that history, geography, math, physics and biology can inspire and lift the veil off who we are and where we come from, coding is just another essential building block to all children's education. It's like learning a new language, a new way to solve problems.

The ecosystem that supports STEM matters too

In all honesty, I am not a programmer - at least, I don't consider myself as such. My love of the web and knack for just trying to figure out how to build a website is what propelled me into my current career. Once I built my first website, I had to figure out how to get people to it. Over time, I built my expertise in digital marketing.

My understanding of the guts of a web application gives me the ability to understand the challenges businesses face when having to adopt new emerging technologies to remain competitive. Being able to grasp how e-signatures work, what makes them compliant, risk-free and efficient within a workflow allows me to relate to the audience.

The work environment goes a long way

I am incredibly fortunate to work in a company that has so many women executives in director and VP positions. There is a whole ecosystem that supports IT. It spreads far and wide from sales to human resources, operations, customer relations and finance. No matter the department, it is beneficial to feel comfortable within the environment.

Don’t get me wrong, we also have a growing number of women developers on staff. I really believe the tides are changing. We need to keep the momentum going.

Want to help get more children interested in STEM?

Get involved in your local community efforts. Speak up when you're invited to meet your local school board. Finally, the next time your child is absorbed in their smart phone or gaming console, don't forget to ask the question: "How do you think this works?"

Thanks, Mélanie! Let's see if we can catch up, ladies.

Dumbing Down

"Girls go to college to get more knowledge.

Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider."

This was one of my daughter's favorite rhymes when she was in preschool. We thought it was pretty funny.

She thought it was hi-lar-i-ous.

Back then, there was no question at all about whether girls were as smart as boys (my daughter and her friends knew they were). They learned to read and write and add and subtract side-by-side. Gender differences showed up in the playground, but there was no sense that being a good student made you any more or less feminine.

In primary school, my daughter quickly achieved a reputation for being a math wiz. Her first grade numbers scroll reached an unprecedented length; she solved more (and more difficult) equations than her peers in "mad minutes," and did so with time to spare. In fourth grade, she was selected to participate in an engineering class that was sponsored by Lego Robotics. She and a classmate invented, built and presented an amusement park ride called the "Barf-o-nator 3000."

Sniff, sniff, I was so proud!

Now as an eighth grader, my daughter is in her fifth year of accelerated math. Always an excellent student, she should be on course for more of the same. So, why am I getting worried? It isn't that I think her skills will diminish. In fact, I absolutely refuse to abide by the myth that girls are naturally better at verbal subjects and boys are naturally better at math and science. I know far too many exceptions to that rule, and I myself scored much higher on my math SATs even though I preferred English and Drama and pursued them as majors in college.

Instead, I'm concerned about the gender stereotypes that are still so prevalent in our society and that influence what girls choose to do — and how well they do in what they choose.

According to the National Science Foundation, fourth grade girls and boys are about equally attracted to the subject of science: 66% and 68%. But, at the same time, when asked to draw a scientist, most depict a white male. Any drawings of women scientists are unattractive and sour. By eighth grade, boys are twice as interested in careers in science than girls are. And, that unhappy trend continues through high school and college.

There are a lot of studies that examine this phenomenon. Some focus on teachers. It appears that when a boy asks for help in a math or science class, the teacher coaches him and encourages him to solve the problem himself. When a girl asks, the teacher tends to solve the problem for her. Good-bye, confidence.

Another point of reference is how many college-age women drop out of math and science programs. This is sometimes pointed to as an indication of gender aptitude. However, the women who drop out often do so because they are getting Bs. Men remain in the programs even if they are getting Cs. The female students seem to have much higher expectations in terms of their own performance.

In recent news, two major retailers were accused of selling gender-biased tee shirts. Forever 21's shirt continues the girls-can't-do-math myth by proclaiming that its wearer is "Allergic to Algebra," while J.C. Penny's shirt makes a more general comment about beauty vs. smarts, bragging that "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me." Both stores quickly pulled the shirts from their shelves. But, clearly there were creative teams (and executives) at the companies that saw nothing wrong with those messages.

Of course, girls want to have beauty and brains. But, note that the word "beauty" comes first. If it's an either/or question, girls vote for good looks over good grades. It's no wonder. From the time they were tiny children, they've understood happily ever after to mean a beautiful princess who gets her man. Not a smart academic who gets her PhD in biophysics.

I think my daughter is the most beautiful person in the world. Obviously, I'm a wee bit biased. (All right, extremely biased.) That said, in our society, life is certainly easier for attractive people, so I want her to take care of herself and look her best. But, there is so much more to her than blonde hair and a pretty face! She is smart. She is funny. She is brave and compassionate and honest.

She is good at math.

The perceived conflict between how girls look and how they think is nothing new. So, I'm going to let a very smart woman from more than a century ago speak for me now. Her name is Louisa May Alcott and her characters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy struggled with gender biases as they defined their self-worth in the 1860s. This is one of the many themes of the book that feels relevant today. No wonder it's still so beloved by our own generation of "little women."

In the 1994 movie version (which I highly recommend!), Susan Sarandon tells her daughters ...

"I only care what you think of yourself. If you feel your value lies in being merely decorative, I fear that someday you might find yourself believing that that's all you really are. Time erodes all such beauty. But what it cannot diminish is the wonderful workings of your brain, your humor, your kindness and your moral courage. These are the things I cherish so in you."

You hear that, girls? Listen to your Marmee.