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From: anita@drux3.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: ET sex roles, request for clarification
Message-ID: <1158@drux3.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-May-84 12:07:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: drux3.1158
Posted: Tue May 15 12:07:43 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 16-May-84 04:44:03 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
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   > ...I do not hold ... that observed differences [in math skills between
   > men and women] are due to training.  There is insufficient evidence...

I think there is plenty of evidence.  I went through 12 years of Catholic
school.  In my area, that meant that for the first 8 years math, english
and religion were about all we ever spent time on.  It also meant that, for
the most part, I was taught by nuns.  Some nuns (most, I would say, 15 years
ago) had a resentment toward men.  This sometimes meant that they heavily
encouraged girls to achieve in all subjects.  In grade school, the best
four or so math students were girls.  I remember a nun in 7th grade telling
the girls that we should not start hiding our skills in math just to defer
to the boys.  Well, that didn't happen, at least through high school.
There were always more girls than boys at the top of the math classes, but
we were not unaware of the outside world's attitude.
	When I was a sophomore in HS I was at the top of my math class.
There was a guy who was second.  One day the teacher (a nun,
incidently) told him he should develop his math skills by majoring in
engineering in college.  She said I should become a high school teacher
(like her).  I therefor (unconsciously) assumed that women could not be
engineers.  I was only to start thinking in feminist terms a few years
later, and since I was totally unaware of the assumption I had made, I
didn't rethink it until I was a senior in college.  By then I was not
about to start over.
	What I want to point out here is that it was never "evident" to
me that men were better at math.  I had just the opposite opinion.  It
was only in college that I saw women coming in lower in math, and I
automatically assumed that that was because they were in general choosing
careers that traditionally were thought to be more feminine, and thus
weren't working at math as much.  I think that's closer to the truth.
                                           Anita