Women and math

In Brain Rules, John Medina talks about differences in male and female brains. Two of the differences he mentioned are relevant to women in technology. As presented here, these are total generalizations, just food for thought.

In school, girls are better at verbal skills. In mixed-gender classrooms, girls speak up more often when verbal topics are studied. The discussion can work well with the girls' cooperative communication style. Boys are behind in elementary school at verbal tasks.

Then in math and science, boys and girls have equal aptitudes. In a topic where there is pretty much one right answer, the boys' competitive communication style dominates. While the boys try to outdo one another, the girls are intimidated into silence. The girls can do it perfectly well, but when the boys turn the classroom into a competition, the girls withdraw.

Those trends may be the beginning of some of the disparities we see in career choices.

Next, there are the genetic differences between boys and girls. One generalization we can't argue with: boys have one X chromosome, and girls two. Many of the genes on the X chromosome affect brain function. In each cell, only one X chromosome is needed, and the other is deactivated. Boys, they're all the same. Girls,determined each cell randomly turns one off. This means girls are sorta the average of two X chromosomes, while boys are defined by one. Maybe this is part of why there are more men at the extremes of intelligence: men are more likely to be retarded, and more likely to be freakishly intelligent.