“Proof:” Men, Women, & Math Skills

By Barry Honold

In Proof, Catherine is depicted as a math prodigy. Playwright David Auburn has said that he was fascinated with the idea of a young genius toiling away in the small hours of the night and producing a work that would revolutionize an entire field. Likewise, Tom Stoppard’s hit play Arcadia features a young and exceptionally talented female protagonist.  Both deal with advanced mathematical concepts: chaos theory in Arcadia and Fermat’s Last Theorem in Proof.

The sex of the protagonist is significant, largely because it is not considered the norm. Most stories about the hard sciences involve men. And, in scientific and mathematical jobs around the country, men outnumber women. Auburn wrote about “a panel of women mathematicians [that] used [Proof] to discuss questions of sexism and bias in their profession” at New York University. Bias against women in math is common.

In 2005, former Clinton Administration official and Harvard President Larry Summers spoke at a diversity conference on campus. He began musing on the disparity between men and women in tenured positions. As it was reported, he had a three-part theory: high-power, high-prestige jobs require sacrifices most women seem unwilling to make; it is possible that men have more “intrinsic aptitude” for advanced math and science; and the normal glass ceiling problems. “In my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described,” he finished.

The reaction was immediate. MIT biologist Nancy Hopkins walked out, saying that if she did not leave, she would have “blacked out or thrown up…this kind of bias makes me physically ill.” Feminist provocateur Camille Paglia immediately pounced on this remark, expressing sympathy that Hopkins’ doctoral degree students were unfortunate enough to have a professor prone to “swooning” when confronted with an idea she found disagreeable. The left, right, and center talking heads on TV began blasting away at each other.

Time ran an entire issue devoted to the “gender gap” shortly after the flap, asking “[i]s it true, even a little bit, that men are better equipped for scientific genius?

As usual, there is no simple “yes” or “no” answer. One of Summers’ cited sources was the University of Michigan’s Yu Xie, who said that “I didn’t exclude biology as an explanation. But I know biological factors would not play a role unless they interacted with social conditions.”

There are certainly role models for women in math: Hypatia, probably the first prominent female mathematician. Her father taught at the Library of Alexandria. Or Maria Agnesi, noted for differential and integral calculus. Or one of Voltaire’s associates, Emilie du Chatelet, the French Enlightenment mathematician who translated Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.  

In fact, if there are any intrinsic differences, recent research suggests they can be accounted for and bypassed. In “The Gender Gap in Math: Its Possible Origins in Neighborhood Effects” the researchers devised a contextual study to look at the disparity. Essentially, the normal socialization of boys encourages them to be outside of the house more than girls. Boys are more likely to be encouraged to play sports that involve math in some form and explore their community (and thus access libraries, after-school centers, and museums). However, girls who have access to these resources do equally well. Education and affluence tend to trump biology.

Another article, “The Myth of the Gender Gap,” pointed out recent studies that have shown girls’ math scores and participation to be pulling even with the boys. This “may reflect the simple fact that more female students are now taking math courses.” It furthermore discovered that “girls are increasingly sticking with math classes through school…girls and boys take advanced math in high schools in equal numbers, and women receive nearly half of all bachelor degrees in the US – and their scores are closing the gap.” The stereotype about boys doing better in math persists, though.

 Allanah Thomas, who teaches adult women math skills, explains that “[w]hat often holds girls back is self-confidence; it drops sharply in middle school.” One unlikely ally is the video game “Tetris.” Time writes that when girls played the game after math tests, their spatial reasoning skills shot up dramatically. High schools and colleges can make their math departments more “women friendly” by hiring more female math faculty. The most important thing is for parents and teachers to encourage their girls to work at math, and refuse to give up.