AnneC, I am russian, but I hate cold weather, I don’t play chess well and I cannot hold my liquor nearly as well as I should to fit the stereotype. I am fairly sure though, that statistically speaking, russians are more tolerant to cold and can drink more, simply as a result of natural selection and percentage of people playing reasonable chess is bigger for historical reasons. You have mentioned, how much pressure you felt when child, to fit in with “female” stereotypes, so wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume, that due to this pressure, percent of girls who actually like science might be less then percent of boys who like science? Boys, who are frequently even encouraged to like science/engineering activities. Intuitively though, I think, that correlation between “girls” and “don’t like science” is smothered into irrelevancy by the “people” and “don’t like science” correlation.
AnneC, I am russian, but I hate cold weather, I don’t play chess well and I cannot hold my liquor nearly as well as I should to fit the stereotype. I am fairly sure though, that statistically speaking, russians are more tolerant to cold and can drink more, simply as a result of natural selection and percentage of people playing reasonable chess is bigger for historical reasons. You have mentioned, how much pressure you felt when child, to fit in with “female” stereotypes, so wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume, that due to this pressure, percent of girls who actually like science might be less then percent of boys who like science? Boys, who are frequently even encouraged to like science/engineering activities. Intuitively though, I think, that correlation between “girls” and “don’t like science” is smothered into irrelevancy by the “people” and “don’t like science” correlation.