It’s a familiar concept all females understand, young and old. We have to think faster and work harder in order to be considered half as competent as our male counterparts. This is one of the physical hurdles we face, especially when racing up through office ranks in a male dominated workforce. The other hurdle, and often the more challenging, is the one that lies within.
A recent study conducted by Florida State University was published in the journal of “Frontiers of Psychology.” This study reveals a misconception in the perception of ability for females. When high school girls were given a challenging problem, particularly in mathematics, they were three times more likely to give up altogether within the first three minutes of solving. Boys however, did not give up. They seemed to rise to the challenge instead, working on one challenge at a time, using as much time as needed to arrive at the correct answer.
This raises an interesting question. If girls are able to complete regular tasks and excel at simpler challenges, why are we more likely to throw in the towel when given more difficult tasks? This isn’t limited to just America, either. Pay attention to your women co-workers. Pay attention to your female peers. This study highlights a real problem in society.
I believe the answer lies with how differently we raise each gender. In my life, I have worked as a teacher’s assistant. In addition, I am an aunt to two boys. Early learning and development is a fascinating world to be involved with, and I have had the chance to teach and interact with kids with differing learning levels, backgrounds and genders. Here’s what I’ve picked up that may help explain this inequality.
Girls develop self-control and discipline at an early age, which allows them to follow instruction from parents and teachers. This goodness gets praised with phrases such as, “Aren’t you so smart” or, “so clever.” This type of praising implicates that these traits are either something you have or you don’t have. Girls then begin to believe that their ability is unchangeable. Boys, on the other hand, tend to be rowdy at the same age. The challenge is usually the adult trying to get a boy to sit still. As a result, when they are learning, their praises come from phrases like, “if you would just pay attention, you could get this,” or “If you put the effort into it, you could get it right.”
This means that boys accumulate a growth mindset; they can develop ability through effort.
With this different mindset, they may grow up to be women who underestimate and undervalue themselves. We see this now in our working mothers. We see this now in our studying daughters. Even if all of the external challenges women face were removed, this internal conflict would still be there to hold us back mentally.
Thankfully, our local education system is changing due to this problem. Teaching methods are adapting to instruct and give feedback to both genders equally. In time, we will have graduates entering our workforce confident in their abilities and learning skills.
However, for this to happen, I believe that this needs to happen at home for consistency. Teaching one thing at school and another at home would just be more confusing. Our mothers and fathers are our most important influence when we are young. Teaching and praising this way at home would help other areas of learning, not just “book learning.” Language retention and kinesthetic ability could be even stronger if started early enough. If we can teach our sons to succeed, why not our daughters? With a society full of young, confident and intelligent men and women, there would be better competition for jobs as well as more achievements. They may also be less likely fall prey to media tactics that feed on insecurities. We could begin to see more females in scientific and mathematical areas. We could see more males in social and humanitarian areas.
Dreaming of a confident, intelligent and respectful society may be asking for too much, but starting with helping women and girls learn the way we teach boys may just be a good start.
