Rape Culture and Feminism

Today in SCH 101, we had a presentation on Rape Culture and Feminism.  The first topic went pretty well with some of the quieter students expressing their concerns.  The second half got quite heated.  One of the students managed to poke me in a sensitive spot.  So, at the end of class, I said that the topic of Feminism might be better discussed in small groups and on our blogs, so I am going to take my own advice.  Much of what is included is going to be direct quotes from a variety of sources.

Claim: Men are better at math and science than women.

There is definitely a difference between math test scores between boys and girls.  However, the difference of means on math test scores has narrowed significantly as girls take more math courses in High School.

Over the last 60 years, the number of math and science courses taken by female high school students has increased and now the mean and standard deviation in performance on math test scores are only slightly larger for males than for females according to the Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 24, Number 2—Spring 2010—Pages 129–144.

However, they continue

Despite minor differences in mean performance, Hedges and Nowell (1995) show that many more boys than girls perform at the right tail of the distribution. This gender gap has been documented for a series of math tests including the AP calculus test, the mathematics SAT, and the quantitative portion of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). Over the past 20 years, the fraction of males to females who score in the top five percent in high school math has remained constant at two to one (Xie and Shauman, 2003). Examining students who scored 800 on the math SAT in 2007, Ellison and Swanson (in this issue) also find a two to one male–female ratio.

  .....

The objective of this paper is not to discuss whether the mathematical skills of males and females differ, be it a result of nurture or nature. Rather we argue that the reported test scores do not necessarily match the gender differences in math skills. We will present results that suggest that the abundant and disturbing evidence of a large gender gap in mathematics performance at high percentiles in part may be explained by the differential manner in which men and women respond to competitive test-taking environments.
We provide evidence of a significant and substantial gender difference in the extent to which skills are reflected in a competitive performance. The effects in mixed-sex settings range from women failing to perform well in competitions (Gneezy, Niederle, and Rustichini, 2003) to women shying away from environments in which they have to compete (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007). We find that the response to competition differs for men and women, and in the examined environment, gender difference in competitive performance does not reflect the difference in noncompetitive performance. 

Thus, while tests may show that a larger number of boys perform exceedingly well on the math exams (and a corresponding large number perform exceedingly poorly since the means are nearly identical), it is not the case that the same larger number of boys understands mathematics excellently.

According to the research article "Math and Science Attitudes and Achievement at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity," in Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2013., 

Despite gender similarities in math and science achievement, female adolescents tend to believe their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) abilities are just not as strong as those of their male classmates even though male and female students earn similar grades in math and science while Asian American students of both genders outperform all other races.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-female-students-successful-males-math.html#jCp

The New York Times found that this difference between genders in science is highly cultural.  

According to a test given in 65 developed countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, among a representative sample of 15-year-olds around the world, girls generally outperform boys in science — but not in the United States.  Boys consistently outperform girls here, and that makes us an outlier. The only countries that boast a wider gap in favor of boys are Colombia and Liechtenstein.

 Even in Academics, there is a bias towards men in studying Science.  A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which Kelsey was referring to) demonstrated that faculty (of both genders) base the competency of an applicant based on the perceived gender of the name.

In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. The gender of the faculty participants did not affect responses, such that female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female student. Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent.

Claim: Pay differences are because women choose lower-pay majors 

I am not even going to get into the argument of why fields which are identified as feminine are traditionally paid less.  The pay gap is not as large when you compare students with the same academic background, but it is still intolerably large.  According to a 2007 study by the AAUW

Women one year out of college are paid 80 percent of what men are paid. Ten years after college graduation that number drops to 69 percent. After controlling for factors that affect earnings — like college major, job, and hours worked per week — women are still paid an unexplained 5 percent less than men one year after college graduation. This unexplained pay gap widens to 12 percent ten years after graduation.

According to the executive summary of this study,

Women one year out of college are paid 80 percent of what men are paid. Ten years after college graduation that number drops to 69 percent. After controlling for factors that affect earnings — like college major, job, and hours worked per week — women are still paid an unexplained 5 percent less than men one year after college graduation. This unexplained pay gap widens to 12 percent ten years after graduation.

The choice of major is not the full story, however. As early as one year after graduation, a pay gap is found between women and men who had the same college major. In education,
a female-dominated major, women earn 95 percent as much as their male colleagues earn. In biological sciences, a mixed-gender major, women earn only 75 percent as much as men earn. Likewise in mathematics—a male dominated major—women earn only 76 percent as much as
men earn. Female students cannot simply choose a major that will allow them to avoid the pay gap.

This is even true in Academia.  According to a study by Northwestern University professors, pay is often tied to "productivity" which means publishing papers.  The study found

the "productivity gap" varied depending on the discipline. In fields that require more resources, women publish less. This indicates the gap may exist because academic departments historically have not invested resources equally in female faculty from the start of their careers. Men are getting greater resources.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-12-tool-uncover-bias-female-faculty.html#jCp

Also, according to this Blog

A recent study at the University of Michigan found that female physicians and scientists are paid much less than their male counterparts, even when accounting for factors like work hours, academic titles, medical specialties, and age. All factors being equal, men’s salaries averaged $12,000 higher than women’s, which over the course of a career adds up to more than $350,000.

The study at Yale on new STEM grads also found that when professors in the study thought the applicant was male the starting salary offered was nearly $5,000 higher. 

Claim: There are more women going to college in the United States than men.

According to Forbes the total Fall enrollment of women in college surpassed men in the late 1970s and has been growing ever since.  In 2008, women made up 56% of the Public colleges and universities and 59% of the Private colleges and universities.

For more recent data, in a report by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics

Of the 3.2 million youth age 16 to 24 who graduated from high school between January and October 2012, about 2.1 million (66.2 percent) were enrolled in college in October. The college enrollment rate of recent high school graduates in October 2012 was little different from the rate in October 2011 (68.3 percent). For 2012 graduates, the college enrollment rate was 71.3 percent for young women and 61.3 percent for young men. The college enrollment rate of Asians (82.2 percent) was higher than for recent white (66.6 percent), black (58.2 percent), and Hispanic (70.3 percent) graduates.

Recent high school graduates not enrolled in college in the fall of 2012 were more likely than enrolled graduates to be in the labor force (69.6 percent compared with 38.2 percent). The unemployment rate for recent high school graduates not enrolled in school was 34.4 percent, compared with 17.7 percent for recent graduates enrolled in college.

Why?  According to the Chronicle of Higher Education the higher female college enrollment may be because of higher rates of dreams of college and better planning:

Female high-school students are more likely to aspire to attend college than are their male counterparts, and the young women enroll in college, persist, and graduate from it at higher rates as well, according to a report released on Tuesday by the National Center for Education Statistics.
The report, "Higher Education: Gaps in Access and Persistence Study,"  says that, in 2004, 96 percent of female high-school seniors wanted to go to college, compared with 90 percent of males. When female high-school graduates enrolled in college, they tended to do so immediately after high-school graduation; half chose a four-year institution.
Male high-school graduates made similar choices, but at lower rates. For example, while almost three-quarters of female students who enrolled in college did so immediately after high school, just over two-thirds of male students did. Slightly less than half of young men first enrolled in a four-year institution.