[comp.society.women] Women's Abilities at Details

fester@math.berkeley.edu (07/19/88)

>I can't think of any more examples of general imbalance of male and female
>tendencies ... but I'm sure there are many.  Of course there are exceptions
>to every generalization ... but, for the most part women tend to notice
>details and think about the finer points of life and men tend to see the
>bigger picture in a much more less complicated sort of way.
>Greer

I think this is largely false.

This posting motivated me to go compile the data I had requested in
another newsgroup, regarding what subfields of math women tended to go
into.  I had requested that data because I had noticed what seemed to
be a pattern; recently I met a former Berkeley math grad (Hi Karen !!)
who has had the same observation, and she mentioned that her boyfriend
(yet ANOTHER math grad here ((Hi John !))) has ALSO noticed this same
phenomenon: namely, that women seem to be clustered in algebra and
topology.

Here's the data I recieved: (I don't include things like operations
research, because I was only interested in math proper, but thanks
for writing.)

  3 algebraists (unspecified)
  2 algebraic number theorists
  1 combinatorics (did not complete the program, though)
  1 topologist (unspecified)
  6 algebraic topologists
  1 SCV
  1 functional analysis
  a comment, without numerical data, "a majority were in algebra
                                        or topology"
  and the following very funny letter from Chris Long-
      They were grad students at one point:
      Mary Ellen Rudin : topology and set theory
      Sophie Germain : number theory
      Emmy Noether : algebra


This is relevant because algbera is one of the least detail-oriented,
most conceptual branches of mathematics.  Vicki Powers said it best

         " I loved algebra from the first course I took 
           in college, and always had trouble with analysis.
           The more abstract a subject is, the more I like 
           it and algebra seems more abstract to me than other 
           branches of mathematics.  "            (hear, hear !)

Thus, while this data is clearly insufficient to generalize with, it
certainly indicates that if anything women are MORE conceptual and
LESS detail oriented than men.

(Marie, Lise, do you think *this* has anything to do with why women are
clustered in Theory and scarce in Hardware rather than sheer hardware
phobia ?) 

To those who wrote wanting to know why I asked, there are two reasons.
I do have a long-term, theoretical interest in the matter of learning
and cognition, and the ever-present question of whether these differ
between women and men.  But I also have a short-term practical interest,
which is the following:  everyone in the PhD program here has to pass
an examination, the Preliminary exam, within one year of being in the
program.  This exam is heavily biased towards analysis.  No one, not
even the PR-conscious faculty, dispute that.  There tend to be twice 
as many analysis questions as algebra questions, and these make up the
brunt of the test.

Obviously, with this heavy bias towards analysis, people who are really
good at analysis have a much better chance of passing the exam.  Karen
knows at least one person who actually passed by answering NOTHING BUT
analysis problems.  If it turned out to be true that most women were
inclined towards algebra and topology, then clearly they are at a 
disadvantage relative to X% of the male population, when X is something
quite significant.  (The obvious comment is that of course men who are
better in algebra are at a disadvantage too !)  

This is again one of those indirect links to why things are worse for
women; analogous to, say, the fact that most companies are reluctant 
to hire older employees (I mean people just starting, not transferring
from one company to another.)  This is not directly sexism (ageism, yes)
but it translates into sexism because it has been a given, for decades,
that women support their husbands through graduate/professional school
and THEN start pursuing having their own life.  Thus it is almost all
women who are in the position of being older, hence discriminated
against, employees.


Lea Fester
fester@math.berkeley.edu          ucbvax!math!fester

bs%linus@mitre-bedford.arpa (Robert D. Silverman) (07/19/88)

In article <12218@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> fester@math.berkeley.edu writes:
:This posting motivated me to go compile the data I had requested in
:another newsgroup, regarding what subfields of math women tended to go
:into.  I had requested that data because I had noticed what seemed to
:phenomenon: namely, that women seem to be clustered in algebra and
:topology.
:
 
etc.

:Here's the data I recieved: (I don't include things like operations
:research, because I was only interested in math proper, but thanks
:for writing.)
:
:  3 algebraists (unspecified)
:  2 algebraic number theorists
:  1 combinatorics (did not complete the program, though)
:  1 topologist (unspecified)
:  6 algebraic topologists
:  1 SCV
:  1 functional analysis
:  a comment, without numerical data, "a majority were in algebra
:                                        or topology"
 
My wife is an analytic number theorist.
 
Estimation of error terms for arithmetic functions, asymptotic analyis,
techniques like the Hardy-Littlewood circle method, etc. etc. are
about as finely detailed as one can get in mathematics. Try reading
"Sieve Methods" for example (Halberstam & Richert).
 

Bob Silverman

marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker) (07/20/88)

In article <12218@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> fester@math.berkeley.edu writes:
>This posting motivated me to go compile the data I had requested in
>another newsgroup, regarding what subfields of math women tended to go
>into.  I had requested that data because I had noticed what seemed to
>be a pattern....namely, that women seem to be clustered in algebra and
>topology.

Um, for those of us who abandoned math after vector calculus, what, in 
general terms, is topology?  And "analysis" is such a broad term, could
you give us an idea of what it means here?  And where does geometry fit
in, if anywhere?

I wonder where geometry fits in because one of my favorite questions to
ask people is which they liked better in high school: geometry or algebra?
Almost everyone has a definite opinion, and if they didn't like either,
they at least found one to be easier than the other.  I have not noticed
that the algebra/geometry people split along gender lines at all.  It
seems a total mix to me.  My informal ongoing survey is about 10 years old.

In hs, algebra was a breeze for me.  Geometry I loved, but I literally
stayed up until midnight doing geometry homework every single night for
most of tenth grade.  I loved it, but it was much harder for me than
algebra.

My best friend, who is now a dancer, was just the opposite.  She thought
geometry was easy, but algebra made no sense to her.  In a basic econ
course at Berkeley, faced with something like 2x + 7 = 15,  she said,
"Can you help me with this?  No, wait! I can remember - something about
moving the 7...?"  She figured it out, but it was a struggle.

marla