This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Notre Dame chapter.
In October 1992, Mattel Inc. was nationally criticized for a line of their talking Barbie
dolls. Teen Talk Barbie was dressed in a frilly, colorful 90’s outfit and a matching voluminous
hairstyle. Each doll could say four phrases, of which were randomly chosen from 270
possibilities during manufacture, and were things a stereotypical media-portrayed teenager
would say, such as “Who do you have a crush on right now?”. However, one possible phrase was
“Math class is tough”, which did not sit well with women’s groups across the United States
because it perpetuated the stereotype that girls are inherently bad at math and science – or at
least not as good as boys are. Granted, this was one out of 270 sayings, giving a 1.48% chance
that the saying would be one of the four phrases programmed into a doll (1.49% if sampling with
replacement, but the sample is large enough that the probabilities are comparable), making the
dolls with this saying very rare. Therefore, it didn’t make sense for Mattel to recall the entire
line; instead, they offered replacements for the possible 15 out of every 1000 dolls. However, a
handful of them still exist.
The unfounded assumption that men are better than women in the sciences is still a very
real problem, despite the increasing representation of women in science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM). National Numeracy, a campaigning group in the United
Kingdom that strives to promote basic mathematical literacy for everyone, found in a 2012
survey that only 59% of women consider themselves good at math compared to 71% of men.
However, a Brigham Young University study found that in a multi-round elementary school
math contest, despite being outperformed in the first session, girls ultimately performed just as
well as boys or better. But why the initial discrepancy? And why is this stereotype so pervasive
that women themselves are convinced that it’s true?
The BYU study ultimately determined that girls performed better under lower-pressure
conditions such as de-emphasizing speed or removing the competition aspect so that only
individual ability is tested. This correlates with similar studies done by Oxford and Cambridge
that propose the discrepancy in performance might be due to anxiety – a result of social and
cultural stereotypes that set girls up to believe they are less competent.
This widespread belief also extends to a gender bias in teachers, which has even more
negative consequences. The national Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 found that teachers
have a tendency to subjectively rate the math abilities of their female students as lower than their
male students despite comparable test scores in reality. Further, statistics from the National
Science Foundation support the fact that while there is not a gap in proficiency, high school boys
and girls have very different attitudes towards math and science with 40% of girls reporting that
they do not like math, compared with 27% of boys. This, combined with the existing assumption
that girls are less proficient in STEM is a plausible explanation for the underrepresentation of
women in the sciences.
While it seems like an inescapable situation between society’s unspoken expectations and
women’s self-fulfilling prophecies, studies such as those found in BYU and Oxford indicate that
a little encouragement really can go a long way. Today, most universities have clubs or
organizations that promote women’s involvement in the sciences, and there are even national
efforts such as ADVANCE through NSF. But the most important thing is to address the
falsehood behind stereotypes, both for women in the sciences as well as women everywhere.