Filipina Einstein?

LAST January, Harvard president Larry Summers stirred controversy when he tried to explain gender disparities in science, that is, men doing better than women in terms of numbers and occupying high positions.

He gave three possible explanations, which I'm paraphrasing here: (a) women are not as interested as men in sacrificing for high-powered jobs; (b) men have more intrinsic aptitude for high-level science; and (c) women may be victims of discrimination. Summers suggested that the importance of the explanations "ranks in exactly the order that I just described."

Not surprisingly, the speech drew scathing criticism, including a vote of no confidence from Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

It's an old stereotype common in Western countries that males are "intrinsically" better at math and science. As "proof," they'll point to scores in the math tests conducted in countries belonging to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose membership consists of more than 40 developed countries, where males generally do better than females in math and science tests. Then they'll cite statistics showing that more males than females get doctoral degrees, or occupy top positions in science institutions.

All kinds of explanations have been advanced to explain these differences, mainly centering on brain anatomy and physiology, but these explanations have also been challenged, mainly in the way they suggest a fixed handicap on the part of women. Biologists themselves (perhaps women biologists) say there's more to these gender disparities than the brain.

Motivated Filipina

I've actually never been able to understand the gender stereotypes in the United States and Europe because in all my years of teaching in the Philippines, it's the females who do better than the males.

I've taught only at the college level but results from the National Elementary Achievement Test and the National Secondary Achievement Test, which the Department of Education used to require in all schools, support my observations. A few years back, I was asked to review the statistics and I noticed right away that the females on average did better than males not just in math and science but in all subjects.

It's now the season of graduations and if you look at the coed schools, you'll find more female students running off with honors. At the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, 7 of the 10 summa cum laude graduates this year were female. And, mind you, they got their summa cum laude in fields like mathematics and molecular biology.So, are our women smarter than our men?

Time Magazine's March 28, 2005 issue, which had a cover story on the gender gap, described a fishing village in Iceland where the girls did far better than boys with math. The explanation was simple: motivation. The boys dreamt of leaving school so they could go off to the sea. The girls, on the other hand, saw school as a way out of their village, and therefore studied harder.

I'm certain something similar is happening in the Philippines on a national scale. Paradoxically, the motivation comes from a combination of opportunities as well as discrimination. On one hand, there are more job opportunities now for our women, locally as well as overseas. Very early in life, our girls see this and are encouraged to work harder in school.

Discrimination

Ironically, the motivation to do better in school may also come from discrimination. Because males are still more privileged, a girl growing up in a low-income household suffers more from the deprivation and poverty and becomes more determined to finish high school or college, knowing that a diploma may help her to attain a better life.

Even more ironically, gender discrimination in school admissions could push girls to work harder. Medical schools, for example, generally require higher grade point averages for female applicants because they feel that women graduates tend to squander their medical education by getting married and having children. Yet all our medical schools end up admitting many more female students because more of them qualify. Again, this may be because the female undergraduate student vying for medical school will work harder to get a higher grade point average.

Alas, even if our girls excel in schools, out in the real world they still end up trailing behind the men. In the area of science and technology, they often do all the hard work in research but are unable to make their way up through the bureaucratic ladders. Biology may play a role here, but not because of brain differences. Instead, the handicap comes because their careers are interrupted by childbearing and childrearing. Let's face it, both in government and private sectors (more so in the latter), employers will be quicker to pass up a woman for promotion because they see her as unreliable, simply because she could get pregnant and would need to go on maternity leave.

Raising Einstein

It's time, too, that we look at how we might be encouraging a gender gap in our schools. Even if the females generally fare better, guidance counselors and parents may subconsciously discourage children from seeking careers in science and engineering, simply because these are seen as male domains. The discrimination could start quite early: I've met many parents who still think those Lego construction toys are meant only for boys.

Think, too, of the way we socialize our sons and daughters. Sons are taught to be aggressive, to fight for their rights. Daughters are taught to be patient, to keep their silence even if they've been treated unfairly. Project several years ahead when they begin to work: that daughter may be brighter than all her male work colleagues but if she's passed up for a grant, or for a promotion, she's likely to just accept the injustice as part of life.

We need to rethink our gender biases, maybe even turning some of our perceptions upside down. For example, we could ask, "If men are supposed to be smarter, why is it that autism and learning disorders are so much more common in males?" Biologically, it may seem that males are actually disadvantaged.

If we were more gender sensitive in schools and at home, will we soon be producing a Filipina Einstein? I doubt it, but it's not because of a gender difference. In the international tests for science and math, both our males and females have fared poorly, close to the bottom of the list. There are serious problems in our educational system that account for this dismal performance. Yes, we are in demand in the world labor market, but for jobs that do not use the full potentials of the Filipino or the Filipina.