Laura Park, an assistant professor of psychology at SUNY Buffalo, is on the verge of publishing the results from a series of research projects that explored the connection between romance and women’s interest (or lack thereof) in math and science. In one study, she showed young men and women romantic images, and then surveyed their interest in STEM subjects and degrees. After viewing the images, the men were unmoved, but the women expressed less interest in math and science.
In another study, she found that when women indulged in romantic fancies, they felt happier and more attractive, but shunned their math studies:
female undergraduates in a mathematics course were given a mobile device on which they could record their strivings and activities in various areas, including romance and academics. They might note a crush, or calling someone they liked (romantically) or various academic accomplishments (related to finishing assignments, doing well in class, etc.). Likewise they answered questions about their senses of how attractive they found themselves.
The results: when the women were focused on romance, they felt good about themselves, but were not invested in their math class. And whenever they considered themselves attractive or desirable, the next day they would be disengaged from the math courses.
Naturally, this must be a very bad thing, because it is an obstacle to the ever-elusive goal of equality.
So who’s responsible? As usual, it is society, what with those pernicious romantic “scripts” that infect young women from a young age:
So if bright, college-aged women can easily be discouraged from interest in STEM fields, what should be done? Park said that the first thing to do is to start talking about these issues, and to make clear that talking about them is not a matter of blaming women for their choices. “This is about the cumulative impact of romantic images and scripts for women’s lives” that women are exposed to from very young ages, Park said.
Park speculates that there are two potential solutions: one that simply reduces the possibilities for romance (sex-segregated education), or another that attempts to portray science as romantic. The first solution might actually work — if the will existed to enforce it. However, most young women are sufficiently interested in romance (with men) that they will avoid the largely lesbian women’s schools, and would probably avoid college altogether if it didn’t provide at least the hope of some romantic interludes.
As for the second idea, any attempts to portray science and female scientists as attractive would simply degenerate into a war between various feminist factions over what exactly constitutes “attractive.”
Of course, the most humane and reasonable course of action would be to simply allow young men and women to follow their nature, and stop trying to shove them into roles they do not want. But our official ideology of absolute qualitative equality has gone so far that our social engineers really don’t care what people want any longer — all that matters is that we are indistinguishable on statistical charts.
