Close the mathematics gender gap: huge study prompts urgent call to action [OP: Nobody cares about the falling enrollment of mals in college and them doing worse in almost all subjects and flunking out at higher rates]

MaleEducation1 · 2025-06-13T01:05:02+00:00

Apparently boys did slightly better than girls on a Math standardized tests in France and it's considered "alarming".

Here is an article going over the study.

This involved a "4-year longitudinal assessment of language and mathematical performance of all French first and second graders (2,653,082 children)."

Boys and girls had similar means upon entry, with there being slightly more males amongst the top and bottom scorers (The well known Greater Male Variability).

However, within 4 months a gap emerged, and by within a year there were twice as many boys amongst the top 5%. This was present in all years between 2018 and 2021 and was wider with children from high-income families and where both parents were scientists.

As someone who analyzes standardized tests across the United States and across the world, male advantage in Mathematics (even slight) is present almost everywhere (even in the most gender egalitarian countries), but males also have a greater standard deviation, meaning is a male overrepresentation amongst the top scorers, whereas if you look at the bottom scorers there is an equal amount of boys and girls. Even in countries where girls on average do better on PISA assessment, the top scorers are still predominantly male.

Meanwhile, in the United States and worldwide boys are highly struggling when it comes to Reading and Writing. Obviously nobody cares that boys fall behind in that, yet girls falling behind Math is a really huge concern. In fact girls' advantage in Reading and Writing is globally almost 3 times boys' in Math as per PISA 2022 (27 pts vs 9 pts), this has been consistent for years. Boys are also highly overrepresented amongst the bottom scorers in Reading/Writing.

Nobody cares about that, yet this is getting all the attention and resources. It's really saddening to see this. I wonder why are we letting this happen to our younger brothers?

At one end they're talking about red-shirting these boys but on the other hand lamenting their Math success.

Vegetable_Ad1732 · 2025-06-13T03:08:00+00:00

In the USA women are 47% of the work force, and 47% of the mathematical work force. And women are OVER represented in STEM.

MaleEducation1 · 2025-06-13T01:54:06+00:00

The funniest thing is I looked at the research paper, girls' advantage in Language also increased, yet the only thing that is being talked about is boys' Math advantage getting increased.

Funny how the Math change is due to "stereotype effect", but couldn't there be something similar for Language?

Not a single article giving a damn about boy falling behind in Language.

United_Iron369 · 2025-06-13T05:14:58+00:00

Stop giving women better grades - stop the bias in grading. Also get rid of women-exclusive scholarships.

Same_Sentence_3470 · 2025-06-13T14:18:52+00:00

I worked in the IT field my entire career. For the majority of my career about 15% of the employees were women. They were just not interested in this field of work. Nobody was holding them behind. The last years of my career were at a University/Medical Center. There were probably about 20% women IT employees. Yet the IT management was about 80% women. The non IT management was close to 100% women. It is mind numbing to read and hear about how disadvantaged women are. If girls or women are behind in any area we commit resources and money to make them equal or put them ahead. When boys or men are behind its their fault.

Gullible_Egg_6539 · 2025-06-13T04:58:57+00:00

Mathematics gender gap is such a stupid term. It's like saying military gender gap. Who gives a shit if a mathematician is a male or a female? The entire point is that they're good at maths, lol. Are we gonna train shit mathematicians now to make up for the "gender gap"?

MaleEducation1 · 2025-06-13T04:42:06+00:00

Regarding the so-called "stereotype threat" that is holding girls back in their Mathematics performance, a replication report of 8 replications on the well known original sterotype threat study. Found no significant intraction effect between stereotype threat and gender performance gap in Mathematics. The stereotype threat's effect on women's performance was close to null.

This registered replication report describes the result of nine direct replications (N= 1709) of a representative stereotype-threat study by Johns et al. (2005), who found that threatened women (but not men) underperform when they are confronted with a mathematics test that is presented to measure gender differences, and that this effect can be alleviated by altering instructions. A multilevel analysis showed no significant interaction between stereotype-threat condition and gender, and only an observed gender gap on the mathematics test, with women performing worse than men (Hedges’s g= -0.28, SE = 0.11). The stereotype-threat effect among women was virtually null and not significant (N = 1275, g= 0.04, SE= 0.08), and considerably smaller than the original study (N = 45, d= -0.82; 95% CI [-1.45; -0.18]). Secondary analyses yielded a main effect of gender composition and aneffect of lab on mathematics test performance, but neither variable affected the interaction between stereotype threat and gender. Ourresults fail to replicate the stereotype-threat effect by Johns et al. (2005), casting doubt on the generalizability of the effect of stereotype threat on women’s mathematics performance.

Gengis-Naan · 2025-06-14T01:01:57+00:00

For something that nobody cares about, there sure are a lot of news articles about it.

MaleEducation1 · 2025-06-14T00:22:38+00:00

I was not able to access the article, but I saw "KovitzMos" on X has already done an analysis on this. It's in French but you can use Google translate, which seems to do a great job going over the study.

A national test called "EvalAide" was used which included a Math and Language (French) test, it was a longitudnal study over 4 years involving all the first and second graders in France (N = 2,653,082).
There were 3 Math tests: T1 (start of first grade), T2 (4 months after start), and T3 (start of second grade).
- The sexes performed equally in T1 (slightly more boys in top and bottom), boys got a slight advantage in T2, and by T3 boys ha a substanial advantage of d = 0.3 (Equivalent of 4.5 IQ points
The gaps were consistent across the various regions of France.
The study tried to look at many explanatory factors: "Lower SES Parents", "Higher SES Parents", "Both parents engineer", "Both Parents teachers", "Single MOthers", "Single Fathers" etc. But the gap was consistently uniform regardless of these completely different conditions.
There were a few factors did seem to have an effect: Boy's advantage seems to increase with bigger classes (though very small effect), more heterogenous classes apparently decreases the gap a bit. However, these were very small.

However, the study itself is quite flawed:

Test T1 is completely different from T2 and T3. T1 measures number recogintion and counting up to 10 drawings, whereas T2 and T3 involve math operations and symbols. The study considers T1 to be "same" as T2 and T3, even though it's very likely it is testing completely different skills.
The gap between T2 and T3 (main one) is measured just after the school vacation, so it is not known what happened during that time.
Then the "top of the class as a role model" also failed as there was no performance difference between classes that boys on the top compared to ones that had girls on the top.
No change is observed regardless of Mother and Father's professions, although it is claimed it was "higher" when parents are scientists.
A gap favoring girls is observed in Language (French) and it is considered that it "pre-exists" and is inherent and not stereotyped, unlike boys' Math.

The study does not prove anything and is inherently flawed and it's also highly disgusting to me that they treat girls' advantage in language as an inherent skill but boys' advantage in Math is something that is "acquired".

EnvironmentalRow996 · 2025-06-15T17:10:07+00:00

This will end in the Female Supremacy Act, declaring a state of emergency for women's persistent feelings of insecurity.

Side arms will be rolled out to all women's purses.

A special daily welfare levy on men breathing will take the form of venmoing every women 50 cents a day. And they'll howl it's not enough.

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