http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm

Read it. Read it again. If you're not good with math, the Q&A section spells it out for the layman (I'll add a few bolds for stuff that really hits home).

Q & A

Q: Girls frequently get better math grades than boys, even though boys score higher on tests of mathematical aptitude. How do you explain this? And isn't classroom performance linked more strongly to future job performance than test scores?

LS: When you say "better grades" I think you mean "better average grades." In a high school math class, we expect to find a narrow male majority of 52% in the top half of ability (obtained by setting N /NS = 2 in (3)). Thus with almost equal numbers of boys and girls on each side of the ability median, a bit of extra industry on the part of the ladies, or more likely a bit of slacking off by the boys could easily tilt the average grade toward the girls. None of this, however, is relevant to job performance in fields like engineering, math or physical science. There, considerably more than average ability is required. The technological workforce will emerge from the more selective fractions of the class, where boys predominate to an extent that is not compensable by extra diligence. The 95th percentile of mathematical ability, for example, will be about 64% male, the 99th percentile, 71% male.

Q: If, as you claim, 71% of the 99th percentile is male, that still leaves 29% who are female. What have you done to bring senior female faculty up to this level in Mathematics, Engineering and Physical Sciences?

LS: Full professors in Mathematics at Harvard represent ability in the top 0.0001% of the population, not the top 1%. We could therefore reasonably expect to find no more than one or two women at that rank, with two being extremely unlikely. I haven't done an analysis of Engineering and Physical Sciences, but I suspect prospects for women there are similar but less stark.

Q: OK, so we can't expect gender equity in Mathematics, Engineering and Physical Sciences at Harvard, but can we at least expect 29% of the workforce in these fields to be women?

LS: Not likely. Men and women exhibit other behavioral differences which are apparent almost from birth. To some extent they mirror sex-differentiated behavior in animals. Boys are more aggressive, girls more nurturing. Female babies react more to facial expressions, males to moving objects. By adolescence these behaviors have morphed into girls' interest in social relationships, and boys' interest in machines and devices. Obviously, such divergence of interests influences career choices. Girls lean more toward fields like psychology, while similarly talented men incline toward engineering or physical science. A study(6) by Lubinski and Benbow followed the careers of mathematically precocious youth from age 13 to 23. All were in the top 1% of mathematical ability. At age 23 less than 1% of the girls were pursuing doctorates in mathematics, engineering, or physical science, while almost 8% of the boys were. Equal aptitude not withstanding, girls pursued doctorates in biology at more than twice the rate of boys, and in the humanities at almost three times the rate of boys. For all these reasons, we should regard 29% as an upper bound to the percentage of women in the technological work force. In practice, their numbers will be significantly less.

Q: If all this is so, why are we meeting here today?

A: Good question. We are meeting here today because feminists, in order to support their androgynous fantasies, encourage able young women to enter technological fields even when their interests lie elsewhere.

Q: I see several people have left and one has thrown up. Do you think there will be repercussions campuswide?

A. Nah. We are, after all, first and foremost scholars, researchers and above all colleagues.

Thank you all again.

Now, I know this example is with math, where according to this study "The mathematics results revealed a mean (male-female) difference of 0.12 standard deviations(2) and a 1.20 (male/female) variance ratio." But there's one paragraph that really ties it all together:

[Explaining the large male:female ratio of mathematicians in the National Academy of Sciences] Sex differences in both mean and variance contribute to the preponderance of men in the Academy, but they contribute unequally. At this level of ability men predominate mostly because of their greater variability. If we set the mean difference to zero and redo the calculation, men would constitute 91% of the Academy membership, down from 95%, but still a hefty majority. Alternatively, if we set the variance ratio to unity, leaving the means intact, the male representation drops substantially to 64%.

That, along with the graciously supplied formulae, leads any reader to the obvious conclusion: A greater standard deviation is MUCH more powerful than a greater average when competing at the top levels of human potential. Whichever group has the greater standard deviation will assuredly be on top (and on bottom, but again, who competes to be the worst?)

Sounds nifty and straightforward, correct?

Now add to that conclusion one very important piece of information: In EVERY physiological factor, men have a greater standard deviation than women. This includes not only Height, Weight, and Strength but also mental factors such as IQ, spacial relations, and even multitasking (the last being a category where women have a greater average ability).

And now you understand why the "best of the best" are always men.

Oh, and to keep women from claiming "victim power" the worst of the worst are also men. Women are just average.

I have to admit that the bit where feminists have "androgynous fantasies" is the key to all of it. Once we realize that men and women are not equal and stop attempting to fix a "problem" that doesn't exist (it's simply a function of biology), the quicker we can get back to being a productive society.