Female Stereotypes

The in depth studies discussed in this paper explored the stereotypic as well as counter-stereotypic effects on students in high school and how it affected the way they feel about math and science, as well as if they would want to pursue a career in these fields. Researchers discovered a gender gap in their interests, which can also be concluded from their test scores. A staggering amount of information was collected from these studies to conclude that males excel in, and also enjoy these particular subjects over females. Females did not seem to be as comfortable as males in these fields of interest, many factors contribute to that, including: images in textbooks, stereotypes, comprehension of the material, and their overall confidence. There …show more content…
These people learned it, it was not just inherited (Bleeker and Jacobs, 2004). A lot of this has to do with their environment and the things the students are actually exposed to. This means that we can alter and solve this problem over time. Many researchers were proved wrong as they thought the issue was strictly due to genetics, etc. Instead, it has everything to do with culture and the way our educational system is set up which leads to future careers that have some of the same standards. Stereotype threat has shown to have a lasting effect on people outside of the educational environment as well. Researchers suspect that females face this every single day of their lives. (Keller & Dauenheimer, 2003; Smith & White, …show more content…
I myself have heard about the stereotype of men being more successful in the areas of Science and Mathematics and women to be better at English and History. I fit right into that category. It makes logical sense that what students are better at what comes easier to them, therefore they are more prone to take said class. Which is exactly what I do. It was interesting to see the logistics behind this study and the reasons for this apparent gender gap. However, it did raise a couple of more questions for me. The researchers focused a lot on the stereotypical images presented in textbooks. I would like to know a little more about other aspects. Overall I think this study proved a lot and was conducted in an efficient manner taking a lot of situations into consideration. I think this study will have a positive effect since now we can have a better understanding about this particular issue and possibly come up with some solutions as time goes