数理界性别鸿沟之新探.docVIP

数理界性别鸿沟之新探 　　Scott Simon （Host）： Ever since experts became aware of a gender gap in science and technology， they’ve been trying to figure out who’s to blame. Often the blame has been placed on old fashioned sexism. What amounts to a boys club in many sciences and technologies that excludes women. But a recent article in The Boston Globe suggests that the answer may be women in western societies have so many opportunities， they freely choose another field. 　　The writer of that article called “The Freedom to Say No”is Elaine McArdle. She joins us from member station WBUR in Boston. Ms. McArdle， thanks so much for being with us. 　　Ms. Elaine Mcardle （Writer）： Thank you for having me. 　　Simon： You described two separate research projects that seemed to come out at the same conclusion that men and women make different choices. Let’s talk about the Vanderbilt project first where scientists， I 1）gather， took a look at what happened to 5，000 2）mathematically gifted boys and girls over 30 years. 　　Ms. Mcardle： That抯 right. The two researchers there started more than 30 years ago looking at students were very gifted in math and had scored very high on the math SAT and then followed them over the next decade to see the career choices and educational choices that they made. 　　Simon： And？ 　　Ms. Mcardle： Well what they found was that the men tended to go into engineering， math， and computer science and then women tended to go into medicine and biological sciences or not to be in science at all. 　　Simon： And what were some of the motivating factors？ 　　Ms. Mcardle： One of the interesting findings was that women who are very， very good at math also tend to be very good 3）verbally so that their career options are broader than men. Men who are very good at math tend to not be as good as women in verbal skills. So that a woman who’s 4）tremendous at math could be a doctor， could be an engineer but she could also be a lawyer or she could do something entirely different altoget