reading skills in women...

This link from Science shows a study about gender gaps and math skills…and this link (although in Swedish but it gives good links in English) gives some more thoughts about equality. (In short, the gender gap might be less in math but when ranking the difference between genders and reading skills they don’t seem to lessen as math skills do).

This brings me to the (not new to me) thought that maybe step two in the gender battle (or equality battle or what ever one should call it?) would be to try and encourage boys to be more open into to “traditional female areas” as we have tried to move girls into more “traditional male areas”? I know that this has been tried in the whole debate, talk about men being home with children and trying to work it out how to make it more appealing for men to turn into women areas… and that it has been hard… but still, reports are numerous (at least in Europe when looking at Academia and universities) that women are the majority of the students now and that boys are often in the lesser quartile in high school.

This in turn gives way to the “poor boys we need to look after them more as lonely PhD students” as I think I have mentioned before? Anyway, I would like to think that we will all be better off when the time is when we can focus on what each and every child and person would like to do and not stop and reflect on which gender we are in order to treat the symptoms.

And in the end of this rant, since it is late and I am tired and maybe a tad bit incoherent, I would try to raise my boys (when or if I have them) to read and be more open to feelings without necessary dosing them in pink, fluffy dresses and my girls (same disclaimer) to calculate and not only wear blue working pants and breaking their arms climbing a tree… just trying to do and expect the same from them and let them know the different avenues that are open to them in life.

Considering this said, I don’t think I am as much as a cynic as some would portray me to be…. And I am not delusional and think it will be easy, but I think it would be harder to try the “traditional” route, at least in my heart.