Women Deterred From Many Fields by Stereotypes of ‘Brilliance’
This article is for subscribers only.
Women are discouraged from entering a broad range of academic fields -- from philosophy to physics -- that are perceived as requiring an innate brilliance they are led to believe they don’t possess, a study suggested.
The report, to be published in the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Science, found women were much better represented in fields where practitioners believed hard work was the main prerequisite for achievement. This was true not only in the so-called STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, but also in fields as diverse as music composition and education.