研究表明：兩性越平等，理工女越少？

Though their numbers are growing, only 27 percent of all students taking the AP Computer Science exam in the United States are female. The gender gap only grows worse from there: Just 18 percent of American computer-science college degrees go to women. This is in the United States, where many college men proudly describe themselves as “male feminists” and girls are taught they can be anything they want to be.

盡管她們的總數(shù)在增加，但在參加大學(xué)前計算機(jī)科學(xué)(冬天毛注：編程專業(yè)的官方名稱)考試的所有美國學(xué)生中，只有27%是女生。而且，性別差距還不止于此：在美國，只有18%的計算機(jī)科學(xué)學(xué)位是發(fā)給女性的。這可是在美國，那個許多大學(xué)男生都自豪地自稱“女權(quán)男”，人們從小就教育女孩要敢想敢做的美國。

Meanwhile, in Algeria, 41 percent of college graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math—or “stem,” as its known—are female. There, employment discrimination against women is rife and women are often pressured to make amends with their abusive husbands.

與此同時，在阿爾及利亞，科學(xué)、技術(shù)、工程和數(shù)學(xué)專業(yè)——合稱“理工”——的學(xué)生里，有41%是女性。在阿爾及利亞，對女性的職業(yè)歧視無處不在，婦女們往往迫于社會壓力而只能對丈夫的欺凌忍氣吞聲。

According to a report I covered a few years ago, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates were the only three countries in which boys are significantly less likely to feel comfortable working on math problems than girls are. In all of the other nations surveyed, girls were more likely to say they feel “helpless while performing a math problem.”

我?guī)啄昵霸鲞^的一篇報道里提到，約旦、卡塔爾和阿聯(lián)酋是僅有的三個擅長數(shù)學(xué)的男孩比例顯著低于女孩的國家。在所有其他受調(diào)查的國家，都有更大比例的女孩表示自己“解數(shù)學(xué)題會感到無能為力”。

So what explains the tendency for nations that have traditionally less gender equality to have more women in science and technology than their gender-progressive counterparts do?

傳統(tǒng)上性別不平等的國家的理工科女性反而多于那些女權(quán)更進(jìn)步的國家，這種現(xiàn)象該如何解釋呢?

According to a new paper published in Psychological Science by the psychologists Gijsbert Stoet, at Leeds Beckett University, and David Geary, at the University of Missouri, it could have to do with the fact that women in countries with higher gender inequality are simply seeking the clearest possible path to financial freedom. And often, that path leads through stem professions.

利茲貝克特大學(xué)(冬天毛注：英國公立大學(xué))和密蘇里大學(xué)(冬天毛注：美國州立大學(xué))的兩位心理學(xué)者吉斯波特.斯托耶特和大衛(wèi).吉爾里最近發(fā)表的論文中指出，這可能是因為在兩性更不平等的國家，婦女們僅僅是在追求財務(wù)上的自由，而為此，理工專業(yè)往往是一條必經(jīng)之路。

The issue doesn’t appear to be girls’ aptitude for stem professions. In looking at test scores across 67 countries and regions, Stoet and Geary found that girls performed about as well or better than boys did on science in most countries, and in almost all countries, girls would have been capable of college-level science and math classes if they had enrolled in them.

這似乎和姑娘們是否天生擅長理工專業(yè)沒有關(guān)系。斯托耶特和吉爾里研究了67個國家和地區(qū)的考試分?jǐn)?shù)，發(fā)現(xiàn)在大多數(shù)國家，女孩的表現(xiàn)都比肩或強(qiáng)于男孩，而且?guī)缀踉谒袊?，女孩都具備?yīng)付大學(xué)級別的理科(冬天毛注：此處的理科(science)指數(shù)學(xué)外的科目)和數(shù)學(xué)課程的能力，她們只是沒有選罷了。

But when it comes to their relative strengths, in almost all the countries—all except Romania and Lebanon—boys’ best subject was science, and girls’ was reading. (That is, even if an average girl was as good as an average boy at science, she was still likely to be even better at reading.) Across all countries, 24 percent of girls had science as their best subject, 25 percent of girls’ strength was math, and 51 percent excelled in reading. For boys, the percentages were 38 for science, 42 for math, and 20 for reading. And the more gender-equal the country, as measured by the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, the larger this gap between boys and girls in having science as their best subject. (The most gender-equal countries are the typical snowy utopias you hear about, like Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. Turkey and the United Arab Emirates rank among the least equal, according to the Global Gender Gap Index.)

然而在相對優(yōu)勢方面，幾乎在所有國家(羅馬尼亞和黎巴嫩除外)，男孩最擅長的科目都是理科，而女孩則最擅長閱讀。(也就是說，即便一個平均水平的女孩的理科能力與男孩相當(dāng)，她也很有可能更擅長閱讀)。將所有國家綜合統(tǒng)計后發(fā)現(xiàn)，有24%的女孩最擅長的科目是理科，25%的女孩最擅長數(shù)學(xué)，51%的女孩最擅長閱讀。男孩這邊，理科是38%，數(shù)學(xué)是42%，而閱讀是20%。以世界經(jīng)濟(jì)論壇的全球性別差距指數(shù)為衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，一個國家越是性別平等，最擅長理科的男孩和女孩間的比例差距就越大。(性別最平等的國家就是你通常聽說的那些烏托邦雪國，譬如瑞典、芬蘭和冰島。根據(jù)全球性別差距指數(shù)，土耳其和阿聯(lián)酋是性別平等水平最低的國家。)

The gap in reading “is related at least in part to girls’ advantages in basic language abilities and a generally greater interest in reading; they read more and thus practice more,” Geary told me.

吉爾里告訴我，閱讀能力的差距“至少有一部分是因為女孩在基本語言能力方面有優(yōu)勢，而且通常對閱讀的興趣更大;她們讀得多，練得也就多”。

What’s more, the countries that minted the most female college graduates in fields like science, engineering, or math were also some of the least gender-equal countries. They posit that this is because the countries that empower women also empower them, indirectly, to pick whatever career they’d enjoy most and be best at.

不止如此，那些在理科、工程和數(shù)學(xué)方面出產(chǎn)女畢業(yè)生最多的國家也恰是性別最不平等的國家。兩位學(xué)者提出，這是因為那些賦予女性權(quán)利的國家也間接賦予了她們選擇自己最喜歡也最擅長的職業(yè)的權(quán)利。

“Countries with the highest gender equality tend to be welfare states,” they write, “with a high level of social security.” Meanwhile, less gender-equal countries tend to also have less social support for people who, for example, find themselves unemployed. Thus, the authors suggest, girls in those countries might be more inclined to choose stem professions, since they offer a more certain financial future than, say, painting or writing.

兩位學(xué)者寫道：“兩性最平等的國家往往是福利國家，社會保障水平很高。”與此同時，兩性比較不平等的國家對人民的社會扶助也往往較少，這自然也包括失業(yè)者。兩位學(xué)者認(rèn)為，這導(dǎo)致那些國家的女孩更傾向于選擇理工專業(yè)，因為相比畫畫或是寫作，這些專業(yè)的財務(wù)前景更穩(wěn)定。

When the study authors looked at the “overall life satisfaction” rating of each country—a measure of economic opportunity and hardship—they found that gender-equal countries had more life satisfaction. The life-satisfaction ranking explained 35 percent of the variation between gender equality and women’s participation in stem. That correlation echoes past research showing that the genders are actually more segregated by field of study in more economically developed places.

而當(dāng)研究涉及到各國的“總體生活滿意度”評級(衡量經(jīng)濟(jì)機(jī)遇和困難程度)時，兩位作者發(fā)現(xiàn)兩性平等的國家的生活滿意度更高。生活滿意度排名解釋了兩性平等度和婦女理工科選擇率之間差異幅度的35%。與此一致的是，過往的研究也表明，越是經(jīng)濟(jì)發(fā)達(dá)的地區(qū)，兩性在學(xué)科專業(yè)上越是相互隔離。

The upshot of this research is neither especially feminist nor especially sad: It’s not that gender equality discourages girls from pursuing science. It’s that it allows them not to if they’re not interested.

這項研究的最終結(jié)論不能說很符合女權(quán)價值觀，但也不算糟：不是說性別平等妨礙了女孩們追求科學(xué)，而是它允許她們?nèi)绻麤]興趣就可以不學(xué)。

The findings will likely seem controversial, since the idea that men and women have different inherent abilities is often used as a reason, by some, to argue we should forget trying to recruit more women into the stem fields. But, as the University of Wisconsin gender-studies professor Janet Shibley Hyde, who wasn’t involved with the study, put it to me, that’s not quite what’s happening here.

這些發(fā)現(xiàn)可能還是很具爭議性，因為男性和女性天生能力的差異往往被一些人用來當(dāng)做理工專業(yè)不應(yīng)該再多招女性的借口。但就像威斯康星大學(xué)性別研究教授珍妮特.謝博利.海德(她與這項研究無關(guān))對我說的那樣，這項研究應(yīng)該不是出于這樣的用心。

“Some would say that the gender stem gap occurs not because girls can’t do science, but because they have other alternatives, based on their strengths in verbal skills,” she said. “In wealthy nations, they believe that they have the freedom to pursue those alternatives and not worry so much that they pay less.”

她說：“有一種觀點認(rèn)為，從女孩在表達(dá)能力上的優(yōu)勢來看，理工科的性別差距之所以存在，不是因為女孩學(xué)不來理科，而是因為她們有別的路可選。在那些富裕的國家，她們相信她們有選擇那些道路的自由，而不用擔(dān)心掙得少。”

Instead, this line of research, if it’s replicated, might hold useful takeaways for people who do want to see more Western women entering stem fields. In this study, the percentage of girls who did excel in science or math was still larger than the number of women who were graduating with stem degrees. That means there’s something in even the most liberal societies that’s nudging women away from math and science, even when those are their best subjects. The women-in-stem advocates could, for starters, focus their efforts on those would-be stem stars.

與此相反，如果這項研究得到了證實，那么對于那些希望看到更多西方女性參與理科專業(yè)的人們來說，它恰恰提供了有用的啟示。在這項研究中，在理科和數(shù)學(xué)方面表現(xiàn)優(yōu)秀的女孩比例仍然大于最終持理工學(xué)位畢業(yè)的女性。這意味著，即便在最富自由理念的社會，還是有某種力量在把女性推離數(shù)理專業(yè)，即便那是她們最擅長的科目。婦女學(xué)理工的提倡者們首先可以關(guān)注那些有志于在理工科做出成就的女孩們。

Then again, it could just be that, feeling financially secure and on equal footing with men, some women will always choose to follow their passions, rather than whatever labor economists recommend. And those passions don’t always lie within science.

話又說回來，實際情況仍然可能只是，那些不愁柴米、不讓須眉的女性往往會選擇自己的興趣所在，而不是勞動經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家推薦的專業(yè);而且，她們感興趣的還真未必是理科。