Blog 8 (Chapter 15)

Gender differences, specifically among college students, is discussed on pages 426-429 of the textbook and was a very informative read for me. One of the reasons I chose to attend a University with a small population of male students, was because I wanted adequate attention and extra help from my professors and I knew this would be more difficult for me to attain if I were to attend a University with a more equal amount of male and female students. It has long been known and discussed how teachers, some without even knowing it, treat their female students differently than their male students. Traditionally, males were thought to be more apt in electronic and mathematical ability so teachers teaching those subjects would spend more time lecturing and helping the male students. Whereas females have typically excelled in areas of art and human relations and thus teachers teaching in those subjects spend more time with their female students.

Teachers have recently begun to assess how differently they do teach to either gender and have also begun to spend more time and effort trying to create a more equal and fair learning environment for all students. However, it will take some time before everyone is able to simply see a human being who has strengths and weaknesses, rather than seeing a person of a specific gender. Another interesting idea to keep in mind is that maybe there are reasons why women tend to excel in humanities while men tend to excel in areas of mathematics and invention. Dating back to early men and women, women were typically in charge of raising their young and organizing their homes, while men were in charge of providing food and shelter for their women and children. Perhaps through years of evolution, we as women today still have an innate ability to care for others while men have an innate ability to calculate and invent. This does not mean that women cannot be good in math or that men cannot be good as social workers, however maybe it is simply scientific as to why women and men have different abilities and that it's OK for each gender to express those abilities as they grow and develop.