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Girls and the natural sciences and engineering

As you can imagine I think that girls can do equally well or even better than boys in the natural sciences as well as engineering. Unfortunately in most of the western world this is not so. Girls often do very well in school in general but far too often they avoid everything that has to do with technics or math. Why?

Let me tell you here that I am far from suggesting every girl should become a scientist or engineer, I don't want to push people in directions they are simply not interested in. But I think that a lot more girls could become and stay interested if just a few things changed in their favour. And maybe some of them would become happier human beings by living what their real talents are!

Okay, so why is it that often you find that young girls and young boys are equally interested in technical things, experiments and maths but then they part and girls avoid it while boys can't get enough? What can you do as a parent to improve this situation, to give your daughter a real chance to decide whether science or engineering is for her or not?

I think there are several reasons and probably there are a lot more than I will mention here.

First of all I often see that already young girls and boys are treated very differently. I knew a family (and I think they are typical for many families) where the boy got all the things a "typical boy" is supposed to play with like cars, trucks and lego. The girl got all the toys people associate with "girls' stuff" like dolls, an ofen, a toy washing machine, a toy vacuum cleaner.Whenever the father repaired some stuff the boy was called to watch and help, the father went with him to the local airplane festival, they visited the local fire station, they built a kite together and let it fly. The mother showed the girl how to cook and choose nice clothes to wear.
Of course the girl had a chance to play with her brother's toys and to learn from him and in fact I think many girls do exactly that. However in some families where there are no boys the girls don't have this chance. I think lego or building blocks or other construction/building toys are important to develop three-dimensional seeing and if girls don't have the opportunity to play with such toys they are already at a slight disadvantage.

However it gets worse even if families give girls all those toys. I believe that to give girls a fair chance to decide whether science/math/engineering is for them or not parents need to support girls a bit more than boys. Boys often have friends they will do some scientific experiments with as well as discover the computer as an exciting device together. For girls it is often much more difficult to find friends like that. However an enthusiastic parent could do a lot to ignite an everlasting interest. Why don't you get a book with experiments and try them together?

Next I think that from kindergarden to elementary school to high school there are a lot of teachers who consciously or subconsciously prefer boys over girls, who suppose that boys are better and know more. Especially in puberty when girls are shy and unsure it is important that they get support from their parents. If girls get good grades they often start to find those subjects interesting and fascinating and want to learn and know more! Help your girl excel in these subjects and also let the teachers know that your daughter is really interested and likes the subject! Often this changes the prejudiced opinion the teacher had!

You can only really decide if you like something or not if you have at least a basic knowledge. If you are always afraid of those lessons you can't learn anything or even enjoy it. Get a good book that explains things in a way you can understand them. Do some projects at home. There are lots of books with projects to build cool stuff. Or you could write computer programs together, build your own pc together, do some chemical experiments from secret ink to loud explosions..

Science can be a very satisfactory experience but only if you are able to let the wonder and aw flow towards you and don't block it by negative feelings because of too many disappointments. I think there is a lot parents can do to help their girls succeed!

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