**Statement of Cathy Kessel**

**president-elect of the Association for Women in Mathematics**

The Association for Women in Mathematics represents a broad spectrum of
the mathematics community, both women and men, from the United States
and around the world. Our purpose is:

> • to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in
> the mathematical sciences, and
>
> • to promote equal opportunity and the equal treatment of women and
> girls in the mathematical sciences.

We are pleased that President Bush and Education Secretary Spellings
recognize the importance of strengthening mathematics education, and
have shown this by appointing a National Mathematics Advisory Panel.
However, we have serious concerns about the panel as currently
constituted. We would have preferred to see more mathematicians and more
than 6 women on a panel of 17. But our greatest concern is that its
vice-chair, Dr. Camilla Benbow, is best known for the hypothesis that
there are inevitable gender differences in favor of males at the highest
level of mathematical performance. This hypothesis has already done
serious damage (citations are below); furthermore, there is substantive
evidence against it (again, citations are below).

In 1980, Camilla Benbow and Julian Stanley published an article in
*Science* reporting large gender differences in "mathematical reasoning
ability."[^1] Their evidence was scores on the SAT taken by 7th graders
as part of a talent search for a program at Johns Hopkins University. In
their conclusion Benbow and Stanley explicitly favored (their word) "the
hypothesis that sex differences in achievement in and attitude towards
mathematics result from superior male mathematical ability . . .
\[which\] is probably an expression of a combination of both endogenous
and exogenous variables."

The result of this article was, as Dr. Benbow and her colleagues noted
twenty years later,[^2] a "media field day." Headlines suggested that
mathematical ability was determined at conception. *Newsweek* asked, "Do
males have a math gene?" *TIME* reported that, "A new study says that
males may be naturally abler \[in mathematics\] than females." *Science*
itself asked, "Are girls born with less \[math\] ability?" A 1986 study
has documented the negative impact of this publicity on the expectations
of both girls and their parents with respect to their achievement in
mathematics.[^3]

Critiques of Benbow and Stanley\'s work became a small industry in
psychology. We consider only one issue on which all sides agree. If,
indeed there is an innate gender imbalance in mathematical ability, then
it should be roughly constant over time. But the available evidence does
not support this.[^4] The male to female ratio of Hopkins talent search
participants with scores over 700 has declined. In 1983, Benbow and
Stanley reported a ratio of 13 boys to 1 girl between 1980 and 1982.[^5]
Hopkins researchers reported that the average was 5.7 to 1 between 1984
and 1991.[^6] Six years later, in 1997, Julian Stanley reported this
ratio as 4 to 1.[^7] In 2005, Hopkins researchers reported this ratio as
3 to 1.[^8]

This reflects trends in other measures. For example, about one third of
the PhDs in mathematics now go to women.[^9]

Despite these changes, the 1983 13 to 1 ratio, together with Dr.
Benbow\'s subsequent work, is still cited in the national
media,[^10]^,^[^11]^,^[^12] in works for general audiences,[^13] and in
academic writing.[^14]

We hope that the National Mathematics Advisory Panel will debunk myths
about mathematical ability and its relationship to gender, ethnicity,
and race. We are concerned that Dr. Benbow is so closely identified with
her 1983 statistics and hypothesis that her presence on the Panel
signals -- in perception or in reality -- a bias against women and
girls. The Panel is charged with fostering greater knowledge of and
improved performance in mathematics among American students. It would be
unfortunate if its impact were just the opposite.

[^1]: C. P. Benbow and J. Stanley, "Sex differences in mathematical
    ability: fact or artifact?," *Science*, 210, no. 12 (1980):
    1262-1264,
    <http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Peabody/SMPY/ScienceFactOrArtifact.pdf>

[^2]: C. P. Benbow, D. Lubinski, D. Shea, and H. Eftekhari-Sanjani, "Sex
    Differences in Mathematical Ability at Age 13: Their Status 20 Years
    Later," *Psychological Scientist*, 11, no. 6 (2000): 474-487, p.
    474, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Peabody/SMPY/SexDiffs.pdf

[^3]: J. Eccles and J. Jacobs, "Social Forces Shape Math Attitudes and
    Performance," *Signs*, 11, no. 2 (1986): 367-380.

[^4]: E. Spelke, "Sex Differences in Intrinsic Aptitude for Mathematics
    and Science?: A Critical Review*,*" *American Psychologist*, 60, No.
    9 (2005): 950--958,
    http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/\~lds/pdfs/spelke2005.pdf

[^5]: C. P. Benbow and J. Stanley, "Sex Differences in Mathematical
    Reasoning Ability: More Facts," *Science*, 222 (1983): 1029--1031,
    http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Peabody/SMPY/ScienceMoreFacts.pdf

[^6]: L. E. Brody, L. B. Barnett, and C. J. Mills, "Gender Differences
    Among Talented Adolescents: Research Studies by SMPY and CTY at
    Johns Hopkins," in *Competence and Responsibility: The Third
    European Conference of the European Council for High Ability*, ed.
    K. A. Heller and E. A. Hany (Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber, 1994).

[^7]: J. Stanley, Letter to the editor, *Johns Hopkins Magazine*,
    September, 1997, <http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0997web/letters.html>

[^8]: L. Brody & C. Mills, "Talent Search Research: What Have We
    Learned?," *High Ability Studies* 16, No 1 (2005), p. 101,
    http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/chas/2005/00000016/00000001

[^9]: Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences (AMS-ASA-IMS-MAA),
    Report on the 2004--2005 New Doctoral Recipients, *Notices of the
    American Mathematical Society*, (2006), p. 236,
    http://www.ams.org/employment/2005Survey-DG.pdf

[^10]: J. Leo, "What Larry Summers Meant to Say," *U.S. News and World
    Report*, February 14, 2005,
    <http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050214/14john.htm>

[^11]: C. Murray, "The Inequality Taboo," *Commentary*, September 2005,
    www.commentarymagazine.com/production/files/murray0905.html

[^12]: National Association of Scholars, "Research: Who Chooses Science
    and Why?" *Science Insights*, 6, No 4 (2001),
    http://www.nas.org/publications/sci_newslist/6_4/b_careers.htm

[^13]: S. Pinker, *The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature*
    (New York: Viking, 2002), pp. 344-345.

[^14]: A. Gallagher & J. Kaufman, *Gender Differences in Mathematics*
    (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

    Association for Women in Mathematics

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