Girls are emotionally unstable and for this reason do not achieve intellectual leadership. Hollingworth fervently believed that women would attain equal opportunity to develop their abilities by the twenty-first century. While huge strides have been made in this direction, there is convincing data that suggests that gifted females still face many inequities, that they are still not achieving at the levels we would expect, and that they are not choosing career options commensurate with their abilities. Sex-role stereotyping has been the focus of much research on gifted females. This process begins in infancy and continues throughout life.
Cultural traditions have a marked influence on their behaviour.
The literature on sex-role stereotyping in schools for nearly thirty years has pointed to the biases in instruction, materials, media and societal expectations detrimental to the development of full potential. This includes the verbal and non-verbal messages children receive about themselves and others of their sex and race thought the illustrations, language and content of text books and films. This was a short extract of the Robin's literature review. An Update on Gifted Females. Roeper Review, 11,128-131.