Readers React: The right gender question on science: Why do men gravitate more toward isolating careers?

To the editor: Evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist Marlene Zuk’s article misses the point almost entirely. (“There’s nothing inherent about the fact that men outnumber women in the sciences,” Opinion, March 11)

The question is not whether men are more mathematical and women more verbal. The question is whether men are inherently less averse to careers that isolate them from human interaction for significant stretches of time, their only companions being machines, computers and equations. If so, this could partly explain why the male-female disparity is greater in physics, for example, than it is in medicine.

Elsewhere, Zuk states that the disparity in male-female representation in Congress is hard to understand in terms of the verbal-versus-math question. Of course it is — it is again the wrong question.

In the case of Congress, the question is whether men are inherently more likely to exhibit traits and behaviors helpful in politics: self-importance, dominance displays, aggressiveness and risk-taking. We need to ask the right questions to achieve meaningful answers.

Thomas Mates, Santa Barbara

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To the editor: Even if it was true that there may be a genetic basis for women’s advantage in languages and men’s advantage in math and science, one has to ask why it is that the traditional K-12 curriculum is biased toward correcting male “deficits” in language, while female “deficits” in math are ignored?

Margaret Hamilton, Portland, Ore.

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