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Are women better at learning languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5540 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 57 of 76 10 October 2013 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm going to have to disagree with you big time on the reasoning as to the lack of women in math, physics, and other "hard science" (vs soft science) fields being because men are simply inherently better at it. In the US, where the vast majority of people studying and working in areas related to math, science, computer science, and engineering are women, there is a major gender bias among teachers and society at large against women (aka. misogyny). Women are often encouraged not to study science and math or aspire to be scientists and engineers. It's not an issue of, "well women and girls just aren't good at this", more so it's a "we don't want women doing this...except let's keep those thoughts to ourselves and just act on them". 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5540 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 58 of 76 10 October 2013 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'll keep this short. It's sexist ideas like this that cause people to discourage women and girls from going into hard sciences. I'm sure Marie Curie, among others, is rolling in her grave. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5055 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 59 of 76 10 October 2013 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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No, they aren't.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 60 of 76 10 October 2013 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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They aren't what?
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| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4333 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 61 of 76 10 October 2013 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Really? By all means, tell that to every woman in the world who married a deadbeat, and to every poor (male) geek with a PhD in astrophysics who had a hard time finding a woman who appreciated him for his mind or personality rather than for his face or biceps...
No internet in their graves. (...sorry, I couldn't help myself.) Edited by Lakeseayesno on 10 October 2013 at 11:39pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 62 of 76 11 October 2013 at 12:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Learning to converse intelligently in a second language involves massive amounts of failure and persistence, too. But according to your first post, languages were supposedly a female talent, so this argument seems to contradict itself. Now, there's no reason we can't have a thread about whether men or women have an easier time learning languages, and under what conditions. I've never seen any evidence of this, but who knows, I might learn something. But we can't prove anything by making analogies to Fred Flinstone, because these analogies cut both ways. For example:
You see? It's an easy game. Just make up a story about Fred or Wilma Flintstone, and call it science! You can reach any conclusion you wish. Except nobody's going be convinced, and it's going to be a pretty depressing thread if it keeps going in this direction. So please, let's try to argue well, and base our conclusions on something more substantial than Just So Stories. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 63 of 76 11 October 2013 at 12:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, the question whether or not are women better at learning languages has very little in common with the career choices. As shown at many examples and explanations here, women still choose their career based on their idea about how to put it together with future motherhood. And men need to take into account that they'll need to feed a family during wife's pregnancy(ies) and mother leave, which can all make up a long time. Of course the common career choices in most euroamerican countries vary a lot despite all the emancipation and so on. It is a very important choice in life and what you have talent for or what do you like are not the only factors.
(btw it is true that women in later 30ies are less fertile, not a myth. but it is not that bad until the 40 or so. worse are the genetic abnormalities. but at least we know quite a lot about those related to old mothers and they are often those that can be quite easily detected with the prenatal screening. what is totally underestimated is the trouble of old fathers which leads to significantly larger risk of small mutations de novo. some theories even claim that the rising % of some metabolic illnesses and similar things is due to rising % of old fathers (45-50 and more). sorry, couldn't help myself, bao :-) ) Girls often don't do science not because of not being just as gifted. They are often not that motivated. Well, the euroamerican population as a whole suffers a lower and lower interest in hard sciences among young people choosing their career,we are becoming a lazy civilization. And I have similar experience among the people I know as were mentioned. Fewer girls go to the maths, physics or typical engeneering (but a lot to chemical engeneering) but they usually finish the school. The trouble is not that girls in general are less able to learn such things. It is just not seen as that cool. Most toys aimed at girls are totally ignoring the technical or science topics. And not that many girls don't mind that their favourite toys aren't the same as those their female friends like. And that is just one piece of the mosaic. And why should this have anything to do with relationship options of the genders? Why do you think women don't need to work hard to get attention of men? It is the same amount of efforts, just differently distributed (larger % to appearance in general. that is not necesarily fun for women in general, despite what many people think. it is hard work on suceeding at the competition added on top of all the other efforts on your education, personality etc.). People of both genders need to work hard on themselves to attract a partner and to grow a valuable, awesome, longterm relationship with them. Gemuse, I am sorry to say it but you remind me of some guys making memes on 9gag.com. But those at least usually know to make fun of themselves. So, my personal final conclusion: 1.There are many individual differences. Each gender may have tendency to be better suited to some aspects of learning. But in the end, all counted in, the difference in the result will be minimal. 2.Once you start to suspect the other gender of something too much, it's time to find a gf/bf. :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4233 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 64 of 76 11 October 2013 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
to bold - *loud hysterical laughter* Well, I'm studying chemical engineering, and I sometimes do tend to give up, but that's not because I'm a woman. Speaking of languages - yes, I'm one of the best in my English group, but my level is somewhat equal to that of three men. And I never saw them reading English book, so I guess, they just catches up on lessons, which is definitely not enough for me to actually improve my English. Learning a language is so unstable and unpredictable process that I do not know how can one possibly make some arguments about men/ women comparative success. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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