Education, study and knowledge

Why does society reject bright girls?

At a time when machismo seems to be on the decline in a good number of countries, a paradoxical fact occurs: girls they show the same ability as children when it comes to learning, but they are treated with condescension more often and, when stand out for their skills, they often meet with rejection from people around them.

And no, it's not a matter of envy. So... what happen?

A problem linked to self-esteem

the researcher Heidi Grant Halvorston she wrote a while ago that part of the reason girls tend not to be as opinionated and assertive is the way they see themselves, that is, their selfconcept. The idea is that boys and girls perceive their abilities differently, but not because of genetic differences, but because of the way in which they have been taught to think of themselves. Specifically, you think bright or gifted girls tend to believe that they are born with a set of abilities that they cannot change, while children, regardless of their abilities, believe more in the possibility of improving by learning.

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When children have difficulties, because there is something they do not understand or that they have not yet learned to do, the people around them encourage them to continue and frequently remind them of the importance of the culture of the effort.

In the case of girls, however, condescension limits their learning. When they do something well, they are rewarded with kind words about how smart they are, or how well they do in school. This, which in principle is something positive, has a double edge: girls internalize a type of discourse that constantly reminds them that if they are successful in a task it is because "they are like that", because it is part of their identity, and not the repertoire of behaviors they have learned.

Creating a culture of stigma

In this way, when they notice that there is something that they do not know how to do, they believe that it is because they simply are not made for those tasks. In the same way, they will see with surprise that other girls try very hard to master something that at first they did not know how to do, and sometimes they can be stigmatized. In this way, a culture is created in which an idea is internalized that kills the development possibilities of many talented young people.

Brilliant girls thus have to deal with a double obstacle: the difficulty of learning the necessary skills to preparing for adult life and, at the same time, the difficulty of managing the negative reactions that their abilities produce. But, of course, this rejection is not born only from other girls, but from many other people, because of the heritage of machismo.

The mark of machismo on intelligent girls

currently exist A lot of studies which point to a curious phenomenon: Compared to men, women are more likely to receive negative reactions when they assume a role of authority. In other words, women who behave assertively find more problems than men when it comes to assert yourself, whether it is when asking for a raise, negotiating the distribution of tasks or proposing initiatives and strategies.

This disparity between men and women could well have its origin during the childhood years, in the way in which boys and girls interact with each other at recess, group activities. The role of women has traditionally been linked to housework and the raising of sons and daughters, a context characterized by stability and in which you cannot stand out above other people. Competitiveness in an unstable and changing context was the task of men, who leave home to earn money by differentiating themselves from the competition.

This makes the male role more related to individualism and differentiation through effort, while women adhered to much more discrete roles. The existence of bright and talented girls struggling to hone their skills and not bother to adopt a low and discreet profile clashes with this conception of the tasks of men and women.

concluding

If the girls with special talents receive a feedback negative on the part of other people is, basically, because where the education of these minors there is also a cultural context with the presence of machismo to a greater or less.

Presumably, addressing this social and collective problem will also improve something as individual as the way in which each of these young women experience their potential without being stigmatized by it.

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