Well, the difference is often exaggerated, but to me math was simply the least interesting class and therefore got the least attention. I generally avoided it by taking logic, etc. in college though I was very interested in biology, botany, chemistry, and genetics which did require math. At a point my lack of math became an obstacle to success in my science courses. Now (at 42) I'm going back to do some math and I'm enjoying it. And I now think the fault in general is that math is taught badly, rotely, mechanically most of the time. I think women have less patience for rote abstract learning-- it's because of the way we're oppressed, which requires complex maneuvering in the human world.
The tools of _that_ trade are not to be found in the abstract sciences. (I'm not ignoring that math is also required less for the fields women are tracked into, and we're tracked out of the higher-paying fields that require it. If there is nowhere to go with it, why study it? But CG was asking a different question, I think.)
However, some of the tools of our liberation are also locked up in sciences we can't do without studying math, so it's something to struggle against. Bob Moses' Algebra Project is aimed at blasting the gatekeeping function math serves to keep Black kids out of higher education and also at claiming the power and history of math as a tool in the world.
I would like to see math taught historically, now that would make it really interesting. But why would they want to do that? It might draw in the riffraff like me who wouldn't sit still for the rote crap that passes for highschool and college math.
Jenny Brown </HTML>