Inherent gender differences in languages?

Jana337

Jana337

Senior Member
čeština
Seeing the Harvard president Larry Summers under fierce attacks for a blatant violation of the political correctness, I am irresistibly urged to stir up a hornet´s nest and broach a similar issue in this forum.

I never conducted a special research on this topic. It is just my everyday experience that confirms that ON AVERAGE girls are by far better at languages, whereas boys are more LIKELY than girls to excel in science. Although the sex ratio at my university oscillates somewhere around 1:1, the facultative language courses are packed with female students. On the other hand, I am usually the one of the few women (if not the only one) in highbrow courses involving technical stuff (I study economics).

I cannot offer a full-fledged theory that would account for the differential. However, the performance gaps between the sexes tend to be persistent and observable from a tiny age, which in my opinion makes the socialization hypothesis fairly unconvincing and implausible.

As for the genetic difference, I believe there is something in it. Equal opportunities do not have to yield equal results automatically.


Jana
 
    • The only theory that I can come up with off the top of my head is that before the feminist movement, only males were chemists, physicists, biologists, etc. whereas I believe women were more into reading and writing as they were the school teachers.

    N.
     
    For me, the important thing is that there is a choice. You are free to be any classes you choose, learn anything that interests you and end up in a job that you selected (hopefully, in adreamworld :) ). I like to know that I could have been a fireman, a doctor, a chemist, a teacher or just simply stay at home with the kids!
    But now that I think of it, there seems to be more girls in science and more boys in journalism .... or maybe not...!
    Maybe the next generation will be a better image of the 'gender difference'.

    Difference is good :)
     
    jz337 said:
    Seeing the Harvard president Larry Summers under fierce attacks for a blatant violation of the political correctness, I am irresistibly urged to stir up a hornet´s nest and broach a similar issue in this forum.

    I never conducted a special research on this topic. It is just my everyday experience that confirms that ON AVERAGE girls are by far better at languages, whereas boys are more LIKELY than girls to excel in science. Although the sex ratio at my university oscillates somewhere around 1:1, the facultative language courses are packed with female students. On the other hand, I am usually the one of the few women (if not the only one) in highbrow courses involving technical stuff (I study economics).

    I cannot offer a full-fledged theory that would account for the differential. However, the performance gaps between the sexes tend to be persistent and observable from a tiny age, which in my opinion makes the socialization hypothesis fairly unconvincing and implausible.

    As for the genetic difference, I believe there is something in it. Equal opportunities do not have to yield equal results automatically.


    Jana
    Click to expand...

    Ok, I'm going to put on my bullet-proof vest and say something I heard. This was that on average boys excelled and failed more than girls in both the arts and sciences. In other words girls are more consistent whereas if you take the boy he is more likely either to be a genius or a moron...
    <runs and hides with his hands over his head...>
     
    timpeac said:
    Ok, I'm going to put on my bullet-proof vest and say something I heard. This was that on average boys excelled and failed more than girls in both the arts and sciences. In other words girls are more consistent whereas if you take the boy he is more likely either to be a genius or a moron...
    <runs and hides with his hands over his head...>
    Click to expand...

    Yes, I've heard that, too. And it squares with what I wrote in the first post: Let's assume that language freaks of both sexes primarily study languages. This would leave my university with the middle and the lower tail of the distribution. With girls concentrated around the middle more frequently than boys, you can reasonably expect girls performing better in language courses.

    Jana
     
    jz337 said:
    I am irresistibly urged to stir up a hornet´s nest
    Click to expand...
    I know that I have heard that certain races of people tend to be better or worse at certain things, based on several standardized tests. ie....I think that people from the east (Japan, China, Korea, etc) generally did better in math than Europeans and those from the Americas
     
    Is this interesting thread still politically correct in 2026? 😂
    I talked to a professional French-Czech simultaneous interpreter working in Brussels not long ago and asked her if there were any males among interpreters. She said: Yes. Gays. (...)
     
    There was a thesis published in 2019 in Sweden, done with students in primary school (5th grade (10/11 years old), and older). Most students (85%) did began studying a foreign language (besides compulsory English), and 66% of those finished with a 'passed' grade. There were differences between the students whether they finished their studies or not, depending on their 'social class', economical background, their grades in school, and whether the student and/or parents were born abroad or not. For boys, the two latter (grades and born abroad), often meant that they chose to not study any other language than English.
    Språkstudier som utbildningsstrategi hos grundskoleelever och deras familjer – Skolporten

    I don't know if girls/females are better at languages than boys/males, or if it has to do with males don't find learning languages as useful in the same way as females do, especially depending on social, and economical background, and parents level of education. Do parents (fathers especially) encourage their sons to study languages if they are struggling, and are daughters supported to study scence (STEM) if struggling, or are they encouraged to do 'softer' subjects?
     
    Last edited:
    Someone exposed at home to a Romance language, a Germanic language, and a tonal language like Chinese, would likely develop three distinct “language toolboxes” in their brain. The 'rules' by which linguistic pieces fit together are different, we can't use Portuguese tools to code/decode Tagalog. With so many tools already at hand, they’d be well-equipped to build a new one. I guess.
    Back to the initial topic, we may be overlooking other factors with an inherent input variance much greater than gender 0/1, potentially leading to significant output differences in behavior and academic performance. For example, I was born in a country with important social and economic inequalities. Someone born below the poverty line has scarce chancse of graduating at all, in any field, gender being a distant reason why.
     
    RodrigoFV said:
    I can understand how grades might have an influence, but being born abroad? Any idea why?
    Click to expand...
    While English is an obligatory language, a student can instead of a modern foreign language (French, German, Spanish) chose to take extra classes in English, Swedish/Swedish as a foreign language, or to study their mother tongue. Depending on how long a student have been in Sweden, or have parents born abroad, they may need/want extra classes in Swedish, or want to take classes in the language they speak at home.

    As a student in ninth grade (at age 16) has to have the grade 'passed' in maths, English, and Swedish/Swedish as a foreign language, to be allowed to continue to secondary education (gymnasiet), be it for general or vocational studies, it might be more useful to take extra classes in English or Swedish, rather than add one more language, to get a 'passed'. The 'gymnasiet' isn't obligatory, a student can leave school at 16, but most jobs today in Sweden requires some kind secondary education.
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top Bottom