FOR more than a century, researchers have been looking at just how, as a book put it some years ago, men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

They wanted to find out how gender could affect a person?s behavior and aptitude. For example, in the 1880s, one researcher proposed that with their smaller brains?due to smaller skulls?women didn?t have the mental capacities to handle advanced math and science like men.

In revisiting this debate, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison propose that it?s not a question of cubic capacity?and yes, Conan Doyle fans, I?ve been rereading Sherlock Holmes lately?but of accessibility.

Fewer mentors

Simply put, the UW-Madison professors said women can do math as well as men, but women have fewer mentors and role models encouraging them to continue their studies.

?It?s not an innate difference in math ability between males and females,? said Janet Mertz, a UW-Madison professor of oncology and coauthor of the article reviewing the relationship between math and gender.

?There are countries where the gender disparity in math performance doesn?t exist at either the average or gifted level. These tend to be the same countries that have the greatest gender equality.?

Mertz and her co-author, psychologist Janet Hyde, defined gender inequality as a condition that ranges from girls being discouraged by their teachers to take higher math courses, to the lack of female math mentors, to unconscious hiring biases against women.

Primary reason

?We conclude that gender inequality is the primary reason fewer females than males are identified as excelling in mathematics at the high and highest levels in most countries,? the authors wrote.

They reached their conclusions by analyzing the math performance of girls and boys throughout Asia, Europe and North America. Hyde and Mertz didn?t just look at school performance; they also considered data collected from sources such as the International Student Assessment and the International Mathematical Olympiad.

?No woman to date has been awarded a Fields Medal, the so-called ?Nobel prize of mathematics.? Nevertheless, over the centuries, women have made many profound contributions to mathematics,? Hyde and Mertz noted in their paper.

There are several examples worth mentioning, such as Hypatia of Alexandria and Ada Lovelace. But I?d rather reword the authors? comments and show how training in mathematics can provide profound contributions in other fields.

So consider Polish scientist Marie Curie, best known for her work on radiation, as an example of how math could. At the same time that researchers were looking into what the female brain could absorb, she was studying math and physics. In her mid-30s, she shared a Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband and later became the first female professor of physics at the Sorbonne in France. Eight years later she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work in radioactivity.

Hyde and Mertz?s study was published in the June 2 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

On a side note, the Mathematical Society of the Philippines, which just held its annual meeting in Cagayan de Oro City a few weeks ago, noted on its website that the Asian Mathematical Conference is scheduled for late June in Malaysia. Since we?re talking about math and women, it?s worth noting that the list of invited speakers includes two female professors from the Philippines: De La Salle University?s Arlene Pascasio and University of the Philippines Diliman?s Dr. Agnes Paras.

(E-mail the author at massie@ massie.com.)