Ditto for articles explaining how girls are societally conditioned to give up / assume they aren't smart enough, and boys are conditioned to work harder.
If such conditioning were widespread and effective, you would not
expect to see a much higher percentage of females than males getting bachelor's degrees, as is currently the case in the U.S.
No, you'd expect to see more girls getting degrees in "easy" fields, and more boys getting degrees in "hard" fields. "Give up" doesn't mean "drop out of school." It means, "You got a 37 on your first physics-for-engineering-majors exam, so decided to major in [some non-science field] instead."
For example,
http://www.econ.uconn.edu/seminars/20082009/papers/zafar08.pdfEnjoying working at the jobs and learning more about things that interest me were the two most important reasons for choosing a major for both males and females. However, females, on average assign higher weights to this reason (the gender difference is significant). For males, the third most important stated reason for choosing a major is getting a high-paying job. Conversely, doing well in the coursework is the third most important reason for females.
Also mentioned in that study is the belief (held by both men and women) that women are treated most-worst compared to how men are treated in STEM fields. IMHO, Engineer Barbie and "oops, that's my lipstick not a test tube" biologist just exacerbate that belief - girls conclude that everyone in the lab will assume they're like that, and treat them accordingly.
