I think there is definitely a lot of gender stereotyping going on, and girls may be pushed more in the direction of the arts and less in the direction of math in general. Still, I think it's probably less likely for that to happen to a greatly gifted child (at least one who's identified), who is likely to be ahead in most or all areas although not equally in all. Also, I seem to remember reading that girls score better on math tests than boys at some level in the U.S. (I think through high school and beyond), which would seem to indicate that today they may
not be disadvantaged so much or so often by stereotypes in the early classroom here. In the U.S., the "no child left behind" crap has at least made sure that kids are taught roughly similar material at the same grade levels.
And
teachers in U.S. elementary schools are predominantly female. That link suggests that young girls may learn better from women teachers, which of course doesn't completely negate the possibility that even women pass on anti-math stereotypes to young girls, but at least they're probably not predominantly getting taught math by men in the early years.
A list of Fields Medal winners:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal#Fields_MedalistsI am no chauvinist. I can't assign a reason to the fact that girls typically don't reach the upper echelons of math as much as boys, and I know there has been a tremendously damaging set of stereotypes against women worldwide. I just can't
assume that there is nothing biological at work, and I sometimes play devil's advocate. I am interested to know the truth.
BTW I don't think that looking at lists of specially selected high achievers in math necessarily tells the whole story. For whatever reason (biological or cultural, due to simple preference for less "dry" theoretical work which might be highly cultural, whatever) female math super-achievers might be found more in other disciplines, using their math talents to good effect there, instead of in pure math.
