Gender stereotypes

A number of gender stereotypes, whose influence on behavior can be identified fairly early on in cognitive development, ultimately stand in the way of girls and women entering scientific and technical fields. A number of studies in the behavioral sciences, particularly in experimental social psychology, have demonstrated this influence in children at school, and in young women at engineering schools or in preparatory classes with a mathematics option, whose success in stereotyped fields is obvious, but who nonetheless remain vulnerable to the stereotypes in question. These studies not only help to falsify the hypothesis of male superiority in the fields considered (mathematics, visuo-spatial skills, reasoning), but also shed new light on the disaffection of girls and women for scientific and technical fields. Suggestions for action in the fields of training and educational and career guidance will be put forward