A new study has found that most girls around the world still blame their low intelligence and dullness for failing exams, while the majority of boys do not.
French experts made this discovery after analyzing a detailed survey of more than 500,000 girls with an average age of 15 in 72 countries.
The survey was conducted as part of a global research study called "Program for International Student Assessment" (PISA) in 2018 to find out about interest in mathematics, literacy, and science among 15-year-old students.
The survey is conducted every three years and the most recent survey was completed in 2021. However, its results have not been published so far.
PISA data found that adolescent girls in 71 out of 72 countries consider themselves to be inferior and dull-minded to boys.
In this survey, only girls in Saudi Arabia confidently described themselves as capable and intelligent as boys.
Surprisingly, this situation is even more prevalent in countries where boys and girls have equal freedom.
That is, despite having gained more freedom, it is still firmly established in the minds of most girls in the world that being a girl has a lower social and intellectual status than being a boy.
Most of the girls agreed with the statement "When I fail, I worry that I don't have the ability (to succeed)" in the survey, meaning that they attribute their failure to their poor intelligence.
In contrast, boys blamed time, circumstances, and other factors in response to this statement; That is, they did not accept the responsibility for their own failure.
Experts are concerned about this result because, despite the patronage of organized efforts for women's liberation for many years and global investment in them, girls born in the 21st century are also suffering from the same stereotypes that have been humanized for the past several centuries.
It has been a feature of society. In developing countries, it is understandable if a girl thinks of herself as inferior to boys, because these societies are dominated by a stifling patriarchal environment.
But more or less the same situation is seen in developed countries where girls and boys have exactly the same freedom.
why like this? The experts themselves are surprised and worried about this.
In the latest issue of the research journal "Science Advances", experts have expressed their surprise and hypothesized that maybe even when given more freedom, girls feel more comfortable sticking to traditional stereotypes, so they have full freedom. They consider themselves inferior to boys.
That is, there is no social pressure on their thinking.
"As countries develop, gender norms seem to change rather than disappear," said Dr. Thomas Breda, a sociologist at the Paris School of Economics and is also a co-author of this study.
However, the question is important in its place why do girls in developed and gender-equal countries consider themselves inferior when there is no pressure on them?
To get the answer, new research will be needed to look more deeply and examine the thinking among girls themselves regarding women.