--- description: Across 128 domains of the mind and behavior, “78% of gender differences are small or close to zero.” title: Adam Grant: The Differences Between Men and Women Are Vastly Exaggerated image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt100b85b13366baee/6988d64b196cf41dd2041170/student-no-homework-policy.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) ## Ideas Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [gender](/tag/gender/) ## gender Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Adam Grant: The Differences Between Men and Women Are Vastly Exaggerated by [Adam Grant / LinkedIn](/author/linkedin/) ## Adam Grant / LinkedIn Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 8, 2017 8:26 PM CUT  A boy in class at a school in Goerlitz on Feb. 3, 2017 in Goerlitz, Germany. A boy in class at a school in Goerlitz on Feb. 3, 2017 in Goerlitz, Germany.Florian Gaertner—Photothek/Getty Images by [Adam Grant / LinkedIn](/author/linkedin/) ## Adam Grant / LinkedIn Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 8, 2017 8:26 PM CUT _Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist, Wharton’s top-rated professor and a New York_ Times _bestselling author who shares insights every month in_ [GRANTED](http://www.adamgrant.net/ "undefined")_._ If you’ve read the recent [memo](http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320 "undefined") by a Silicon Valley engineer about diversity, you probably had a strong emotional reaction. It’s always precarious to make claims about how one half of the population differs from the other half — especially on something as complicated as technical skills and interests. But I think it’s a travesty when discussions about data devolve into [name-calling](http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html "undefined") and threats. As a social scientist, I prefer to look at the evidence. The gold standard is a meta-analysis: a study of studies, correcting for biases in particular samples and measures. Here’s what meta-analyses tell us about gender differences: **1\. When it comes to abilities, attitudes and actions, sex differences are few and small.** Across [128 domains](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-11115-001 "undefined") of the mind and behavior, “78% of gender differences are small or close to zero.” A recent addition to that list is [leadership](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-15222-001 "undefined"), where men feel more confident but women are rated as more competent. There are only [a handful of areas](http://www.apa.org/research/action/difference.aspx "undefined") with large sex differences: men are physically stronger and more physically aggressive, masturbate more and are more positive on casual sex. So you can make a case for having more men than women… if you’re fielding a sports team or collecting semen. **2\. In the U.S., boys aren’t better at math than girls.** Across nearly [4,000 studies](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-22162-004 "undefined"), the average gender gap in math achievement is not statistically different from zero. The two sexes have very similar variances, with men showing slightly more variability. And there are just as many cases where girls outperform boys in math as vice-versa:  **3\. Where male advantages in math ability exist, they’re heavily influenced by cultural biases.** Girls do as well as boys — or slightly better — in math in elementary, but boys have an [edge](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-14384-001 "undefined") by high school. Male advantages are more likely to exist in countries that [lack](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-24669-002 "undefined") gender equity in school enrollment, women in research jobs and women in parliament — and that have [stereotypes](http://www.pnas.org/content/106/26/10593.short "undefined") associating science with males. If you don’t see bias there, try [this](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/upshot/how-elementary-school-teachers-biases-can-discourage-girls-from-math-and-science.html?smid=tw-share&abt=0002&abg=1&%5Fr=0 "undefined"): when teachers know students’ names, boys do better on math tests. Yet when grading is anonymous, girls do better on math tests. And before a math test, reminding college students of their gender leads girls to perform 43% worse than boys. But if you just call it a problem-solving test, the [gender gap in performance disappears](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00799.x "undefined"). Biases affect men, too. Women are stereotyped as more empathetic, and they do score higher than men when you test the ability to read other people’s thoughts and feelings. But if you don’t introduce it as an empathy test, the [gender gap vanishes](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2000.tb00006.x/full "undefined"). **4\. There are sex differences in interests, but they’re not biologically determined.** The data on [occupational interests](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-19763-004 "undefined") do reveal strong male preferences for working with things and strong female preferences for working with people. But they also reveal that men and women are equally interested in working with data. So why are there so many more male than female engineers? Because women have systematically been discouraged from [working with computers](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756329600026X "undefined"). Look at trends in [college majors](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding?utm%5Fcampaign=storyshare&utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fmedium=social "undefined"): Since the 1980s, the proportion of female majors has gone up in science and medicine and law, but down in computer science.  We know that interests are highly malleable. Female students become significantly more interested in [science careers](http://qz.com/585255/girls-dont-have-to-be-lured-into-science-science-has-to-stop-pushing-them-out/ "undefined") after having a teacher who discusses the problem of underrepresentation. And at Harvey Mudd College, computer science majors were around 10% women a decade ago. [Today](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-harvey-mudd-tech-women-adv-snap-story.html "undefined") they’re 55%. It’s time to stop making mountains out of molehills. If men are from Mars, it looks like women are, too. _This_ [_article_](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/differences-between-men-women-vastly-exaggerated-adam-grant "undefined") _originally appeared on_ [_LinkedIn.com_](http://www.linkedin.com "undefined")_._ Adam Grant: Sex Differences Are Overly Exaggerated ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4892151/adam-grant-google-memo-gender-differences/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4892151/adam-grant-google-memo-gender-differences/"},"headline":"Adam Grant: The Differences Between Men and Women Are Vastly Exaggerated","datePublished":"2017-08-08T20:26:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:36.384Z","description":"Despite what the Google memo says, the data proves it","url":"https://time.com/4892151/adam-grant-google-memo-gender-differences/","keywords":["gender","Diversity"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt100b85b13366baee/6988d64b196cf41dd2041170/student-no-homework-policy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Adam Grant / LinkedIn"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt100b85b13366baee/6988d64b196cf41dd2041170/student-no-homework-policy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Student during class","caption":"Student during class","creditText":"Florian Gaertner—Photothek/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/gender/","name":"gender"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4892151/adam-grant-google-memo-gender-differences/","name":"Adam Grant: The Differences Between Men and Women Are Vastly Exaggerated"}}]}] ```