Nature plus nurture

STENDHAL once wrote that all geniuses who were born women were lost to the public good. At least in the rich world, that wasteful truth has been triumphantly overcome. More than half of new graduates in the OECD club of mostly rich countries are now female. In several the share is around 60%. Former male redoubts such as medicine and law have increasingly been captured by women. Indeed, elite American colleges are widely suspected of admitting male applicants with lower grades, to even up the numbers. Yet despite this monumental advance, prejudices continue to hamper girls—and boys, too. Happily, neutralising them, at least within schools, should be much easier than reversing centuries of patriarchy.Educational results still seem to support the old idea that male and female intellectual capabilities differ. An analysis by the OECD of PISA tests for 15-year-olds in 60-odd countries turns up some eerily similar patterns. Girls trounce boys in literacy, but boys do better in mathematics. Boys do less homework and are more likely to fail in all subjects. The courses that both sexes choose at university mirror their earlier strengths at school. Women dominate in education, health, arts and humanities; men lead in computing, engineering and physics (see ).