[Excerpt from dissertation, The Girls in the Band: Women's Persectives on Gender Stereotyping in the Music Classroom (2004)]

“Boys call you ‘B’ and ‘hoe’ for nothing. I don’t put up with that. I fight them. I used to like math but now I hate it. I’m so worried about everything else that I sit in class and panic and I can’t remember my times tables.” (Cohen 1996, 50)

In 1990, the American Association of University Women confronted the academic world with a published study called Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America, illustrating the ways in which girls are treated and educated in the American public school system. This landmark report set off a chain reaction of objective and psychological studies focused on girls in middle and secondary schools. Fourteen years later, the AAUW’s original words now resound throughout a large body of literature on the subject, but nothing much has been resolved. As in the world of classical music, girls are being excluded from some of the educational opportunities afforded to boys. Our current situation is little different than what was reported to us in 1990 (Orenstein 1994, Gallas 1998, et al).

This AAUW report was the most extensive survey ever conducted about gender and confidence; three thousand boys and girls between the ages of nine and fifteen were polled on their attitudes about themselves, their friends, families, and school. Besides familiar facts about girls’ reluctance to study math and science and their consequently poor test scores in these areas, the authors of the study reported that girls’ self-esteem rapidly plummets with the onset of puberty, when middle school begins. Girls’ self-confidence consistently dropped further below even the most self-conscious boys’, and they entered high school with lower expectations and less conviction in their abilities than their male peers. Teenage girls were more susceptible to feelings of depression and hopelessness and were four times more likely to attempt suicide (AAUW 1990).

Competence seemed a strong focus in respondents’ discussions: boys were more likely to say that they were “pretty good at a lot of things” and were twice as likely to name their talents as the things they most liked about themselves. Girls most often cited an aspect of physical appearance as a favorite attribute; they were far more likely to say that they were “not smart enough” or “not good enough” to achieve success in the adult world (AAUW 1990, 9).

What is the root of this confidence gap? What role does the public school system play in this predicament? The educational system is supposed to prepare children to succeed and make a positive contribution to society as adults, yet many female students surveyed cited specific incidences in their schools which contributed to their low self-esteem. Both boys and girls believed that teachers encouraged more participation from boys in the classroom and that boys, overall, received the majority of their teachers’ attention. As a result, boys were more willing to speak out in class and “argue with my teachers when I think I’m right” (AAUW 1990, 6). Girls, on the other hand, felt less and less confident in their academic subjects, particularly math and science, and by the age of fifteen only half as many girls as boys reported any comfort at all with these subjects. Most importantly, when studying the relationship of confidence to grades, this demonstrated loss of confidence preceded a drop in academic achievement, making it very clear that public schools should take an interest in the emotional well-being of their students in order to ensure their academic success (AAUW 1990).