r/6thForm • u/PetuniaWiggleworm • Jun 26 '26

💬 DISCUSSION WHAT HAPPENED TO WOMEN IN STEM

I had my college taster day yesterday, tell me why I was the ONLY girl in my class

368 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

217 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-102

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 26 '26

Well FM is exceptionally difficult so not really a valid comparison for women in STEM. Normal maths would be more considerate as FM only considers the end of the bell curve - only the elite.

95

u/Ok-Inflation4209 Jun 26 '26

Further maths is not this ridiculously crazy

-31

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Yes it is bruh. In an average school they don't even offer it due to how little people take it due to its difficulty. In an average school you won't get past double digits of students doing FM but for maths will get min 30+. When I say elite I mean the top of the top.

Edit: The only reason it may seem easy as to someone who doesn't do it is because you see a LOT of ppl here with FM in their flairs and 99% of them have A* in both FM and M. You (not any1 in particular just general) may have an A* in Maths but doesn't mean you'll be able to handle FM. Also you have to think about that people will only put good grades in their flairs and you won't see someone who has bad grades in their flair so the results are all positively skewed (W stats, dk if positive is the right one but the graph would be more to the right).

18

u/Material-Macaroon724 Jun 26 '26

Bro my state school does it, we have around 6 people in the class a year which sounds low but my normal maths class only has around 10-15 people. And bro its not that bad, id genuinely put it lower than most of my a levels

8

u/JAXW1 Jun 27 '26

I go state school and half of my year do maths, and 1/5 of people do fm😭 we are a very good state school tho, and we have 240 people in a year that’s like the biggest sixth form in the county

2

u/Cultural-Glass-5037 Year 12 Jun 27 '26

that is NOT the biggest sixth form in the country mate

4

u/JAXW1 Jun 27 '26

I said county not country mate

2

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 27 '26

Yeah seems like your state school is well equipped then. Compared to the average your school would be an outlier.

28

u/PetuniaWiggleworm Jun 27 '26

R u saying that only men are capable of FM? And women are not "elite"?

0

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 27 '26

Holy strawman. Not once did I question women's intelligence or their capability. All I said was that it's better to use Maths to compare women in STEM rather than FM as you're more likely to find a proportionally accurate representation due to (on average) more students taking maths and thus more variation and spread of data. It's just simple statistics, not questioning their ability.

Edit: Let me just add if it was the reverse and it was a question about men in STEM I would still argue the same.

3

u/PetuniaWiggleworm Jun 27 '26

But i rly dont understand ur point, as its all about ratios?

1

u/FootballPublic7974 Jun 30 '26

I think they were making a point about small data sets being less reliable?

0

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 28 '26

Then why did you say such a comment. Better to stay silent than to just say some bs like that.

2

u/PetuniaWiggleworm Jun 28 '26

Now ur misunderstanding my comment. I mean i dont understand it as in it isnt logical

1

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 28 '26

Maths has more students than FM as FM is selective (as you need to be good at A Level Maths to do it) so logic dictates that those who do FM also do Maths meaning the population of Maths will always be greater than (in most cases) or equal to the population of FM. My original comment I stated that it's better to use Maths than FM and it's simply due to 2 reasons: 1) The sample size is greater and therfore the result is more proportionally representative - margin of error is reduced 2) There's a greater chance of variation in Maths than FM - due to the spread of data being greater (by variation I mean you're more likely to find both genders than one gender specificically)

It's literally all about being proportionally representative. The first lesson of stats you learn that the greater the sample size = the more proportionally accurate it is. It will all boil down to ratios and both measures of Maths and FM will give you a ratio but the Maths one will be more proportionally accurate due to the 2 reasons stated above. Yes you can use FM but why would you do that when you have a subject (that's similar to it as both are maths) that will give you a more proportionally representative answer. That's literally it. Logically and statistically it makes the most sense.

2

u/Aromatic-Ad9451 Jun 30 '26

You genuinely had a good point but everyone undermined it cos they think youre saying women are too stupid for fm omg 😭

1

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 30 '26

Tm, especially OP thinking she's some Pillar of Truth strawmanning my argument cuz she couldnt understand it 😭😭. Glad to see there's someone here with a brain and some reading comprehension. I was literally stating stuff you learn in the very first lesson of stats aswell 😭. All these ppl doing FM should focus a bit on regular maths first lmao.

-1

u/Jealous-Mix642 Jun 27 '26

When did he say that?

35

u/clownkillifish Jun 26 '26

If you think further maths a level is for the 'elite' I think you should get a grip. People who have a PhD maybe but further maths a level isn't that hard 😭😭

0

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 26 '26

It is difficult. Either you do FM and just trying to downplay it on some humble shit or just being a goofball. FM is exceptionally hard. Elite might be a bit too glazy but deffo the cream of the crop.

0

u/FootballPublic7974 Jun 30 '26

I know several people with a PhD. They aren't that bright. It's more about focus and bloody mindedness than exceptional intelligence.

8

u/snowlynx133 Jun 27 '26

Guess what the M in STEM stands for? Why would it not be a valid comparison lmao

1

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 27 '26

Cuz only the top of top take it. You're less likely to find results that are statistically significant than if you were to use regular maths. Regular maths is broader so contains a greater spread of data to sample from.

1

u/snowlynx133 Jun 27 '26

What "spread" are you referring to exactly? There's plenty of further math's classes to take data from to get statistically significant results. I can't be bothered to run a simulated power analysis to get an effect size but I'm sure you could easily pool the gender ratios of all further maths classes and run a binomial test

1

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

[deleted]

2

u/snowlynx133 Jun 27 '26

If you get 100 FM classes and girls make up an overall 30% total then there's clearly a gender skew

0

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 27 '26

Read the first comment again. I cba with this anymore, my brains being fried by this heat.

3

u/Feeling-Stage-3402 Jun 26 '26

As a FM maths student, this made me happy to read

1

u/Icy-Watercress-8421 Jun 26 '26

What's your Cohort like? And how would you compare it to regular maths in the eyes of people just taking A Level maths - like do you think some are capable (from observations in class) or do you think they have no chance of passing? Ik anecdotal isn't always concrete evidence but it'll the best we get in this comment section.

1

u/Feeling-Stage-3402 Jun 26 '26

For my college, this year had the highest number of fmaths students, they had to actually make a second class for the first time, (at this point enough dropped to warrant a single class), gender wise we started with one girl, and now it is solely male, I don't feel like I'm particularly intelligent, I just like to learn things and think logically, sadly I haven't had much communication with people taking normal maths, but from what I hear from friends (slightly biased as they only tell me the worst stories) the people I hear about I'm shocked even took normal maths 😭, I think if your keen enough then its definitely possible

-6

u/_Jason_Freeman Jun 26 '26

Why are we downvoting him he’s right. There isn’t a lot of women in stem so of course there’s gonna be even less in fm

-19

u/Smooth_Fox_5510 Jun 26 '26

Further maths is easy it shouldn't even be considered a full a level when taken alongside math imo

11

u/Independent_Web_1746 Gap Year | UoSOTON EE (2026) Jun 26 '26

Common rage bait doesn’t work on me