Scientists have discovered that the 'femininity' of the names given to daughters could decide what career she does in future life and heavily influence what sort of person she eventually becomes. They have shown that those christened 'Isabella' or 'Anna' are not likely to study science because their 'more feminine' first names means they are not encouraged to do so.
I'd be curious to know: Armed with this information, will more people use 'less feminine' names, in order to increase the chances their daughters will be scientists?
(I'd also be curious to know if women with 'more feminine' names are less likely to get hired as scientists--there may be scads of Isabella's out there with PhD's in physics who don't get the jobs.)
(Also: Apropos of nothing, "Alex" is one of the 'least feminine' names. ;)
2 comments:
that is interesting, stacy was making headway to becoming androgynous around the time i was born, sadly that died out.
Ha. Talk about career pressure from parents: "But you can't major in theater, we named you Alex so you could be an engineer!"
At any rate it seems like a few other factors may be involved here, or at the very least we might assume that families who essentialize gender in their child rearing do so in their naming as well.
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