Interesting piece from The New York Times on how our gendered perception of brilliance begins to form at the young age of 6.

Here at Adafruit we believe you are what you celebrate. Please check out our Women in STEM coverage here, our Ada Lovelace Day coverage here, and our Women’s History Month coverage here to see some of the many brilliant women we’ve featured on our site over the years. And, most importantly, remember to keep celebrating and to keep being brilliant.

In our research, published today in the journal Science, we’ve found that girls as young as 6 start to believe that specific activities are “not for them” simply because they think they’re not smart enough. Our research suggests that American children are picking up on cultural stereotypes about brilliance at an early age. Unfortunately, these stereotypes suggest that girls aren’t as smart as boys.

If you try to think of a character in a book or show who is brilliant, you may come up with someone like Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Spock, Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory” – or some other man. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series and Lisa Simpson in “The Simpsons.” Most often, though, our cultural stereotypes promote the idea that being intellectually gifted is a male quality.

Read more.

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