It's almost as if the culture you are surrounded by somehow affects you. In fact the countries with more gender equality that encourage women in the sciences have higher test scores for women!
Here's a link to the (gated) paper with the data: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272708...
From the abstract:
This paper tests for the existence of gender stereotyping and
discrimination by public high-school teachers in Israel.
Using data on test results in several subjects in the humanities
and sciences, I found, contrary to expectations, that male
students face discrimination in each subject. These biases
widen the female–male achievement difference because girls
outperform boys in all subjects, except English, and at all levels of
the curriculum. The bias is evident in all segments of the ability and
performance distribution and is robust to various individual controls.
“If, as the data suggest, young girls display a more developed ‘attitude toward learning’ and teachers (consciously or subconsciously) reward these attitudes by giving girls higher marks than warranted by their test scores, the seeds of a gender gap in educational attainment may be sown at an early age, because teachers‘ grades strongly influence grade-level placement, high-school graduation and college admission prospects.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/why-girls-get-better-grade...
A condescending, inaccurate explanation delivered with rock solid confidence of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course they are right, because the are the progressive in this conversation
[1] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mansplain