The push to get more girls to study STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) is going strong. The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported on this effort (March 13, 2014, subscription only). It described YWCA USA’s programs to “to close the STEM gender gap” by looking for successful women to become mentors, creating after-school science programs, and designing a new curriculum for girls.

The idea that young women are avoiding STEM subjects drives some people crazy. A writer for Forbes said in 2012, “No matter where you turn, the stats are grim. Today, women hold only 27 percent of all computer science jobs, and that number isn’t growing.”

Dare I say that such statistics might not be grim? Perhaps girls prefer other subjects to science and math? Perhaps men and women are genetically somewhat different and make different choices? Unfortunately, saying that can get you dismissed from your job in academia, as Lawrence Summers, once president of Harvard, found out.

Even though it’s hard to get advocates of more women in science to admit genetic differences, a 2013 Huffington Post article moves in that direction. The authors are researchers who studied the abilities and motivations of a group of American high school students and revisited them when they were 33 years old.

They found that students who have both high math and high verbal abilities tend to build their careers on their verbal, not mathematical skills. “[T]heir combination of skills provides them with more career options to choose from.” And more girls than boys are in this group, they say.

“More career options to choose from?” What is bad about that? A growing number of people are questioning whether a STEM degree is the easy route to success that is often claimed. Perhaps girls know this already.