Emily Bear and Bright Girls

I don't know about you, but Ali and I had a blast on our last show. If you weren't able to tune in, here is a little catch-you-up. On monday October 7th, Ali-Cat and I showcased a young girl by the name of Emily Bear. Bear is a 12 year old concert pianist and composer who has been regarded as a child prodigy. The Illinois native began her career at the ripe age of 3 years old when she sat down at the piano and composed her first piece. Let me repeat that, THREE YEARS OLD. She has since had a booming career performing on Ellen, at Carnegie Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl. She caught the attention of Quincy Jones and has been under his wing ever since. Below is Emily performing "Q", which we featured on our show.

Emily's story launched us into our first conversation regarding the way young girl's perceive praise and how this affects us in our adult life. As I was fiddling around the internet I came across this extremely interesting article titled "The Problem With Bright Girls" written by Heidi Grant and published in the Healthy Living section of the Huffington Post. Now, I was a bright 5th grader ( I don't know what has happened since) and the article revealed a shocking truth I had never thought about. Heidi revealed that because girls tend to mature faster than boys, they pick up on behavioral rewards differently. When bright girls pick up new tasks quickly and are rewarded for being smart, or good at a specific subject, they tend to perceive that talent as fixed, something that they have or do not have. This is opposed to boys who are often told "if they would just try harder they would get it" or "if you would just pay attention you could do it". This creates problems when girls face tasks that do not come easily to them, they often tend to give up and assume they just don't have the ability to do it, even though they would succeed if the task was given a little more effort. This is most common in the STEM subjects (science, technology, mathematics, and engineering) and carries over into our adult lives. Women must constantly work almost twice as hard to be perceived as competent as men and when you're own worst enemy is yourself, you're working against a whole lot of oppression. But enough of my blabbering just check out the article for yourself!