They were then given a GRE-like exam that had both maths and verbal problems. Men in both conditions, and women who had seen neutral ads, attempted more maths problems than verbal ones. But women who had seen the sexist ads showed exactly the opposite pattern, avoiding the maths questions. Their career aspirations were also influenced, with a flipping of occupational preferences, from those that require strong mathematical skills (like engineer, mathematician, computer scientist, physicist and so on) to those that depend more heavily on verbal abilities (such as author, linguist and
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