It's very sad how many people (both male and female) I knew growing up were "extremely good at math and science" until they ran headlong into anti-intellectual American high school culture. I saw people who loved science fiction spiral into useless party culture and end up with unfulfilling low-value service jobs. That's a tremendous waste of talent, and I don't think it's very much a gender issue.

I favor an approach where we separate kids who've shown some aptitude for the sciences and concentrate them in schools full of their peers. We can't do anything for the anti-intellectual types, but we can at least stop their ruining perfectly good raw talent.