Why does school develop confidence in boys but competence in girls?

I hear this concern often from the parents of many of my patients. They routinely remark that their sons do just enough to keep the adults off their backs, while their daughters relentlessly grind, determined to leave no room for error. The girls don’t stop until they’ve polished each assignment to a high shine and rewritten their notes with color-coded precision.

Source: Opinion | Why Girls Beat Boys at School and Lose to Them at the Office – The New York Times

The article hit close to home, because I saw myself as one of the boys in school who saw “how much they can accomplish simply by counting on their wits” while watching my daughter go above and beyond what was asked.