Are girls less than equal to boys?

Why, why, why do not girls fare well in entrance examinations? Why is
there so insignificant representation of girls in premier institutions
like the IIT?
When I raised this question to a group of young boys, pat came the answer:
"They are in the habit of learning by rote, or by-hearting or mugging
up, whatever you call it. Therefore, they fare well in the +2
examination — but the same method will not see them through entrance
examinations."
"They can only sponge off a prescribed syllabus through extensive
revisions and periodical examinations."
One boy laughed and commented sarcastically, "O girls! Nobody occupies
their upstairs. There is total power cut up there. They can rent out
the portion to rats and bats." (This boy can sure do with some
load-shedding, I thought). No scientific study has concluded
absolutely that boys are the sole possessor of grey matter.
But the fact remains that girls do not perform well in entrance examinations.
A century ago, Virginia Woolf reflected on why the Elizabethan age in
England, the glorious age of English literature that inspired every
other man to pen a song or sonnet, did not record a single female
author?
In order to show that any woman born with a gift inthe 16th century
England would have gone crazy or shot herself or lived her life in
isolation, Woolf created an imaginary sister for Shakespeare, equally
talented and brilliant, with a taste for theatre. She conjured up a
story of this adventurous woman who, like her brother, would have had
to leave home and knock on the door of a drama company. But unlike as
forher brother, the road to theatre and fame led this woman to
disaster, the kind that would happen toany young woman running away
from home, unescorted; and her life concluded ingloriously swinging at
the end of a rope. Woolf championed a"room of one's own" that would
give talented women the space and solitude to give expressionto their
art.