All this brings us to that theory I mentioned: the idea that girls who continuously take on the "secretary" role in school might be primed to take on organizational roles, as opposed to leadership ones, later in life. I’ve dubbed this phenomenon "The Secretary Effect." And recently, I decided to call some experts to see if I was on to anything.

It turns out there’s a lot of research about how boys and girls act in the classroom, but not much specifically on the roles they take on in group projects—or how those roles might impact them later. Still, the several teachers and researchers whom I spoke with all said that my theory wasn’t crazy, pointing me to studies and personal experiences that indicate the Secretary Effect might actually be a real thing.

Studies suggest, for example, that girls are more likely to want to please their teachers than boys are, a finding that many teachers report anecdotally. Kathy Jo Piechura-Couture, a professor of education at Stetson University in Florida, remembers a presentation that two teachers gave in 2012 at a gender-segregated school. The teacher for the girls class explained that whenever she would hold up an example of what something should look like, her 25 students would give her 25 carbon copies of that example. "They would come up and be staring at it and make sure they got the exact same colors," Piechrua-Couture said. "They wanted it to look exactly like the example." The boys teacher, meanwhile, said that if she got something that looked even remotely like the example, she was happy.

In one study from the late 90s, researchers interviewed students in London about the attitudes of both students and teachers in their classrooms and found that both genders felt girls put more effort into their work. "I think girls spend too long over their handwriting and presentation and things and the boys just scribble it down but have got all the answers right and just sit around mucking around for the second half of the lesson," one student said. A male head teacher at that same school noted the same thing, saying, "If the boys can do the minimum they will, whereas girls will devote much time to writing it up."

Deborah Tannen, a linguist at Georgetown University and the author of You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, has found similar social dynamics between boys and girls. "When girls get together in groups, nobody likes to stand out, girls don’t like the girl who stands out," she said. "Boys in contrast are actually trying to stand out; they’re trying to get center stage to attract attention." She pointed me to another study from the 90s on groups within a science classroom. When there were three girls and one boy, the girls would make the boy the center of attention. If the ratio was flipped—three boys and a girl—the boys would either make fun of, or ignore, their female teammate.