Not the complete story, of course, but here's an interesting recent Slate article suggesting that female professors seems to have a positive effect at the university level:

They measured, for instance, how often each student responded to questions posed by professors to the classroom as a whole. At the start of the semester, 11 percent of the female students attempted to answer questions posed to the entire class when the professor was male, and 7 percent of the female students attempted to answer questions posed to the entire class when the professor was female. By the end of the semester, the number of female students who attempted to answer questions posed by a male professor had not changed significantly: Only 7 percent of the women tried to answer such questions. But when classes were taught by a woman, the percentage of female students who attempted to answer questions by the semester's end rose to 46.

. . .

Finally, when Stout and Dasgupta evaluated how much the students identified with mathematics, they found that women ended up with less confidence in their mathematical abilities when their teachers were men rather than women. This happened even when women outperformed men on actual tests of math performance.

. . .

These experiments suggest that subtle and unconscious factors skew the "free choices" we make. The career choices of men and women are affected far more by discrimination than by any innate differences between men and women. But it is not the kind of discrimination we usually talk about. We ought to assume that male math professors at the University of Massachusetts were just as committed to teaching young women as they were to teaching young men. And those professors were just as talented as their female counterparts. (The professors and students were not told the purpose of the experiment beforehand, so the female professors and female students couldn't have entered into some kind of pact to boost test scores.)

A bit later than intended, but here are some useful sources related to my post. I'd recommend the stereotype threat wikipedia article and the Handbook of Socialization as the best overviews for those less familiar to the topic.

Stereotype threat: - good synopsis at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat - most relevant source article (unfortunately subscription-protected, but I think a lot of people here have some sort of institutional access): Murphy MC et al, "Signaling threat: how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings." Psychol Sci. 2007 Oct;18(10):879-85.

Basic overview of childhood gendered socialization: http://gozips.uakron.edu/~susan8/parinf.htm

Other stuff:

Handbook of Socialization: Theory and Research, edited by Joan E. Grusec and Paul D. Hastings (2007).
Excerpt here: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/CBD/downloads/week9_LeaperCh22.pdf
(Particularly relevant is the section on peer-sensitivity and the tendency to downplay achievements or ability in an area considered to "belong" to the other gender.)

Claire Etaugh, Marsha B. Liss, Home, school, and playroom: Training grounds for adult gender roles, Sex Roles, Volume 26, Issue 3 – 4, Feb 1992, Pages 129 – 147

I'll go through my link archives tonight, then. Still getting a feel for what's considered common knowledge here and what isn't.

I rather suspect my mother (or anyone else that wasn't paying me a lot of money) would soon find that behaviour of that kind would rapidly lead to my disinclination to provide assistance. They can either show some respect and courtesy or follow the flowchart themselves.

Mind you I am willing to adjust my teaching to suit individual learning styles. Some people just really do suck at understanding how steps work. Meanwhile I am extremely poor at following instructions without understanding how they work - scarily so at times.