Photo credit: Kit Kath
When my 8 year old daughter said “I hate math,” I was alarmed. She is smart and capable. I didn’t want our cultural stereotypes, or other girls in her class, to make her think she’s not supposed to like math. Ever since she said it, my husband and I have been making sure to encourage her to enjoy math, to see it as a useful skill and to be proud of her math skills rather then conform to the social expectation that as a girl, she should “hate” math.
Recent research supports our efforts. According to a massive new study, there’s no significant difference between the scores of U.S. boys and girls in common math tests.
The girls measured up to boys whether the scientists looked at average performance, at the scores gifted children or at children’s ability to solve difficult math problems.
This is an important discovery, because many parents and teachers believe the stereotype that girls are simply not meant to be good at math. Even if a girl shows promise, but her parents and teachers discourage her, she will gradually respond to these powerful messages and lose interest in math.
Girls need to realize that they don’t need to be afraid of showing interest in math. That it’s OK to be a geek. In fact, being a geek is a great way to succeed in life.
I encourage you to not only be supportive of your daughters but to also speak with her teachers and make sure their attitudes towards girls and math are in line with yours.
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Hi.
I got 800 on my Math SAT in 1963. I am soo female. I think the need to presume-and-highlight-but-not-stress the technical aspect of all dreams is key and also and especially support the dreams themselves. I wanted to design architecture, but was “guided” toward teaching English or nursing. I fell through the cracks trying to chart my own course since the barriers were omnipresent and the “hoops” unreasonable as more than occasionally they still are today. Ironically, I now lean toward English teaching and nursing as substantial if unrewarded vocations, but it’s difficult, though perhaps not impossible, to drop into any field late in life. I just didn’t want to be coerced and the “guidance” was appallingly indifferent since even for those baby-boomers in those days dreams other than marriage were largely moot. What was important was portability (teaching and nursing were in demand everywhere) so you could follow your man. Emphasize that portability is as important for freedom as it was for slavery and being able to plug in anywhere can drive an upward tilt to your income as well as enable choice of locale and that technical is now as portable as anything and as detachably omnipresent.
Hi Barbara,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I guess we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way ahead of us. My heart goes out to generations of women who were told they can’t do something just because they were women.