To say that boys are better at high standard maths

The only thing your daughter has to compete with is her parents' sexist attitude.

Also, boys get upset too when they can't do something - it's just that things like anger and frustration have been cleverly rebranded as not 'emotional' when they come from men, so it's not seen as negative.

For fuck’s sake. What a load of drivel.

I agree wholeheartedly with your post.

So does my DD - who has a physics degree.

and her girlfriend - who also has a physics degree and now works for the UKAEA creating mathematical models for fusion reactors.

newsflash, people have emotions. More as we get it.

you are sexist.

It seems like your daughter is more intelligent than you think, as she already knows her mother is talking complete nonsense.
You should be ashamed as a mother and a woman.

This has to be a joke or wind up thread 😂. Good effort!

how is that related to sex and not just individual personality?

What things come more naturally to girls and their soft little brains?

Imagine if Hannah Fry’s parents had told her not to bother pursuing maths, because she would have to compete with all the clever boys. What a waste of her talent that would have been.

Well said, and I second the sentiment.

I went to school with so many girls who went on to do degrees in engineering, physics, etc - in Ireland in the 70s/80s.

The only problem wrt girls and maths is people peddling myths about how unfit for it they are.

There's no such thing as a natural maths brain. There are people who have had the confidence knocked out of them and people who have had their confidence boosted. There are parents who put up with poor maths teaching for girls and parents who rightly demand better.

Why does she need to ‘compete’ with anyone, boy or girl?

Let’s ignore the late night goady poster, that is new here with one of those 3 word user names. 🙄

I imagine it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy for your daughter.

Unfortunately sexist idiots like
yourself really limit their children. It’s sad.

Why would she need to work harder? What about this path do you perceive as harder for her than for the boys?

there are other things where girls typically have an advantage.

let me guess... knitting? Washing the dishes ?

The Nobel Prize for literature has been dominated by men.

Poet Laureate appointments are dominated by men.

The Turner prize winners are dominated by men.

It has shifted somewhat more recently, but it hasn't shifted because men were better at those things in the past and women weren't inherently as good; women have always been just as good at those things, and at maths, but sexism like yours is so entrenched, and many men's response to women being talented is so ugly, that often girls don't have the confidence to pursue the things they're good at to the highest level. You are being part of the problem.

My maths degree was mostly girls. We didn’t need to keep up with any boys.

No they are not better, they are more encouraged by their parents. Stop cutting off your daughter’s talents. I’m a woman with a degree in maths and my daughter is growing up thinking women are the bees knees at maths. As are her girl cousins.

My mother, from a provincial fifties girls’ grammar school, where the main careers after school were nursing, teaching and secretarial, won a place at university to read maths. She had to go to the boys’ grammar to do A level physics as her school did not teach the subject. In order to do this, she had to be better at the subjects than most of the boys as far fewer girls studied these subjects at a high level at that time. You seem to have the mindset of many people from that time - where have you been for the past sixty-odd years? The glass ceiling was broken some time ago and it is widely accepted, and has been for years, that girls’ subjects and boys’ subjects no longer exist in the traditional sense.

You are being sexist, and you need to learn about stereotype threat. If your daughter does do worse than the boys at maths, it will probably be because she has people telling her she will need to work harder and she subconsciously absorbs the message she isn't as good which then affects her confidence and performance. So please think about that every time you repeat this message to her - it could be you who is sabotaging her best possible achievement.

Having said all that, I work in IT and there's still plenty of subconscious and overt bias around, so women often have to do more and do it better just to be seen as doing as well as their male peers. It is very tiring after decades of it, so there's no need to begin with it before they even get started.

Maths is not just the winners of the Olympiad. What are the male/female numbers in mathematic professions @MellowRubyDreamer?