Females are shite at Maths

[AutisticHedgehog]

According to a fucking hilarious Mumsnet cliche-meme on the FB feed.

FFS this is appalling. Why are Mumsnet of all places perpetuating the myth that girls can’t do maths.

I know plenty will say “lighten up, it’s harmless fun” but it’s not. It’s continual nonsense-shite that pervades and influences girls and their views that maths is a boys’ subject.

Maths is for everyone.

Shame on you MN.

Which is because we still live in a society that deals out sexism at every turn.

Why can't they ask their father? Maybe he's the better mathematician

The point is, asking their father shouldn't be the baked-in default position. Everyday sexism at its worst.

Can I just say I agree a little with sparkling. I looked at it and thought she’s not good at fractions but rather than admit weakness to her kids her response is go ask your father, lol I’ll do that with grammar. It didn’t occur to me that the statement being made was all women are bad at all maths.

But 100% I see how that can be inferred and as a parenting site esp one targeting women mumsnet should be above reproach. I think belwiderness’s cartoon is spot on. The problem is women are treated like a collective.

Side note- the only time I asked my mom for help with maths was for subtraction with big numbers and we rowed into the night as the books way and her way were different but got the same answers. So it became an exercise in her shouting at the book what’s wrong with the old way why change it rather than about my homework I saw a similar clip on the incredibles 2 and it made me laugh

What hasn’t been mentioned on this thread is that girls and boys perform about the same at maths GCSE, boys slightly higher, but girls outperform boys on every other GCSE, especially English where the pass rate for girls was 74% and for boys was 56% last year. Boys are genuinely doing much worse at English than girls and yet we don’t get crappy memes about ‘read this book to me’ ‘go ask your mother’. Or boy stuff with ‘English is hard’ written on it or ‘I’m too cool to read a book’.

One of the reasons that more boys do maths A-level than girls is because for boys, maths is more likely to be their best subject. There are many other reasons - girls tend to underestimate their abilities compared to their peers, lack confidence, and yes, be put off by sexist shite, but also, they probably have more choice than boys having done better in general than them at GCSE.

Those males scoring higher at the upper scale of maths ability will have a higher ability to focus on one subject. They are not at the top of the scale because they are just better at maths just by being male.

But this describes me. I can't multi-task at all and have poor short-term memory. I hyper-focus. I have a first class Maths honours degree. I'm female.

Glad it's been removed when there's a push to get females into STEM, otherwise what's the point.

But of course nothing is an entirely make or female trait. I too have a great ability to focus. I got top of my class in maths, because I loved it and could focus on it. But I simply don’t believe that the top scoring results by men are simply because they’re men, it’s just what they give to their subject and people with more interests can’t or don’t want to.
My brother for example is extremely intelligent but won’t be in the top percent of his maths class because when he’s with his girlfriend, some class mates are studying. When he’s here hanging out with his nieces, they’re in the library. When he’s out for his jog, they’re coding. And more men than women make those sacrifices.

Dcs are always asking me first when they want help with their maths homework. I can’t be that bad. Grade As at GCSE and double maths A Level, plus a degree at a reputable uni.
Whatever point or humour that meme it was trying to convey has clearly backfired by its casual sexism.

Slanetylor have you read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine? She addresses this very thing quite clearly. It's learned behaviour, nothing innate.

Our school had a maths meeting a couple of years ago. I asked why girls were underperforming in maths and science at both KS 1 and KS 2 at our school. One of the main answers was that mums do not help with maths at home so perpetuating the view that maths is not for girls. The teacher seemed a bit surprised I asked the question, given my DD (encouraged by me at home) is by far the best girl at maths in the year group. I hope some of the others heard that and helped more at home. I have A level maths but even GCSE is plenty to help with primary homework.

I am good at maths, so is DD. She had two excellent maths teachers, both female.

My dsis thinks she's no good at maths since a male maths teacher called her thick in front of the class.

I think Maths is overrated. It's one of the first human strengths to be taken over by robots/ computers without any fear of loss of humanity. Hopefully it leaves us free to think over higher matters like behaviour.

I am fine with arithmetic (including fractions) but terrible at maths. When I went to school, our O'Grades (Scotland) were separated - Arithmetic and Maths. So you could pass one and fail the other.

I think that was a good system actually.

This is appalling. The reason why it is sexism and not harmless fun is that there is an undercurrent of "women can't do maths" in the society; even if not spoken out loud. This is appalling because 1) it stops girls who might want to do maths or a related subject from doing it, as it is seen as "uncool" and "unfeminine"; 2) a number of high paid jobs require technical knowledge related to maths: banking, computer stuff, engineering, science. In turn, this is limiting women to poorly paid jobs by telling them, WHILE THEY ARE CHILDREN, that skills for well paid jobs will make them less attractive to men.

Maths is not overrated; it is a very creative, technically demanding and rewarding pursuit. anyone who thinks "it will be taken over by robots" does not understand what it is, and does not think who will programme those robots. Similarly, "higher matters like behaviour" can only be rigorously studied using science, which all ends up going back to maths eventually.

So memes like this, encouraging mums to go back to their upbringing and go "oh I was never good at maths", and spread that message to their daughters, are disgusting. I was not expecting this on a site dedicated to supporting women.

@Carboholic

An excellent post, but shouldn't mothers be bringing their daughters up to not give a toss about the "uncool" and "unfeminine" stuff? There are many examples of great women throughout history who have broken through barriers when opportunities were much fewer than they are now.

Mums surely want their daughters in good, well-paid jobs so they shouldn't need persuasion to encourage their children to do maths. The only barrier is in their minds.

There must be a problem if a mother would take child-rearing advice from a meme, surely?

Nothing inate about it at all. Women would be in the top percent if they applied all their energies to it too. Of course they would.

@AbsolutelyBeginning

I agree. But I am not talking about conscious taking of advice from a meme, nothing as naive. I am talking about the society constantly subtly reinforcing the message of "women are shite at maths", which the imaginary mum in my post maybe already believes as she was told it at school. I'm talking about a mum who was told at school that she's not good at maths and her friends are not good at maths but that boy over there is, and who is now watching Big Bang Theory and seeing absolutely horrendous stereotypes there, and who sees these memes, and who then, when told by her daughter that she's struggling with a homework problem, does not say "Let's see what we can do, hard problems are fun because they challenge you", but says "Oh, don't worry, I was never good at maths either, it must be hereditary, and anyway mathematicians are all terrible nerds and bores, it doesn't matter".

Noone in 2018, especially a loving mother, would tell a girl who is good at maths and interested in it that she can't do it because she's a girl. Instead, it's a death by a thousand cuts; at every level you get a tiny message saying "maybe this is not for you".

@Carboholic

I understand what you mean now. Thank you. I think this article speaks to that as well. As you say, it can be very subtle.

Are Women Worse at Math? It’s Time to Stop Asking

www.huffingtonpost.com/cailin-oconnor/women-math-and-science_b_6573074.html

Here is some inspiration for girls out there:-

www.mathscareers.org.uk/article/five-famous-female-mathematicians/

Ada Lovelace 1815-1852

"Ada Lovelace was fortunate that her mother Anne was passionate about mathematics and made sure her daughter received an excellent education, which was unusual for girls at the time. By the age of 17 Ada had met Charles Babbage, a famous mathematician and engineer. Babbage was busy working on developing his 'analytical engine' - which was essentially a programmable computer.

Ada began to extend and develop this mathematical work and even wrote what is now considered to be the first computer programme. Sadly the analytical engine was never built and it wasn’t until the 1940s when programmable computers became a reality. Ada Lovelace will be forever remembered as the world’s first computer programmer. This is a very great honour when you think of the impact computers have on our lives."

absolutely when I got hold of a copy of good night stories for rebel girls I made sure Ada Lovelace was the first I read to dd. I think she's the first in to book too but dd wanted to skip about.

Can I just say I agree a little with sparkling. I looked at it and thought she’s not good at fractions but rather than admit weakness to her kids her response is go ask your father, lol I’ll do that with grammar. It didn’t occur to me that the statement being made was all women are bad at all maths.

It was such a weird own-goal. Never mind "ask your father" or "ask your mother", shouldn't the message have been "I'll ask the collective brain power of MN, they know everything". I really cannot fathom what Content was thinking. Can you imagine Wiki posting a "ask your parent" message?

@AbsolutelyBeginning thank you, that's a very good article. The stereotype threat is something I think and talk about a lot. It is a very subtle thing; for example, even some programmes meant to increase equality end up tapping into this and reminding people of differences, thus reducing their effectiveness. For example, there is data that interview panels with a female member, and ones that have gone through the unconscious bias training, actually hire LESS women on average. It's very subtle and difficult, and by no means a "won battle".

You can joke with memes like this in 100 years, when hopefully we will be all done with this nonsense.

None of this adds up as far as I am concerned...

I always say go.and ask your father though... they are far more likely to get a useful answer from him... after all his degree is in theoretical physics and mine is in history!! Likewise he defers to me on 1066 and all that

Can I just say this thread has actually cheered me up just just how horrified so many people were by this. My DD is 10 and really wants to be an astronaut. She loves maths and science so really hope she, with our encouragement will be able to do this.

Blimey. From AbsolutelyBeginnings' link:

Are Women Worse at Math? It’s Time to Stop Asking
www.huffingtonpost.com/cailin-oconnor/women-math-and-science_b_6573074.html?guccounter=1

Amazingly, it has been shown that even seemingly inconsequential stimuli can lead to stereotype threat. Researchers found that female students who checked the gender box before taking their AP calculus exam, as students usually do, did worse than students who checked the box after.
[...]
Notably, one widely documented study on stereotype threat found that when Asian-American women were reminded of their Asian identities their math performance improved, while reminders of their femininity had the opposite effect.