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.

This is the study the HuffPo article refers to:

Stereotype Susceptibility: Identity Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance
doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00111

Abstract
Recent studies have documented that performance in a domain is hindered when individuals feel that a sociocultural group to which they belong is negatively stereotyped in that domain. We report that implicit activation of a social identity can facilitate as well as impede performance on a quantitative task. When a particular social identity was made salient at an implicit level, performance was altered in the direction predicted by the stereotype associated with the identity. Common cultural stereotypes hold that Asians have superior quantitative skills compared with other ethnic groups and that women have inferior quantitative skills compared with men. We found that Asian-American women performed better on a mathematics test when their ethnic identity was activated, but worse when their gender identity was activated, compared with a control group who had neither identity activated. Cross-cultural investigation indicated that it was the stereotype, and not the identity per se, that influenced performance.

I own a Vagina and am an ex-nuclear licensed research chemist - something which needs rather a lot of maths! I now work in medicines licensing as a chemistry and manufacturing expert - also requires a fair amount of maths.

This sort of shit infuriates me. Women are equally capable of doing science / maths subjects and it is this sort of attitude that dissuades youngsters from taking on these subjects.

We've been on to Content, who are really sorry, they can see they got it wrong and it has been deleted now.

@JenMumsnet, I hope more of a chat has gone on behind the scenes, because this is not on at all. Whoever posted that is in the wrong job.

It's exactly this nibbling away at women's confidence in doing stuff like Maths, Science, Engineering and Technology, that discourages girls from wanting to do them. It might seem harmless, buts it's death by a thousand cuts.

I'm good at Maths (and Technology) - and proud of it.

16 years in different laboratories from processing isotopes, dispensing sterile solutions, analysing compounds, processing biological samples and analysing food.

Down with this sort of thing, Mumsnet!

Playing to stereotypes is not big, it's not funny and it's not clever.

I have no idea where this culture comes from. I was at school in the 1980s/1990s and it wasn't as extreme as it is now. I imagine my parents would say the same. It's a culture that has developed over time.

League tables.

Children were once allowed to fail. Teachers were once allowed to teach and expect to be listened to. I don't mean unquestioningly and without being asked questions.

I once had a student write to my head of department.

he had talked over my explanation of something, asked me to repeat it, talked over me again and then asked for me to repeat it again. I refused. It was wasting everyone's time

AbsolutelyBeginning

I gave my neighbour and her grandson a lift to his school, he'd been out of education and things had changed. It was now an 'engineering' college. All the houses were names after engineers, all male. When I asked about it they said they could not think of any female engineers so I suggested Ada Lovelace.

I now strictly speaking she wasn't an engineer, but where would engineering be without computer programs?

Anyone posting that should be forced to watch Hidden Figures

www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/11/black-women-mathematicians-nasa-john-glenn-space-race

counterpoint I'm going to hazard I guess that you don't have much of an understanding of maths and it's applications to make a statement like that.
By "behaviour" do you mean social sciences?

Whilst on the subject of science for gurls dd wants to be a biochemist. I am wondering if she would be better off with biology or chemistry for GCSE. She can only do 2 of the 3 and is adament she wants to do chemistry which seems sensible if shes serious. I have a feeling physics may be more useful in the long run?

At A level definitely chemistry, so it would be logical to choose that at GCSE. This link might help too: university.which.co.uk/advice/a-level-choices/biochemistry-degree-a-levels

Jokes for the mathematicians amongst you. Needless to say, I don't get any of them!

uk.businessinsider.com/13-math-jokes-that-every-mathematician-finds-absolutely-hilarious-2013-5

sashh, how about Sarah Guppy, who had to patent her engineering designs (used in the Clifton Suspension Bridge) under the name "the Guppy Family" instead of her name, and said, "it is unpleasant to speak of oneself—it may seem boastful particularly in a woman."

Sarah Guppy: The woman behind Britain's most famous bridge
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sarah-guppy-the-woman-behind-britains-most-famous-bridge-isambard-kingdom-brunel-clifton-suspension-a7057506.html

Sarah Guppy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Guppy

I'd say I'm decent at maths - I'm definitely better than the average person in the street but have a bit of a lifelong insecurity about the subject as I was the lower end of a very very very exceptionally able top set of it in school (in normal years apparently I'd have cruised along at top of the top set but the cohort I was in was off the scale in levels of awesomeness). Thought I was shit at maths for years till we had to do our subject knowledge audit in teacher training and I walked it with full marks. DH however is exceptional at maths to the point where his work colleagues get bored and randomly fling very complex calculations at him for him to do in his head.

The kids would get no fucking joy whatsoever asking him to help with their maths homework. He is shit at explaining maths, shit at understanding how anyone needs to go through a process to achieve an answer that he "just knows" and has fuck all patience with it either. Coming from a teaching background as well - I also know how it's being taught in schools so maths homework would be my territory... until it got to like GCSE level or so... when it's still not "ask your dad" but "ask grandma" as she's a maths teacher as well!

From the maths jokes link posted above:

A physicist, a biologist, and a mathematician are sitting on a bench across from a house. They watch as two people go into the house, and then a little later, three people walk out.

The physicist says, "The initial measurement was incorrect."

The biologist says, "They must have reproduced."

And the mathematician says, "If exactly one person enters that house, it will be empty."

One anecdote - I was at or near the top of the class in non-scientific subjects at my mixed comp. I did (oh the shame) think physics biology & chemistry were for boys, and I did really badly in them and dropped as soon as I could. I think was usually only just in the top 1/3, if that, in Maths out of a class of 32. It was the sort of school where the girls sat on one side & were called by the first names, and the boys down the other side, called by their surnames.

In the 5th, O Level year, I came back late at the start of the Autumn term & there wasn't a place for me on the girls' side in our maths class, so I got put on the boys' side, in the seat that was empty as it was partly behind a pillar. I don't know if it was because the teacher (a man) was teaching to the boys' side or I started competing against the boys, but I then started coming top consistently. I am now an accountant and love working with numbers.

I am a tutor so often work with youngsters that are struggling a little with science or maths. The number of girls who have decided from the ages of about 7 or 8 that they are 'no good' at maths, is really saddening. Mostly, with a bit of extra support and help, they prove to be perfectly competent mathematicians, even if it never becomes their favourite or best subject.
Anacdotally the students ( of both sexes) that really have serious difficulties with maths are those with ADHD.

SeaRabbit - very interesting. At primary school, final year, I was the only girl in the maths top set, with six boys. I worked my arse off to keep up with and then do better than them. I definitely had a sense that the teaching was better because I was now learning with the boys. Expectations were higher.

Anacdotally the students ( of both sexes) that really have serious difficulties with maths are those with ADHD.

Interesting - my 13yo DS has recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and one of the warning signs to us was that he was really struggling with maths.

Those jokes were okay but my absolute favourite ever are the Zorn’s lemon jokes.

There are 10 types of people in the world .....

Love the jokes, particularly the pizza, a great end of term one.

counterpoint I'm going to hazard I guess that you don't have much of an understanding of maths and it's applications to make a statement like that.
By "behaviour" do you mean social sciences?

Well, I did OK at Additional (A/O) Maths and then A Level Pure and Applied Maths - then I went on to do a science degree and postgraduate degree and was enlightened to the fact that, contrary to popular belief (ie myth), Maths doesn't call into use the higher order thinking skills that real sciences do. More a memory and application of a computation skill base.
As I said, one that can be most easily reproduced by calculators and computers.

That's probably why girls/women get more easily bored by the repetitiveness of such a subject and they are more able to apply the higher order thinking skills that I believe women are more predisposed to.

then I went on to do a science degree

So you didn’t do any proper maths then? Merely calculations of the grocery-bill variety.

Maths can be a creative art. My uni gave the choice of a maths degree being a BSc or a BA.

then I went on to do a science degree
So you didn’t do any proper maths then? Merely calculations of the grocery-bill variety.

Is that a Mathematician trying to patronise a Scientist. Aww bless, it's like a PCSO telling an armed response copper that they are the real Police :-)

Well, I did OK at Additional (A/O) Maths and then A Level Pure and Applied Maths - then I went on to do a science degree and postgraduate degree and was enlightened to the fact that, contrary to popular belief (ie myth), Maths doesn't call into use the higher order thinking skills that real sciences do. More a memory and application of a computation skill base.

As someone with a very similar education to you, I couldn't disagree more about what maths involves.