Girls don't like hard math

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www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10759687/Fury-tiger-head-claims-female-pupils-shun-level-physics-dislike-hard-maths.html

Katharine Birbalsingh, founder of the Michaela Community free school in Wembley claims that girls can't be bothered with advanced maths 😂.

Ms Birbalsingh, chairwoman of the Government's Social Mobility Commission, said: 'I just think they don't like it. There's a lot of hard maths in there that I think they would rather not do.'

When pressed on why girls would not want to do harder maths, she added: 'The research generally … just says that's a natural thing... I don't think there's anything external.'

AIBU to think that Ms Birbalsingh is talking rubbish?

Very depressing. I cannot understand why someone who is in a senior position like this ,would say such a thing.my sons friend achieved the highest grade at gcse in the whole country for maths In that year. Gone on to uni .are all boys so good then or have they just been told how good they are !

Sons female friend I meant

My sister has a maths degree and does university level maths equations for fun...

Of course girls can do maths, however my experience in a mixed school has been that Further Maths groups contain more boys than girls. Girls are less likely to take the double maths option. Maths teachers in other schools may have observed something different.

In my year at school, the top achieving pupils in maths were all girls. Yet, our male maths teacher, repeatedly told us that girls are no good at maths. This was 30 years ago and I thought it was ridiculous then, but in the 21st century, and from a female head teacher and expert on social mobility, I'm speechless. MS Birbalsingh doesn't come across as very articulate in the interview.

Wow, me and the girls that I went to school with clearly didn't get this memo back in the day!

That's an interesting view! I hadn't thought of it that way.

I’d like to know what question was asked of the head to elicit the response. Because it is true that there is a constant unexplained attrition of girls studying maths from GCSE to A level despite girls having equal opportunity and ability to continue on.

I do know that my older DD despite an 8 in GCSE maths hated maths with a passion and chose not to study it at A level.

So I do know at least one girl did continue her she did not like maths. (I also am very good at maths but can’t stand it. I was pressured to stick with it and only switched away from Maths while at university).

I doubt the head would have volunteered this as an opinion per se. She most likely was asked to explain why she thinks girls don’t carry on with maths at the higher levels.

Probably a better answer would have been socialisation but I don’t think what she said was offensive unless it was an unsolicited opinion and she really did mean most girls do not like maths. But the quote is being reported without context which always matters.

Well I wonder what she would make of (many ×) great aunt (sadly no longer with us) who ran the accounts department of the entire global Salvation Army and only retired (in her 70s) when they computerised her department.
She also taught me maths with an abacus and logarithm books (for trigonometry) as she didn't believe in calculators. Thanks to her I'm able to do maths equations quicker than most people can type them into a calculator

Birbalsingh also says "I don't mind that there's only 16%.". Nice .

"Dame Athene Donald, a professor of experimental physics and master of Churchill College, Cambridge, told the Guardian: 'It's not a case of campaigning for more girls to do physics, it's a case of making sure that girls aren't discouraged by remarks like this."

I agree with Dame Athene Donald on this.

Girls and young women drop STEM subjects for lots of reasons.

Innate lower ability than boys and young men isn’t one of them!

More boys and young men choosing and continuing these subjects is just evidence of these longstanding and ongoing issues.

It is so effing depressing that a teacher who should know very well the statistics that girls up to 7 see themselves just as good at maths as boys, and then the cultural pressures make girls see themselves as worse and worse at maths over time.
I'm a physicist, and I despair at this attitude. I specialise in an area where there are 50:50 men and women working in physics, and some sub specialities are actually female dominated in the UK. We have to tackle attitudes to all subjects being for boys or girls, but especially the one that says maths is hard. Its no harder than anything else, it just needs good, effective teaching throughout a childs education as missing out on one area will have a knock on effect where not getting something in history is unlikely to be of direct consequence in a different area

Ooh I once met Dame Athene Donald! In a work context at an event, at the drinks station! She made an encouraging remark and was welcoming. A privilege!

My DD is much better at maths than my DS.

And yet my DS happily took maths A Level (where he is struggling) whereas it hasn't even entered the consideration list for DD (now at GCSE level). She just doesn't like maths; whereas DS did.

(I have maths degrees coming out of my ears so she doesn't get this from me; but very interested to know where it came from - social conditioning somewhere?)

'It's not a case of campaigning for more girls to do physics, it's a case of making sure that girls aren't discouraged by remarks like this."

+1 Teacher saying that should be re-educated, head teacher should be fired.

This makes me so so angry (and I'm a teacher of one of those "manly" subjects).

I'm glad I went to a girls' school actually because we had lots of girls doing the supposedly boyish subjects like Physics, Further Maths, Latin. We weren't put off by being the only girls in the class, or by boys speaking up more in lessons.

I'm extra sad because I used to think highly of Michaela school and Birbalsingh, she's in the news a lot and I thought had some sensible ideas (and I'm not a tory voter). Turns out, feet of clay.

Watch the video, she says the reason for girls not doing physics is that they can't be bothered with hard maths and the the reason for this is that it's natural that they don't like it. She says there are no external reasons for this and that she doesn't mind only 16% of physics students are female. She made her ignorant and sexist opinion sufficiently clear.

I went to an all girls grammar. The advanced maths class was tiny. Maybe 8 out of 100 pupils. The ones who did do ad-maths went on to study maths heavy subjects. Everyone else just thought there were easier ways to get to where they wanted. It had very little to do with lack of interest or ability.

What a pile of steaming turds. My first class honours for my maths degree says she is full of crap.

But the maths in A-level Physics isn't even hard maths...

The comments are alarming and I have many students who prove that it's rubbish BUT the Daily Fail is not the most reliable of sources and I would be interested to see the whole debate, not just a short clip with no context.

I'm extra sad because I used to think highly of Michaela school and Birbalsingh, she's in the news a lot and I thought had some sensible ideas (and I'm not a tory voter). Turns out, feet of clay.

This is exactly my view. She was supposed to be a champion for those kids who no one is usually ambitious for. I cannot understand where she’s coming from here. Her defence that her remarks were taken out of context is totally blown up by watching the video.
Really depressing.

Silly woman. This made me really angry. Of course it’s not natural. Women have been excelling at maths and physics for centuries. It is far more to do with cultural expectations on girls, being told all your life that you aren’t good at it or that it’s for boys (especially physics), and don’t forget the snowballing effect of not wanting to choose a subject where boys already dominate, as that makes it harder for girls to learn. So if there’s any sex divide with subjects, that will be exaggerated by both sexes choosing to avoid being the only boy/girl doing it and/or choosing a subject where they can be with their mates.

I’m involved in STEM promotion for girls as part of my work (though I also strongly believe boys should be encouraged/supported to do girl-dominated subjects too and actively support my DS in that) - and I’m forever highlighting female mathematicians and scientists. Women have been extremely important in physics.

I think this answers part of the question.

Katharine Birbalsingh AT Miss_Snuffy
Twitter
I have just seen that AT elonmusk has over 83 million followers and realised …
I am not even sure what a number that big means…

Society and the teaching profession, in particular primary teaching, are very misogynistic when it comes to Maths.
When I did maths at Uni 80% of the cohort was female. Girls do like hard maths, they just have to be bloody stubborn to succeed.

It’s not just in the Faily Mail. There are lots of other write ups on this.