Girls don't like hard math

[2New]

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?

This was what I was thinking. Where is the hard maths in A-level physics?

I can think of better arguments she could have made. It might be that there are more female students doing advanced maths at Michaela than at other comparable schools because they aim to raise aspiration across the board. But to make that argument shed have to be interested in what girls do and why, which it seems she's not.

I’m pretty sure it’s not the maths that puts them off, it’s the relentless misogyny.

The film Hidden Figures shows how sexist and racist views affect opportunities in STEM careers so well.

Maybe Katharine Birbalsingh has never heard of Katherine Johnson, a black, female mathematician at NASA whose calculations were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights.

If you haven't watched Hidden Figures yet, it is a brilliant movie. My primary aged dds loved it too.

Yes exactly 2new. You can be sure the women in hidden figures would not have been in those jobs if they weren’t the best available.

My DIL an accountant she is a wizz with figures she sees numbers in an instant, picks up new systems quickly, she has a brain that absorbs that sort of information. My brain is “normal” a mixture of caring, communicating and creative, I can’t see a balance sheet or a calculation and make any sense at all.

Most of us are capable of being taught the mathematics we need for daily life and most jobs, what we learn at GCSE level is sufficient for that, any extra for any particular role can be learned at college or workplace training. If you career aim is to be an Engineer, Scientist or Finance, A Level maths is going to be essential, by the time you are choosing your options you know wether you learn quickly or struggle with maths.

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…

Saying “ooh that maths is too hard for my female little head” is one of the things some women do to signal being cute and unthreatening. Girls don’t need a man telling them girls can’t do maths for the message to sink in. This will do it too.

Girls do like hard maths. I'm one of them! This outdated and pointless attitude is exactly what physics and engineering societies and industry have been trying to fight for many years. How utterly unhelpful of Ms Birbalsingh to have propagated this.

I think she’s drunk her own KoolAid and believes she has a perfect school, so if no girls want to do maths and physics, that must be completely fine. I would have a lot more respect for her if she acknowledged that it wasn’t fine and said they were going to do something about it.

She’s talking out of her behind. I say that as someone who has taught further maths at university. People like her are the reason that some girls feel they don’t have a right to succeed in maths related subjects. That they have imposter syndrome when studying or working in a science or tech environment.

It’s about time girls were properly encouraged to build careers in tech, engineering and science. I mean this is the 21st century!

To add to my earlier post...

I chose to move from a mixed grammar to an all girls grammar at 16. I was also offered a place at the all-boys (who took a few girls into sixth form). I chose the girls one purely because they allowed you to chose 5 proper subjects in Yr12 (in the days of 5 AS, 3 A level). Which meant my 5th subject was Physics, not General studies. I thought Physics was my weakest science (my other subjects being Maths, Biology, Chemistry and Geography for a bit of light relief)

Being in an All girls environment, not having Maths and Science dominated by boys was a revelation. At the end of Yr12, I chose to continue with Maths, Physics Biology and Chemistry, then changed my ambitions from medicine (which apparently thats what girls good at science do) to engineering.

I honestly believe that girls do better in STEM in a single sex environment where the teachers believe in them.

What research has she been reading to think it's natural? Clearly nothing on cultural differences - girls not liking maths isn't something experienced outside of NW Europe, UK, USA, Australia and NZ. Nothing about stereotype threat. Nothing about girls in single sex schools having a higher take up and success in maths and physics A-levels.... You don't even have to look that hard.

That’s great! But sadly there are many influences on girls and their subject choices apart from the school. The world is full of teachers, parents and other influential adults who think just like this person - that’s advanced maths is not really a suitable subject for girls.

Everywhere they turn, girls see social media which judges their success in life by how they look, how they perform in bed and how attractive they are to men and boys.

There’s not many female influencers who have got there by being good at maths. It’s all about make up, hair and styling or their cute babies.

Many parents expect their daughters to go into traditionally female roles, such as teaching, nursing, healthcare, nursery nursing, retail, admin, hairdressing etc and not nasty Ugly mens jobs like engineering or science where they imagine they will be working with only men and have to wear ugly non sexy clothes and have to travel around the country or even move away from home. And not be feminine, be able to get a man and live around the corner and give them GC.

One of my DDs school friends was very good at Maths and wanted to study it at uni but her parents wanted her to go full time with her YouTube Beauty channel ( seriously !) . The Head of Maths at school intervened and she was allowed to go to uni. But she ended up doing teacher training after she graduated - a job much more in line with her parents expectations of a girls’ job.

My Dd is now at uni and last year her flatmate was final year maths. She ( the flat mate ) had a place on a graduate training scheme with a international accountancy firm to become an actuary. My DD noticed that the friends long term ( from school ) BF was constantly undermining her, saying that it wouldn’t work as a career because what would she do when they had children and she should do teacher training instead . And that it would be so hard with all the exams they would never see each other etc etc.

You will be pleased to know that the Flatmate didn’t bow the pressure from the Bf and is now two years into her training. And she didn’t even move in with the BF so she could do the housework ! Although she’s not dumped him yet 🙁🙁

Its very hard for girls to stand up against the social pressure to not be more clever or earn more than their BF and to always put him first .

So it’s a much bigger picture than what happens in schools. Schools are a part of what it takes to get more girls into STEM but it’s not enough.

mobile.twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1519293906227183616

here’s a video link. It is honestly as bad as it’s being reported. Especially given she’s supposed to be an expert in front of a select committee.

I’m wondering about whether there was a follow up question comparing uptake in all girl’s schools which tends to be better than in mixed schools.

What research has she been reading to think it's natural?

That “research” line came across as sheer bullshitting when put on the spot. There’s plenty of research to suggest the exact opposite so I don’t think she’s familiar with the research at all.

If she really doesn’t grasp the impact of misogyny, what’s wrong with “I don’t know and we need to work on it.”

Much more interesting question is what on earth you are doing reading the Daily Fail, and, if that were not bad enough, quote from it and trying to discuss it.

For the record I'm a woman who has always been good at maths.

And who has no interest in anything that rag publishes.

She didn’t say girls can’t do math. She said they don’t want to. There’s a difference there that is very important.

Perhaps the bell curve for female interests means that there is a smaller cohort that wants to do the maths. It could be natural. Just because girls can, doesn’t mean they will.

Or perhaps it’s because we have mixed sexual schools and the boys are driving the girls away from the subject. Which still results in the girls choosing a levels not wanting to do math.

Bollocks, kleine.

WHY don’t they ‘want to’?

This is what astounds me - any other head teacher would be grilled by Ofsted to explain discrepancies in A level take up and justify such a "can't do" culture. And for her to sit on a government committee and say she isn't familiar with the research!! Why is she allowed to pose as an expert if she isn't au fait with a range of educational research?

I would like to know what happened with football. When I grew up, girls ‘didn’t play football’ in the same way that they ‘don’t do maths’. Nowadays it seems one of the most popular sport for girls. How did that come about? We need the same thing to happen with maths, physics and computing please!

Saddens me that this attitude still prevails. I loved the sciences. I chose physics, chem, biology, maths, and computer studies in my O-level options and got huge pressure to change some of the science subjects out for office studies and typing/shorthand. But this was the sexist '70s I can't believe they are still peddling this idea to girls that girls cant do maths.