The only sex education my mother ever gave me was a little book about goldfish; so if I ever fall in love with a goldfish, I shall know exactly what to do. Sex was one of those things people assumed young ladies didn't need to know about. Another was money, and I was taught even less about that. Whilst (thankfully) our sex education has come on leaps and bounds, I believe there's still an issue with what we tell our daughters about finance and maths.
First off, there are a couple of myths about maths that need addressing. The first is that some people are born with a ‘gift’ for maths which others lack. Actually, only 3% of us have dyscalculia – which means you really can't do maths – so 97% of us are more than capable.
Secondly, it's a myth that boys are naturally better at maths than girls. In fact, girls actually do better than boys until puberty. But it seems that lots of girls are led to believe that once they leave school, the only time they’ll need maths is to calculate their cycle.
Clearly, we'll all need maths after school, for everything from going to the shops to starting your own business. It is part of an adult's daily life, and you can't do much without it.
As a schoolgirl, I experienced a fear of maths that I now know was down to bad teaching. When I started a business, I had to teach myself the basics. I didn't learn bookkeeping until I was fifty years old - my son's PA taught me in half an hour, and it transformed my life. Suddenly, all the maths stuff made sense and I asked myself, why - when I now found maths so interesting, useful and easy to understand - had I ever found it so terrifying?
The answer became obvious when I started researching for an online maths course I was writing. A number of girls and women told me: “I'm hopeless as maths because my mother was.” But surely they would never have said they couldn't read or write because their mother couldn't? Lots of them seemed to believe that boys had inherited a few extra chromosomes, perhaps called MA (‘Maths Ability’) and GM (‘Good at Money’).
Too often, I still hear the phrase “my partner does all our money stuff”. I think that lots of women still lack the confidence to take charge of their family’s finances, and it becomes easier to accept that the man will be the one to look after the mortgage payments and life insurance, because, naturally he will have MA and GM. But what if said man falls under a bus?
I want all women to be able to know whether she is getting the best deal, from her energy bills to her phone plan. Women need maths to be independent. Sometimes, relying on your partner’s income is unavoidable. The gender pay gap, maternity leave, the cost of childcare – society is structured so that many women, at various points in their lives, are financially dependent on men. But a good understanding of maths and budgeting can mitigate this.
If a woman believes she can’t understand money, then she can’t interfere with a man’s expenditure or financial plans. It has suited men to have women believe that they are physiologically lacking in maths ability – and it still does. This is why maths is a feminist issue.
Maths is essential to making money and spending it shrewdly. It costs an average of £220,000 to raise a child, and when the majority of day-to-day costs are still left to the mothers to sort out, the least we can do is equip our daughters with the budgeting skills they'll need.
If you are someone who lacks confidence in maths, I believe that you can learn it by yourself, half an hour at a time. There really is nothing to stop you: you have as much MA and GM as any man.