Narro Math?

I never thought about math much until I found out, some where around 12 or so, that girls weren’t supposed to be good at it.  Ever the tomboy,  I just had to prove them wrong and I’ve frequently been the only woman (and definitely the only American woman) in advanced math classes at university.  Both my daughters excel at math.  However, the old stereotype has been out there for my mother and grandmothers as well as my daughters and me.  Ask current Obama economic adviser Larry Summers who stirred up women scientists every where with this gem during his tenure as Harvard’s president.

This was the point that most angered some of the listeners, several of whom said Summers said that women do not have the same ”innate ability” or ”natural ability” as men in some fields.

Asked about this, Summers said, ”It’s possible I made some reference to innate differences. . . I did say that you have to be careful in attributing things to socialization. . . That’s what we would prefer to believe, but these are things that need to be studied.”

Summers said cutting-edge research has shown that genetics are more important than previously thought, compared with environment or upbringing. As an example, he mentioned autism, once believed to be a result of parenting but now widely seen to have a genetic basis.

In his talk, according to several participants, Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them ”daddy truck,” and one ”baby truck.”

It was during his comments on ability that Hopkins, sitting only 10 feet from Summers, closed her computer, put on her coat, and walked out. ”It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women [at Harvard] are being led by a man who views them this way,” she said later in an interview.

More and more evidence demonstrates just the opposite of the stereotype.  Girls can and do kick ass at math.  It’s not that they lack they aptitude, they lack they opportunity and environment to do so.  Science Daily reports that study after study now show that it’s  Culture, Not Biology, Underpins Math Gender Gap.  Both Riverdaughter and I live the nightmare that comes with being woman practitioners of a field that requires heavy math.  She is a research chemist doing work on drugs.  I am an economist who relies heavily on econometrics and models that borrow heavy from physics models.  One of my colleagues, another woman economist from Finland who absolutely kicks ass when it comes to high level mathematical models on trade, has similar stories.  One friend I’ve had the longest has taught university level math for nearly 30 years now. At various times,  I’ve had to adopt some kind of charade to make my numeracy less threatening to colleagues, bosses, and institutions. It adds a completely different dimension to how you do your work.  You can do it, you can kick ass at it, but you have to make sure that you’re deferential enough not to make the boys pee their pants and vote you off their islands.  It’s a strange, demented and twisted kabuki dance.

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