Smrt Lernins

A new study shows that negative stereotypes about learning can impact, not just the students’ performance, but their actual ability to learn.

If you want to know why I don’t find it amusing to perpetuate negative stereotypes about girls and math, this pretty much sums it up:

“(The present study) points to the importance of creating environments that reduce the impact of stereotype threat during mathematical skill acquisition by women,” the authors concluded in their PNAS article. “If creating such an environment is not done, the learning deficits that result could well be cumulative, causing problems that continually worsen as development proceeds.

When you portray girls as being bad at math, you might actually be making them bad at math.

It’s not just math and it’s not just girls, of course, but that girls and math was the chosen example for this article is pretty telling. Do people really think we’re in a post-sexist society, where female-deprecating humor is suddenly, magically, not harmful?

This is Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of the poet Lord Byron:

As you can see, she was quite a pretty thing, very elegant and well turned-out:

Ada Lovelace also wrote the world’s first computer program, a series of calculations for a then-hypothetical machine of Charles Babbage’s imagination, the “Analytical Engine.” Her program was never run on this machine and she died in her mid-thirties of uterine cancer, but her brilliant mathematical mind (and the contributions of women to science and mathematics) is celebrated annually on March 24th on Ada Lovelace Day. Her imagine also apparently appears on the Microsoft product authenticity hologram stickers. Being pretty didn’t keep her from doing math. Neither did being bound in corsets and yards of fabric.

Since you all know I don’t think highly of perpetuating that ridiculous cultural myth that girls are (or should be) bad at math, I’d like to invite you to check out this beautiful Heroine: Ada Lovelace tee from ThinkGeek (a company that thinks smart girls rock). Due to the high number of sales of this shirt in its first month available, ThinkGeek is contributing to The Girl Effect, an organization to give girls a chance to pursue the educations they desperately need. Obviously, ThinkGeek and I aren’t the only ones who think Mathy Girls ought to be celebrated.

Don’t make your daughters’ minds into a joke. Don’t slap your daughters with a degrading stereotype and try to pretend it’s funny or “ironic.” Celebrate your mathy girl, your budding scientist, your future Ada Lovelace. Let her know that beauty and brains aren’t mutually exclusive, and that a brilliant mind is beautiful.

So, the manufacturer of the sexist “I’m too pretty for math!” shirt I posted about seven months ago has apparently stumbled on my blog and decided to spam it. Isn’t that professional of her!

Spam comments will not be approved. I was more than willing to approve this woman’s comment (and did, in fact) for response, but I won’t tolerate spam. I regularly approve dissenting opinions, but I’m not willing to be harassed. Flooding my blog with comments will accomplish nothing other than a quick click on the “spam” button. I’m also not so naive as to believe that a large volume of random people would suddenly discover a 7 month old post and all leap to defense of this woman, so spare me the “I enjoy your blog…” nonsense. I know who my readers are.

Toughen up or get out of the business, honey, but you’re wasting your time spamming me. I only have conversations with grown-ups here.

ETA: Received another comment from someone saying that the “too pretty for math” lady didn’t ask them to spam; they’re just doing it out of the kindness of their heart. If that’s the case, ladies, you’re doing your friend a disservice. Bad reviews are part of business. Perhaps this will be a lesson about thinking about the greater implications of your products, because reinforcing sexist and negative stereotypes is usually not taken as “fun.”

However, I have received my favorite comment so far! It might even be my favorite comment of all time: “I am not one to throw stones.. but the name of the blog has grammer and spellying typos ALL OVER IT.. Smrt lernins? seriously?…”

I hate when I have those “grammer” and “spellying” typos, don’t you? *snort* Please, please tell me these mistakes were made intentionally!

I’m sure a lot of you remember the Barbie doll that said “Math class is tough! Let’s go shopping!” (often misquoted as “Math is hard!” Same sentiment.). With a new awareness of how culture and the education system encouraged the dumbing-down of girls in math, parents reacted quite vocally to this doll. The last thing girls needed, they said, was a doll who told them math was too difficult and that vanity and other shallow frivolities were where it’s at. Mattel responded by removing that phrase from the doll’s litany of inane statements.

Girls aren’t bad at math by nature. They don’t struggle more because of something miswired in their brains. The difficulties with math (or perceived difficulties) were programmed by culture — girls were treated as being poor at math, so many rose to fulfill that destiny. We’ve gotten better about that. Recent studies have shown a marked improvement in how girls performed in math when taught in a gender-equitable manner. When encouraged in science and math, rather than solely in the arts, girls not only perform as well as male peers, but excel. Time magazine had an entire issue on women in math. When all is said and done, girls are not bad at math. They’re just told they are, repeatedly, by society and institutions, until they believed it. Now many of us are working our damnedest to make they aren’t being told to believe it.

Today, I stumbled upon a t-shirt listing on Hyena cart, for a pink shirt made from fabric that says “I AM TOO PRETTY TO DO MATH.” Yes, too pretty to do math. That this fabric is even manufactured is repugnant, but the listing for this shirt is simply beyond the pale:

I AM TOO PRETTY TO DO MATH. Youth Raglan T, YPS 10, 12, 14, or 16

Most of us have an instant imagine of someone who this suites…
that little lady who just HATES doing her math.
Or that girl who just knows she is too pretty for this…
or the one who just don’t have the time to waste doing math.

Apparently, girls might also be too pretty to use proper grammar, capitalization, or punctuation.

Too pretty to do math. “Too pretty for this.” “One who just don’t have the time to waste doing math.” Too pretty to do math. Waste time doing math. Really? Really? ”

What is the message here? Don’t worry your pretty head with thinking, because it’s a waste of your time? What would be a better use of that time? Finding a good husband, perhaps? Or maybe the message is that only ugly women need to do math, because only ugly women need to have any kind of career. Never mind that beauty fades, husbands leave, and you little bubble heads who can’t add 2 and 2 are going to have an awfully hard time balancing your little pink sparkly checkbooks.

Does the work-at-home mom who made this listing, with its sexist and insulting message, and who chose Psalm 139:13 to adorn her store banner, believe God knit girls together too stupid for math, too vapid to do anything but fluff their hair and paint their nails? Does she really believe beauty and brains are not only mutually exclusive, but that beauty is preferable to intelligence, effort, or achievement? Who will buy this shirt, I wonder, and what lessons are they teaching their daughters? Certainly not that a girl can be both smart and beautiful, that there’s a great deal of value in making an effort (even if it doesn’t come naturally to you), or that girls can do anything.

For the record, Patchfire’s daughter, Eclectic Girl, is a math whiz, doing algebra at age 9. Math comes as naturally to her as breathing, or as naturally as language comes to Captain Science. She’s a pretty, vivacious, empowered little girl with stunning eyes and a bright pink room…and she can knock your freaking socks off with math. Don’t tell me that a girl can be “too pretty” for math. Don’t you dare.

If you’re looking for t-shirts with girl-empowering, intelligence-valuing messages, try Mind Candy Clothing.