Letters to the Editor
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I feel like nobody can win at Broadsheet
When I first read about Danica McKellar's math book, I should have known that Broadsheet would rush to judge its "sexist" approach. You know, I was great at math as a child and as soon as I hit high school, suddenly I just didn't enjoy it as much anymore. One of the reasons is that advanced math, particularly statistics and calculus, are really, really difficult to apply to real world situations. How many times have we all asked, "what does this have to do with my life?" Maybe a book like this could have answered those questions for me.
I am an independent, successful, 27-year-old woman (who considers herself a feminist) and frankly, I do enjoy shopping and spending my hard earned money on things that I want. AND I enjoy cooking--the horror! Ultimately I learned most of the most useful math, like percentages, etc. in practical situations, and maybe if I had had a book like this it would have been a lot easier going.
Good for Danica, and Boo to Broadsheet. I've been reading it ever since its introduction and get so tired of these types of "analyses."
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This strikes me more as targetting the little girls' idiot parents
Not everyone is raised by parents determined to make their daughter study her maths and sciences so that one day she'll grow up and become an eminent scientist, the likes of which haven't been seen since Marie Curie or Emma Carr.
The "reinforcement of stereotypes" aside, your gnashing of teeth says more about you than it does about this new learning tool.
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Oh, get practical
My the time kids are in junior high, the socialization ahs already settled in pretty fierce. Kids that age will cling more tightly to whatever they have learned of gender norms that just about any other age group.
Girls do need to learn math. When you want to teach ANYONE, you have to meet them where they are, right then. Girls who like fashion and baking, etc. are not going to be receptive to learning math if they have the impression that it is irrelevant to anything they already like doing.
And aren't there a few boys here and there who love fashion that could stand to brush up on their math too?
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Yes you are a cranky old crone
I wish that I had developed my math skills while I was young; I could double my salary. If this is what it takes to motivate girls to develop essential life skills, I'm all for it.
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How much money will buy Broadsheet writers a sense of humor?
This book is written for TEENAGED GIRLS, folks, not post-graduate women with advanced degrees in calculus who just l-o-v-e-d every minute of it! "Practical Math" has been a staple of grade- and high-school curricula for a long time, and if this book will make it more "relevant" to the world these girls live in right now, they I say "what's the problem?"
I know...it's summer...it's hot and sticky...everybody's getting testy...chill out and have a lemonade already, OK?
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Poetry Will Get You Laid!
It is about audience. The above referenced title will get young boys interested in the arts of words and metaphore, a place they may well be lacking. And suggesting that Math can serve your primary goal (appearantly buying pretty things)seems as logical an argument as any.
You can argue that young girls don't in fact like to purchase pretty things, but I would say, that like arguing young boys do not want to get laid, the reality of the situation and the afiliated industries built upon said reality, seem to disagree.
If we wish to reach all kids, and not just nerds (who don't need to be reached to learn) you need to explain to them why Math is not the domain of their unkempt, unattractive, and generally unappealing math teacher, but the stuff of intelegent sassy popular fun girls like themselves (or like Danica McKellar).
the problem with any math text is that they tend to be written by mathmaticians who tend to not understand that the rest of the world gets along just fine without trinomial calculus. But at least it's a solid effort on the author's part to reach out to the nonmath inclind among the double x population to let them know you can be everything your math teacher is not, and still kick butt at math.
It is better that she wrote this instead of another tome of math problems for rainy days that is favored by most of her profession.
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Why link the bag?
With no numbers to indicate teens and twentysomethings want it, with nothing really to separate it from any other dumb expensive bag, with nothing in particular to connect it to the book or the article, the bag is one of two or three things in total that gets a link on the page. Why? Does the author just happen to like that bag? Or am I supposed to tut disapprovingly at the excesses of kids these days? Or perhaps salivate in the manner of a Sex and the City character? I'm genuinely puzzled, how did that link add to the article in any way?
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You're a cranky old crone.
It's amazing to me that we do this: turn on members of our own interest groups and accuse them of not being sufficiently "one of us." Barack Obama's not black enough, Hillary Clinton's not woman enough, John Edwards isn't man enough, and now, apparently, Danica McKellar, who has frankly accomplished more in her 20-odd years than most people will in their whole lives, is not... I don't know... feminist enough, I guess.
You see, getting a Ph.D in math, having your name on a new theorem while still a grad student, all while being a successful actress - those things mean nothing if you dare to try to reach out to young girls who may have yet to take their first Women's Studies seminar. The only question that matters is, are you toeing the line? Are you ideologically pure? Because if not, we're just not sure we can trust you. You're suspiciously beautiful, and you do wear nice clothes, after all - and what self-respecting, empowered career woman would do something like that?
Utter crap. This blog is getting weaker by the day.