apparently people think math competitions for girls are sexist because they “stigmatize girls as being less talented”
like, if you take away international girls’ math competitions, what will happen is that girls will mostly not qualify for international math competitions. but I’m sure they will feel very encouraged sitting at home, watching their male peers win medals, and knowing that we as a society have taken a firm stance on gender equality
What about girls who don’t qualify for the girls competition either? And children in general who love math but aren’t at the international level?
I was heavily involved in math competitions throughout my school years, and always deeply resented the special “for girls” sections. Because, yes, they do treat girls as lesser. I would go to a middle-school competition, and there would be the real first through tenth places, and then a “top sixth grader” prize, and a “top girl” prize. Even a middle-schooler can tell what that means: sixth graders aren’t as good at math because they’re younger, so they need a consolation prize, and girls aren’t as good at math so they need one too.
I am offended that people think I need to be pandered to. I resented, even as a child, that people thought I couldn’t do as well as any boy. If I can’t earn a medal honestly, I’d rather sit at home and study for next year.
Because next year, I will win.
Interesting. The “top girl” prizes never bothered me–honestly, I would always hand them out in my head anyway if the competition didn’t have one. I’d watch all the winners as they went up, note their gender, and if everyone ahead of me was a boy I’d come home and tell my parents “I was the top girl!” and they’d congratulate me and take me somewhere nice for dinner. So having an actual prize was just official recognition of that to me. I can see how it would seem like pandering, though.
But I’m not really attached to those. What I am attached to is all-girl math circles and math competitions, for partly I guess safe space reasons? Teenage boy math nerds are uh, great in their way, and I definitely had lots of fun over the years doing math stuff with them, but they can also be pretty arrogant and obnoxious and immature and also just different from me, like they were always talking about video games or whatever and had no interest in fashion or Jane Austen (my obsessions at the time). Not to mention being the only girl on a team full of guys is just kind of awkward. All-girl math spaces had no one throwing frisbees at each other, no one talking over each other or making fun of someone for not knowing a theorem, t-shirts that actually fit.
And I was one of the lucky ones–in freshman year I was the only girl on the math team, but by senior year the math team was actually like half girls and my school had articles written about how we were one of the best environments for girls in math in the country. I think one of the possible takeaways from Ellison and Swanson is that for girls to succeed in math it’s important for them to be surrounded by other girls who are into math, which is why I think arguing for the elimination of EGMO, CGMO, Math Prize for Girls, etc. in the name of feminism is counterproductive.