Girls & math: Impact of gender stereotypes on women

By Brittany Greene
College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March, 2011

The main gender stereotype that probably affected me was hearing women are not good at math. It doesn’t matter whether this is true or not for me because I’ve always been great at math and much better at math than in any other subject. Even in my senior year of high school when I took AP calculus there were definitely more boys then girls in class, but that didn’t make me think I was at a less advance of succeeding in the class. My dad also encouraged me a lot for that class because he knew the stereotype and he’d always tell me how proud he was of me to be doing so well the class. He’d also joke around a lot with the different groups I was in and how those stereotypes were the complete opposite of me; he’d laugh about the fact that I was not only a girl in the AP calculus class, but I was a cheerleader as well, and stereotypically you wouldn’t see that combination in an AP calculus class. It really felt great just to know I was good enough to be in that class and I was even able to push through all the stereotypes put against me to succeed in the class.

I’d also like to make a quick comment on the movie we watched in class today. I have to admit I always thought guys had it so much easier than girls. They didn’t have to worry about their hair and their clothes, etc. but I guess they actually do. It seems that guys don’t have it as easy as I thought and they want to be like the “typical” big, muscular, etc. guy. I understand now that they actually do have as much pressure put on them as girls do.