{"id":36373,"date":"2011-05-26T06:24:54","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T11:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=36373"},"modified":"2011-10-26T00:46:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T05:46:00","slug":"doing-math-is-for-ugly-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/05\/26\/doing-math-is-for-ugly-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing Math Is for Ugly Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A year ago <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/03\/26\/ian-too-pretty-to-do-math\/\">we posted a photo of a children&#8217;s t-shirt<\/a>, found at Goodwill, that claimed the wearer is &#8220;Too pretty to do math.&#8221; We were relieved to know the shirt had been destroyed, in the interests of children and appreciators of the fine field of mathematics.<\/p>\n<p>But sadly, Ingrid P. informs us that a magnet with the same slogan is now for sale at youth-oriented clothing store\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forever21.com\/product.asp?catalog_name=FOREVER21&amp;category_name=whatsnew_all&amp;product_id=1000023296&amp;Page=all&amp;pgcount=100&amp;cookie_test=1\" target=\"_blank\">Forever 21<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/05\/Screen-shot-2011-05-22-at-5-22-114.04.48-PM.jpeg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-36374 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/05\/Screen-shot-2011-05-22-at-5-22-114.04.48-PM-500x298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"298\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/05\/Screen-shot-2011-05-22-at-5-22-114.04.48-PM-500x298.jpg 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2011\/05\/Screen-shot-2011-05-22-at-5-22-114.04.48-PM.jpeg 925w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So the message to girls is that, first, math is something to be avoided if possible; only girls who aren&#8217;t pretty enough to get out of it would bother to take it seriously. And, second, being attractive should get you out of doing things you might find difficult or unpleasant.<\/p>\n<p>There do not appear to be &#8220;I&#8217;m too handsome to do math&#8221; or, say, &#8220;I&#8217;m too pretty to do English literature&#8221; versions, because the magnet relies on two notions that preclude those options: that girls, specifically, either can&#8217;t or don&#8217;t want to master difficult academic subjects, and that math is inherently, and almost uniquely, difficult to learn &#8212; a cultural trope my friends who teach math often find exasperating, as it means they have to battle years of socialization that teaches students to be intimidated and convinced they&#8217;re likely to fail before they even start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A year ago we posted a photo of a children&#8217;s t-shirt, found at Goodwill, that claimed the wearer is &#8220;Too pretty to do math.&#8221; We were relieved to know the shirt had been destroyed, in the interests of children and appreciators of the fine field of mathematics. But sadly, Ingrid P. informs us that a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2101],"class_list":["post-36373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-education"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36376,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36373\/revisions\/36376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}