Winnie Wrote a Math Book 638
SoyChemist writes "Hollywood is not known for providing a wealth of positive female role models. Danica McKellar, the actress that played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years and Elsie Snuffin on The West Wing, has written a math book for teenage girls. 'Math Doesn't Suck' is done in the style of a teen magazine. It even includes a horoscope, cute doodles of shoes and jewelry, and testimonials from attractive young career women that use math at work. It focuses on fractions and pre-algebra and uses mnemonics like calling a reciprocal a 'refliprocal', because you just take the fraction and flip it upside down. Wired interviewed McKellar about the new book and her crusade to eliminate the achievement gap between boys and girls in math courses. McKellar graduated Summa Cum Laude from UCLA. While studying there, she co-authored a proof and presented it at a conference. After she and Mayim Bialik — star of Blossom and a PhD in neuroscience — appeared in a 20/20 episode about intellectual actresses, several literary agents came knocking on her door."
More importantly (Score:3, Informative)
Rock-paper-scissors will have to decide this, guys.
Re:And what do horoscopes have to do with science? (Score:1, Informative)
If you don't, then stop talking about things you know nothing about.
Review of the book and an interview (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Quaint (Score:3, Informative)
By "author" they mean
Get real (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.uaf.edu/northern/schools/myth.html [uaf.edu]
Here is some info about how hard this report is to obtain that popularized this mythical gender gap against women in 1992, which I am sure is another conspiracy theory:
http://www.uaf.edu/northern/schools/myth.html [uaf.edu]
"While the politicized version, How Schools Shortchange Girls (1992) is available for a mere $16.95, obtaining the full data report requires a payment of $85.00 for unbound xeroxed pages. The AAUW provides an 800-number for ordering its reports, but the person I called at this number knew nothing about the full data report. I then called the AAUW offices, left messages, and waited for weeks to get telephone calls returned until I finally located someone who knew of this report.
"That the AAUW should make the report difficult to obtain is understandable. The data from their own report do not back up the charges they publicize---that girls receive less attention from teachers.
When asked about their personal experience, boys and girls reported receiving virtually identical amounts of attention from their teachers (Table 13). The gender differences that occur are trivial, and sometimes favor boys and sometimes favor girls."
Re:Barbie disagrees (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the quote is "Math class is tough," and only 1.5% of all Teen Talk Barbies said that phrase. If you find one now, it's worth quite a bit of money. (And I'll bet more than 1.5% of the population actually thinks that math class is tough.)
</barbienerd>
Re:Barbie disagrees (Score:4, Informative)
I'm still amazed at how people still push to help girls succeed. It makes me think it has become a larger political issue about advancing women's views, and not because they are actually struggling. All the recent evidence points to girls succeeding beyond boys, and yet, where are the pro-boy programs? You will always be able to point out a specific area of work that men outnumber women, or vice versa, but that doesn't mean we should rectify that "problem". There's a much larger issue where boys are being left behind.
Women have outnumbered men at colleges for ~25 years now. Women outnumber men 58% to 42%. [nytimes.com]
75 percent of girls aim for college degrees vs. 66 percent of boys [findarticles.com]
The study found that not only are girls in the nation's 100 largest school districts graduating at a ">72 percent rate versus 65 percent for their male counterparts [slashdot.org], but that the gender gap is even wider among minority students.
Re:Barbie disagrees (Score:3, Informative)
Actually you have to treat them very differently. I can make off-color jokes with my male co-workers. I can make physical contact with my male co-workers. I can go to a bar after work with my male co-workers. If I were the type of guy to treat people like shit, I could do so, with my male underling co-workers.
Re:Barbie disagrees (Score:3, Informative)
I concur wholeheartedly. I have witnessed people go down hard because the organization chose to prevent the possibility of a lawsuit by placating a female by firing a male for the most banal, unsubstantiated fluff.
My personal protection mechanism is to interact only much as necessary for me to remain employed. It's sad to act this way but reality is harsh. I really like women, too. There is just no way I can afford to jeopardize my livelihood on perceived harrassment.