Mathematics and the Flight from the Feminine: The Discursive Construction of Gendered Subjectivity in Mathematics Textbooks

There is a widespread awareness in our culture that women do not pursue careers in mathematics-related fields in equal numbers to men. Efforts to address this disparity by reforming mathematics education have met with some success; recent research shows that girls’ achievements in mathematics stay on par with those of boys through secondary school. There still remains, however, a significant disparity between young men and young women’s participation and success in mathematics at the postsecondary level, leading to what many now call the leaky mathematics pipeline (Oakes; Watt, Eccles, and Durik). While some still argue that women and men have different aptitudes for mathematics, many researchers have concluded that sex differences in aptitude and achievement in mathematics are minimal. In a 2005 critical review of such studies, Jeremy Caplan and Paula Caplan argue that meaningful sex differences in mathematical ability have never been found, and that when such differences are found they are “massively confounded with factors related to individual experience” (Caplan and Caplan 42). If differences in aptitude and ability do not necessarily force women out of mathematics, then what experiences do young women have within the field that cause them to leave mathematics at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels? Researchers have examined women’s experiences within the classroom and in professional settings in an effort to understand why and how young women become alienated from mathematics. The most recent manifestation of this work looks specifically at how our culture constructs both gender and mathematics in ways that ensure that girls and women have a difficult time understanding themselves as mathematicians (Walkerdine; Mendick, “Beautiful”; Mendick, “Mathematical”; Rodd and Bartholomew). Valerie Walkerdine, one of the first to make this argument, states:

the proof of masculinity as rational, as possessing knowledge, as superior, has constantly to be reasserted and set against the equal and opposite proof of femininity’s failure and lack. This is not to collude with the idea that women . . . really “are” lacking, but to demonstrate the investment made in proving this.

Such “proof” is based, in this analysis, not on any easy certainty, but on the terrors and paranoias of the powerful . . . Girls do not grow up to autonomy but on one side of a sexual divide already replete with myth and fantasy . . . The struggle girls face is not easy.

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More recent research confirms this argument, and findings suggest that young female mathematics students feel forced to choose between their femininity and their identity as mathematicians, putting them in what seems to be an untenable position (Mendick, “Mathematical”; Rodd and Bartholomew). Some have argued that this may be one reason young women who have achieved great success in the field nevertheless drop out of mathematics after secondary school (Mendick, “Beautiful”; Mendick, “Mathematical”).

In this article I examine the relationship between the construction of femininity and our cultural understanding of rationality and mathematics and then use the framework I develop to consider Danica McKellar’s best-selling mathematics books for middle and high school girls, Math Doesn’t Suck (2007), Kiss My Math (2008), and Hot X (2010). McKellar is perhaps most well-known as a television actress, starring in the 1990s sitcom Wonder Years as Winnie Cooper and in the more recent drama The West Wing as Elsie Snuffin. Between acting jobs, however, McKellar graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in mathematics and is the co-author of a mathematical physics theorem that bears her name (the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem). In her three mathematics books for girls, McKellar goes step-by-step through key mathematical concepts in chapters titled, “How To Entertain Yourself While Babysitting a Devil Child,” “Can a Guy Be Too Cute?” and “Does She Ever Get Off the Phone?” With content written specifically for girls and a book design that echoes teen magazines, McKellar intends for her books to make mathematics more appealing to girls. I examine McKellar’s books through the lens of feminist epistemology, feminist cultural theory, and feminist theoretical work in the field of mathematics education. Can books like the ones McKellar...