Masculinities in Mathematics (Educating Boys Learning Gender)
By Heather Mendick
* Publisher: Open University Press
* Number Of Pages: 192
* Publication Date: 2006-06-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 033521827X
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780335218271
* Binding: Paperback
Summary: Math + Gender Studies
Rating: 3
Scholars have moved away from discussing "masculinity" to discussing "masculinities." Usually that means discussing cultural characteristics of different types of males: older vs. younger, gay vs. straight, white vs. of color, etc. Here, however, the author deems mathematics as a masculine activity and thus she speaks for males and females performing different masculinities. The title may lead some to think this book would entirely concern males and that is far from the case.
The author thinks multidirectionally. She asks how math shapes women and also how women shape math. She troubles, she would say "she queers," the idea of "choice." She seeks to prove that just because females opt out of math doesn't mean it was not a forced decision.
This book may frustrate readers. The author begins by analyzing students at three different schools and then drops them. There are several chapters that have nothing to do with her interview pool. The author wants to destabilize binaries, what Wes Crichlow refers to as "Manichean" concepts. Still, many chapters drop that theme altogether. As an American, it's still difficult for me to understand A levels and O levels and all that. But if you translate her concern into, "Why do so few women major in math during college?", you'll understand her ideas. The author does a lot of gleaning. She'll describe something she observed and then apply all kinds of theory to back it up. So many feminist writers build off of Adrienne Rich mostly or alone or Simone de Beauvoir mostly or alone that it may jolt readers the way this author pulls concepts from everywhere and the kitchen sink.
To her credit, the author basically says, "Math is just as racialized and classed as it is gendered, but I'm focusing on gender here." When discussing Black students, she brings up Black scholars. However, many of her subjects were Asian and she says close to nothing on their ethnicity. I wonder if Asian-American studies has really impacted this nation in a way that an equivalent hasn't been achieved in Britain. When I took calculus, all the female students were Asian and they composed half of the class. Because their fathers or both parents were doctors, they wanted to be doctors too and knew math was a requirement to that goal. Taking advanced math didn't damage their feminine identity in the slightest. It's a bit troubling when you have a multiracial pool, yet only the Blacks are deemed racialized.
This book is not an easy read. Even I'm surprised that I read this while not being in some fancy graduate school. As much as the authors critiques the idea that seeing more female mathematicians would bring more women into the field, I think the author acts as a role model in that she can conquer both math and gender studies at a time when many would think even intelligent people can only focus on one or the other. You have to be a very sophisticated reader to understand this text.
http://ifile.it/s3yoxle/033521827X.rar
