Washington Area Women's Foundation

Math & Girls or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Math

Inglourious Basterds Finger Counting
In the film “Inglourious Basterds,” Lt. Archie Hicox loses his life for counting on his fingers.  I’m pretty sure that won’t happen to me, but it’s a habit I’m going to break anyway.

I have a secret shame.  It’s an embarrassing habit that I could break if I really wanted to, but I haven’t had the confidence to do so.  My secret is that I count on my fingers.  And sometimes on my toes.  I don’t mean in a way that illustrates or proves a point.  I mean I do it when I’m performing simple math equations, or when I’m figuring out how much change I’m owed.  I have other little math-related quirks, too.  I always write down any equation involving more than two digits.  If I need to do calculations for work, I’ll go over the same set of numbers five or six times, just to make sure I wasn’t wrong the first four times.  I double check my multiplication with addition.  When it’s time for me to tip someone, I have an iPhone app for that – even though I know how to figure out what 20% of a number is in my head.

I know I’m not alone with all my math-related eccentricities.  According to this article from MedicalNewsToday.com, a new study has found that girls are not worse at math than boys.  Boys, however, are more confident in their math abilities than girls are.  We, as women, obviously aren’t genetically predisposed to do poorly in math.  So why don’t more of us have the confidence to not only do well in it, but go on to have careers in science, technology, engineering and math?  One of the researchers behind the new study says it boils down to our education system and who we look up to.

According to Villanova’s Nicole Else-Quest, PhD, “[the study shows] that girls will perform at the same level as the boys when they are given the right educational tools and have visible female role models excelling in mathematics.”

The study also found that in countries where large numbers of women held research-related jobs, girls in those countries performed better and had more confidence in their math skills.  The most important factor, according to Else-Quest, is the value that schools, educators and families place on girls’ learning math.

Thinking about this study and its implications has really encouraged me to change my bad math habits.  No more using the phrases “I’m bad at math” or “sorry, I’m not a mathlete” as excuses.  No more counting on my fingers.  If we can, as a whole, influence the confidence girls have in their abilities, I think we owe it to them to have a little more confidence in ourselves.