Models and Mystification

Abstract

In response to the points raised by Carr-Hill I would like to describe the use of Mathematical Mystification to keep women in their intellectual place. The higher places of the academic intellectual community are organised around a few secretive priesthoods. As the business community has the locker-room talk, the squash games and the old-boy network, our intellectual elites have a monastery-like atmosphere to communicate and screen information, make reputations, and in general organise distribution of power. Until puberty the distribution of mathematical talent is uniform across the sexes. Afterwards it changes drastically. Studies have confirmed that girls' interest in mathematics plummets at around age 12, when adolescence makes them more aware of roles (see 'Math Mystique: Fear of Figuring', Time. 14th March 1977; the work of Lynn Fox' doctoral dissertation at Johns Hopkins University; and the findings of the National Institute of Education meeting in Washington, D.C., USA, February 1977). The myth starts there. Young women are forcefully discouraged, intimidated and coerced into either thinking they are no good for mathematics, or that their chances are very slim.