Paradigm shift: Is it actually possible to love what you’re doing?
Okay, so it isn’t such a big question to ask; but, work has, for a long time, been something that people did in order to pay the bills and to buy the occasional item that they desired but didn’t require. It wasn’t something that they were supposed to enjoy; no, instead, the very idea of work as something that people could love doing was just out of the question.
Why, then, do people today still choose to work in professions that they don’t quite enjoy? Stereotypes shouldn’t be applied, and yet, even without trying to, they are seen all over university campuses everywhere. Take the University of Waterloo, which is where I am currently enrolled. Programs such as accounting have a much higher ratio of Asians-to-Caucasians than, say, engineering. Even gender stereotypes still exist; the male-to-female ratio in the Faculty of Mathematics is 72:28, and in the Faculty of Engineering, it’s 78:22. But in the Faculty of Arts, the ratio is 29:71. One of the primary causes for this huge imbalance is stereotypes.
In my English course that I’m taking this term, we’re doing research projects on one of four topics; one of the topics is ‘women in mathematics.’ The goal of that topic is to come to a conclusion of why there are such low enrollment numbers of women in the Faculty of Mathematics, and how this can be resolved. A good chunk of the women in mathematics are in it because - surprise, surprise - they actually love it.
I just came back from my English class today, where all the groups did their presentations on what they’ve learned and researched. One of the groups that did their presentation on Women in Mathematics mentioned that what we should do to increase popularity and change the views of women about math, is to make bigger changes at a younger age. So for instance, in pre-school, girls usually play with dolls, and the boys usually play with building blocks (a stereotype, yes, but one that’s pretty accurate.) The boys building blocks is more than just a way to spend their time; it also helps them with their analytical and problem solving skills. They figure out where blocks go to build the desired object that they wish to build. Girls play with dolls, and the primary thing that they get out of it is creativity, but in a very limited way, because dolls aren’t as abstract as blocks and therefore can’t be applied to as large a field of subjects. Blocks are very abstract, and so boys can take the knowledge that they learned in pre-school, build on it and hone their skills, and then apply block building to, say, building computer software, or constructing the next Eiffel Tower.
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There is a much more cruel aspect in the problem of women in mathematics.
A rarely discussed side effect of doing mathematics is that mathematics is a weapon of personal empowerment. To be successful in mathematics, you have to be bold, you have to be absolutely independent in your thinking. When you prove something new, you are in the unique position of being the only person on the Earth who knows the Truth - and is prepared to defend it. On the other hand, the principles of mathematical rigor give you the right to question whatever other mathematicians say. If this still does not sound to you as a recipe for trouble, you can also take into consideration that research mathematics is fiercely competitive. An explosive brew.
Mathematics is highly psychologically charged and competitive, but fights remain invisible for the onlooker and are strictly ritualized by a very strong research ethics and the principles of mathematical rigor. Arguments are rarely linked to money and, therefore, do not lead to serious bloodletting. Mathematicians usually look in disgust at the morals in many other, more practical disciplines, where high cost of research (and the scarcity of funding) and lack of clear criteria of rigor naturally instill a dog-eats-dog mentality. (A mathematician friend who recently accepted a position in one of the leading engineering departments, complained to me that his new department has no regular research seminars and that his colleagues do not talk to each other about their research: everyone is bound by gagging clauses in his research contracts with the industry.) But when money gets involved, everything becomes depersonalized: what matters is not who you are but what is your place in the pecking order. We are all accustomed to seeing fools in high places, and although the spectacle is rarely pleasant, it does not get deep under the skin. A male chauvinist can tolerate a woman in a position of superiority by treating her as yet another case of undeserved promotion.
The crucial difference of mathematics from many other walks of life is that its power games are deeply personal in the purest possible sense. To recognize someone as a fellow mathematician means to accept that she is intellectually equal (or even superior) to you and that she has the right to wear, like knight’s armor, her aura of intellectual confidence and independence. Too many men will still feel uncomfortable with that.
Unfortunately, we still live in the culture where women are allowed to play, on equal footing with men, the conformity games in the office or even in politics, but are disapproved and penalized if they show real intellectual independence.
I do not know the easy way to change the position of women in mathematics. I would suggest, tentatively, that when promoting mathematics, we should put more stress on its personal
empowerment aspect; we should encourage competitiveness and independent thinking; we should openly talk to our students about the power games of mathematics. It does not easily fit into the existing policy of mathematical education, but it is worth trying.
Alexandre,
Thanks for your very detailed insight into this situation. I am extremely glad that there are people out there that care about this issue so deeply, and you have motivated me to write and think more, and longer and harder with each article that I write on my blog.
Gary
Alexandre,
That’s a very idealistic view of women in math, based more in the culture of mathematicians than in the practical question of why women would want to do mathematics themselves.
Have you considered that some smart women are simply not interested in math? One woman I met in UW’s advanced math program dropped out to start a pole dancing studio. One girl who dropped advanced math with an 100% average is now headed for a future in New York finance where she can “work with people” rather than sit at a desk writing research papers. Another, a pure math major and top scholar, collects Hello Kitty merchandise on the side and has soured of math entirely.
Those are just personal anecdotes, but you might be interested to know that the Math-Business Double Degree program has among the highest entering averages in UW’s Math faculty. Why is that? I’d wager it’s because these are smart people, potentially great mathematicians, who are nonetheless looking for more than a life of theorems and proofs.
These women are certainly “good at math,” but they have a breadth of skills and believe the others would be more fulfilling. I think that even with gender inequality removed from the situation — even if these girls were raised by parents who strongly believed in gender equality and if the girls went to schools full of students that believed the same — they would still choose other pursuits.