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I remember a few days before the start of my freshman year of high school, I was at the college library making copies of math competition tests so I could start
by dkarl 16y ago
I remember a few days before the start of my freshman year of high school, I was at the college library making copies of math competition tests so I could start practicing for the upcoming season of competition. While I was there, I saw a girl who was on the math team the year before in junior high, so I told her what I was doing and asked her if she wanted some practice tests. She said, "No," and just walked away, but there was a world in that "No." She was offended. She was insulted. She had been pretty good at the math competitions in junior high, but she quickly fell behind in high school and then quit the math team/club. She did drama and speech instead. She still took honors math classes and aced them, and I even heard she did engineering in college, but she would never admit to actually liking it enough to go beyond what was required by classwork.
Similarly, the girls I met in college who were getting degrees in math and engineering never admitted to having an interest in those subjects beyond doing well in their classes and getting degrees. The two girls in the math program were keen to express their interest in the money they would make as actuaries or what-not. They had to like math, or they never would have chosen to be math majors, but they never showed any sign of it, and (stung by my previous experience) I was scared to even imply that they might.
So yeah, there is a huge fear of nerdiness among women, and I don't think the "nerd chic" thing helps at all. There's no celebration in "nerd chic" culture of honestly frumpy people (there can't be in any "___ chic" culture, "___ chic" will never help anyone who isn't chic) so of all the girls I've known who I suspected of secretly liking math, maybe one of them would have felt at home there.
I went to high school in a small city (large town, really) in a rural area, and I went to college at a non-elite public school (went there for the honors program) so you guys who went the elite route may have seen vastly different things. In terms of numbers, though, I suspect my experience was more representative.
- telemachos 16y agoSo yeah, there is a huge fear of nerdiness among women I suppose my only problem with your story (or the conclusions you draw from it, really) is that you could substitute "men" or "boys" or "people" or "high school students" or "college students" for "women" without any real problem. Lots of people are afraid to appear smart in public.
- untamedmedley 16y agoThe difference here is probably the degree to which this affects each gender. While no man wants to limit his options in women, being in a relationship probably doesn't define his sense of self-worth the way it does with women. Of course, not all women are this way, but women often sacrifice bits of themselves in the name of love. We are more likely to: 1. Give up time with our friends/hobbies to be completely there for a boyfriend, all the time. 2. Move to a new city to be with a guy (who sometimes isn't even planning to marry us), giving up any career progress made to date. And that's even before adding a layer of geekiness that I've found acts as man repellent to most "mainstream" male populations. I cannot just go to a party and start talking about how happy I am that Mass Effect 2 is coming to PS3 now that I sold my 360, nor can I go any deeper than "I like computers" with most guys. It's just not all that hot. But the chick who has a fantasy football team (and doesn't know it's filled with D-list players) gets the welcome mat (eta: because sports is accepted in the mainstream).
- dkarl 16y agoWhile no man wants to limit his options in women, being in a relationship probably doesn't define his sense of self-worth the way it does with women. I don't know if that's true, or if that's an incorrect assumption based on how often we do things that sabotage our chances of being in relationships. I'm thinking of high school, when I obsessed over girls and pretty much did consider myself a worthless failure for not being able to talk to girls and get them to like me, yet behaved in such a way that you would think I was bent on keeping them away from me. A big part of the reason I worked so hard on math and science was that I had a vague but deep-seated conviction that being really good at something would eventually impress some girl and help me get with her. Perhaps that notion is what girls need to be programmed with the way boys are.