Childhoods vary, and some are awful, but you always learn things! What about your childhood made you strong? Did your parents teach you valuable skills? Did you pick up things from peers? Observe things? Tell us below!
Childhoods vary, and some are awful, but you always learn things! What about your childhood made you strong? Did your parents teach you valuable skills? Did you pick up things from peers? Observe things? Tell us below!
I was lucky enough to grow up in an environment that did neither explicitly nor implicitly teach that there are things women are supposed to be good at or bad at. There are a lot of women in my extended family who pursued careers in STEM and even some in male dominated fields like car mechanics. Others have “traditional” women’s jobs like hairdresser or teacher. It was never discussed, it was normal for me.
I think the first time I heard that women are supposedly bad at maths, was sometime in elementary school, when it was already my favourite subject.
It made me quite resilient to these kinds of internalised stereotypes.
I was rendered mathematically declined by teachers who had internalized “girls are bad at math”. If a boy struggled in a math class he got support and aid from the teachers. If a girl struggled in the same math class there was this casual dismissal “it’s too much for your pretty head”. (Not vocalized in those words, but still clear nonetheless.)
By the time I had a math teacher who didn’t treat things this way, I hated maths. I can learn them when I need them for something, but I will never enjoy the process.
It makes me so sad when children are talked out of their potential.
Relevant xkcd