Mathematics, Gender and Culture

by John Kellermeier

Published in: (1995). Transformations, 6(2), 35-53, along with a sample syllabus for a Mathematics, Gender, and Culture course.
The syllabus from the last time this course was taught is available here.

INTRODUCTION

Here's a geometry problem to consider. You're about to build a shed. You want the shed to be 6 feet wide by 10 feet long. Your first problem is where to put the shed. To decide this you'll need to lay out a 6 by 10 foot rectangle on the ground and see if you like it there. You start by cutting two boards 6 feet long and two boards 10 feet long. Now, lay the boards out in a rectangle. You remember from high school geometry that a rectangle is a figure with four sides and four right angles. Well, how do you get those right angles? You could try to find a carpenter's square or something with a built in right angle. Or if you remember the Pythagorean theorem you might to calculate exactly how long the diagonal of your rectangle should be.

But, there's an easier way to get your right angles. All you need is a rope at least as long as the diagonal of your rectangle. Lay out the boards so that all the ends are together. This gives you a four sided figure. Now use the rope to measure the diagonals. Adjust the boards until the diagonals are equal. Then you've got a rectangle.

About now you're thinking, I thought this article was supposed to be about gender and culture and not just a lesson in geometry. What does all this have to do with either of those? Well, this method of laying out a foundation for a rectangular building comes from the people of Mozambique (See Gerdes, 1988). This is one of the methods they use to layout the rectangular bases of their houses. So now a rectangle can be defined as a four sided figure with equal opposite sides and equal diagonals.

The point is that how you define a rectangle is based in part on your culture. And this is true even when you don't realize you are defining a rectangle. Mozambicans young people, in school to learn to be teachers, don't see their parents' house building as geometry until it is pointed out to them. Why is this? People throughout the world, both adults and children, routinely arrive at school with an "indigenous" or "ethno-" mathematical knowledge. D'Ambrosio (1985) defines this ethnomathematics as "the mathematics which is practised among identifiable cultural groups, such as national-tribal societies, labour groups, children of a certain age bracket, professional classes and so on." He contrasts ethnomathematics with "'academic mathematics', i.e. the mathematics which is taught and learned in the schools." The Mozambican children, know of their parents' ethnomathematical abilities, but they don't conceive of those abilities as having anything to do "academic mathematics." Their parents are just building houses.

This phenomenon happens frequently when students encounter academic mathematics. Their ethnomathematics comes in conflict with academic mathematics. Their original skills are ignored, downgraded, even belittled and eventually forgotten leaving many to think and say, "I can't do mathematics."

Another look at what counts within "academic mathematics" shows the role that gender plays as well. Harris (1987) gives the example from industry of lagging a right-angled cylindrical pipe. She points out that this problem is considered inherently mathematical while the identical problem, designing the heel of a sock, is not. Her suggestion as to why this is so "is that socks are traditionally knitted by Granny--and nobody expects her to be mathematical." This example points out the androcentrism inherent in mathematics.

This all derives out of a Eurocentric bias in mathematics. According to Joseph (1987), this Eurocentric bias results from

  1. a general disinclination to locate mathematics in a materialistic base and thus link its development with economic, political and cultural changes.
  2. a tendency to perceive mathematical pursuits as confined to an elite, a select few who possess the requisite qualities or gifts denied to the vast majority of humanity.
  3. a widespread acceptance of the view that mathematical discovery can only follow from a rigorous application of a form of deductive axiomatic logic and hence that 'intuitive' or empirical methods are dismissed as of little relevance in mathematics.
  4. the belief that the presentation of mathematical results must conform to the formal and didactic style following the pattern set by the Greeks over 2,000 years ago.

Yet these describe the mathematical experiences of a relatively small number of people world wide, mostly white men. Other mathematical experiences are not valued. Put simply, mathematics is viewed as an elite primarily white male domain. In the United States, for example, roughly three of every four doctoral degrees in the mathematical sciences awarded to U.S. citizens go to white males and only about one in a hundred go to women of color (National Research Council, 1989).

THE COURSE DEVELOPMENT

This paper describes a course on Mathematics, Gender and Culture I developed to address eurocentrism and androcentrism, that is, racism, sexism and elitism, in mathematics. This course was developed during the spring of 1993. At that time, I took part in a faculty development seminar designed to help faculty at SUNY Plattsburgh develop courses for our General Education category of Perspectives on Global Issues.

All courses in this category require a global perspective and, in the words of our General Education Program, "substantive inclusion of recent scholarship on women and minorities." Consequently, my course was designed with two objectives: first, to examine from a global perspective the experiences of women and people of color with mathematics, and second, to consider the effects of culture, particularly non-white culture, on the development and doing of mathematics. The Mathematics, Gender and Culture course then has two themes: 1) the study of gender and race differences in mathematics throughout the world, and 2) the study of ethnomathematics. While it is an approved course within the Mathematics Department, it is also cross listed with the Women's Studies Program at SUNY Plattsburgh and is an elective for the Minor in Women's Studies. A detailed description of this course can be found in the accompanying syllabus.

TEACHING THE COURSE.

After having taught this course for four semesters I believe it has been successful. Students taking this course vary widely in major and mathematical background. Most students choose to take the course to fulfill the General Education Global Perspectives requirement.

At the beginning of the course. most students say that they cannot see how mathematics, gender and culture are related. However, by the end of the semester they report that they are now aware of the sexism and racism within mathematics. For many students this is the first course in which they deal with sexism or racism in a substantial way.

For many students, mostly female or students of color, this course enabled them to put their own experiences with mathematics into perspective. In end-of-the semester comments, one female student wrote,

"This class was a real eye opener for me. It has helped me make a lot more sense out of my own education. I realize that if I was encouraged to do well in math and expected to do as well in math as I did in other areas, I might have done better."

For another female student, this awareness lead to a sense of empowerment:

"I have gained so much after taking this class. I am not only aware of the problems inside the mathematical system but I have gained a better sense of myself. I now can evaluate my own life and see how I was discouraged from math. I have also gained a great amount of math confidence which I can use for future classes. Although I vowed never to take another math class I am actually contemplating registering for one."

Since most students took this course to fulfill a general education requirement, there were many, female as well as male, who would not otherwise be inclined to take a women's studies course. Many of them were surprised to find a mathematics course with women's studies content. Although there was hostility from some male students at first during one of the semesters, it soon dissipated. I believe this was due to two demonstrations. The first day of class I asked students to visualize a mathematician. A large majority of them visualized of white male. This was undeniable evidence of bias in mathematics. Secondly, I asked students who were skeptical of our readings to simply count how many times instructors in their other classes called on males and females. The overwhelming amount of bias against female participation in the classroom soon became apparent to these students in their own classes. Once they granted that bias did in fact exist, they were willing to hear the remainder of the messages about sexism and racism in mathematics. In the words of one of these students:

"The first few days of class, I thought you made all men out to be pigs, and thus, began to develop an immediate negative impression of you. After a few weeks, I began to see some of the points you made in class when I started doing surveys of my own in my other classes. I began taking notice of the attention my professors gave to males over females and the amount male students spoke out over female students in classes. By seeing first hand what you discussed in class, made a compounding impression. I realized then the difference between making men out to be pigs, and trying to fight for the rights of women."

CONCLUSION

Overall, I believe that this course effectively met both objectives: 1) to examine from a global perspective the experiences of women and people of color with mathematics, and 2) to consider the effects of culture, particularly non-white culture, on the development and doing of mathematics.

Students learned that not all mathematicians are white males standing in front of a blackboard. They learn that white women and all people of color face discrimination in the world of academic mathematics. But they also learn that women of color were the earliest mathematicians, that mathematical ideas come from many cultures not just Western society, and that mathematics is something they successfully do everyday of their lives. As one student said, "Now I see that a construction worker is a mathematician just as much as a baker is and a math teacher is."

This course is a first step toward changing student's perceptions of mathematics and making them aware of the sexism, racism, and elitism in mathematics. In the words of one of the students,

"I learned about the effects of thinking who the mathematicians of the past were... about the importance of finding the relevance of math... that math is everywhere such as cooking and sewing. I think the biggest thing I learned is that we can all do math but we need support and encouragement from others. I now know that there are no differences in the genes of females or Blacks which do not allow them to do math as well as other groups."

REFERENCES

©2009 John Kellermeier