akaalexia:

                This whole rant here started with a conversation about a Math project.

                I won’t go into details about said math project. It has a reputation for being ugly, hard, difficult and most of all impossible. I was reading the rubric to pass it for being online, and as a side effect of coming to the slow painful conclusion that I had no idea what it was about, proceeded to freak out.

                My father, who was no doubt worried that his daughter was having a moment of silence for her GPA came in to comfort me.

                I don’t really know how we got to this. My dad has always really blown at positive encouragement, not exactly his fault being a math guy, but he tends to say things that usually are the worst thing to say at the time. Not always, but whenever it comes to the problems of teenage girls, yes.

                Somewhere in the conversation this came up. He was trying to show me that I couldn’t give up before I tried. A good life lesson. However, the way it was phrased caused steam to boil out of my ears.

Father:  At work I notice a difference between men and women.
Me:…..

Father: You see, I’ve noticed when men see a problem they don’t know how to solve, they decide to figure it out. When women do, they freak out at once and say they can’t do it.

Me: ….

Father: They tend to get all emotional and set themselves up to fail when men accept the task before them and *other junk*

Me: Excuse me?

I think that was the moment when my Dad proceeded to stick his foot in his mouth and realize he had said something very wrong. I steamed at him for the next hour. I could hear him talk to my mom downstairs about all these studies about men and women (I think he was trying to say I was overreacting, or at least to convince himself I was) while I threw a rage riot in my head.

I tried to explain to him in the car later, how being a girl kind of sucks.  He really didn’t get it.  Perhaps it is because I have never exactly been eloquent in speech as I am in writing. So here, in words, is why I am so damn tired of hearing about the difference between men being ‘more rational, smart, etc.’ than women.

-Because of that boy in my freshmen math class who refused to let me answer questions because I wasn’t a ‘real mathematician’. The same boy who got the questions I answered right, wrong.

-Because of how I was always ignored in Science Olympiad even though my answers were always right because I was a girl and thus clearly not as smart. I quit a year later.

-Because since I wasn’t pretty in middle school I was treated like a shadow. More because of the fact that me complaining about this is a stupid grudge between school girls is being silly even though they made fun of my anxiety disorder.

-Because of the boy who in my class says sexism doesn’t exist the same day I go home and see that women are still not paid the same as men.

-Because of the teacher who seems to imply I’m fragile even though I carry a Bassoon to school every day.

-To the boy that told me ‘same difference’ when it came to the difference between birth control and abortion on the bus when I was trying to explain the difference. I have taken bio. I actually have a uterus.  Seems legit, kiddo.

-To my brother who comes home and tells me I should go get him food and later talks about how women are weaker than men due to fucking ‘genetics’.

-How being a feminism means ‘man hating’ to every teacher in the school so all of them say they aren’t one.

That’s why I’m angry. That is why I am fed up. I am tired of some guy/girl/ect. treating me like shit because I’m a girl. I’m tired of anyone treating someone like shit because they have a vagina or because they identify as a woman. I’m tired of being told how I should feel, what I should due, due to some stupid society ideal of the perfect women.

My name is Rebecca. I wear jeans and almost never skirts. I’m good at math even though I hate it. I’m in the top 99% of my age on standardized testing. I can beat a good deal of people arm wrestling. I like getting dirty. I never cry. When I was seven, my father told me that no matter what people said, I was brilliant at math.

I wish I still believed him.  The voices around me say otherwise.

This is one of the reasons I am a feminist, and why feminism is still so very very important. 

Rebecca - I’m sure you are brilliant at math. Probably more brilliant than most of your fellow students, teachers, your brother and  your dad.

My niece is 2 grade levels ahead in her math class. She’s told me that she gets called on less than the boys in class and her teachers just don’t think she’s as smart. 

Fuck all of the people who assume girls aren’t as good math, who raise girls telling and teaching them that their skills are only inherent, and maybe they’re just not “good enough” at some things, while they teach boys that the world is just full of problems to solve… and then talk about how “boys are better at math”.