It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

Elisheba

Wednesday2000 said:

It is true that some people cannot do even simple maths in their head. I went to a very good school in London and I was in the top stream as well, but I remember being told many times that "Girls don't need to know Maths" and I am only 46 by the way. I am okay at basic maths as my Dad helped me with my homework occasionally, but a lot of my friends at school were not. I was the one who had to work out splitting the bill between us in restaurants when we went out.

How odd! I'm 4/5 years younger than you and went to a not particularly good school in a not particularly nice area of Glasgow, and Maths was compulsory until till 4th year (the year we sat Standard Grades, the Scottish equivalent of O levels) and we were all pushed and gender was never mentioned. Things can't have changed that much in 4/5 years surely? 

Bluegreen143

@sammy_kaye18 if it helps, I always use salted butter for cakes and icing as that’s all I buy - tbh I always add salt to cakes and baked stuff too, really brings out the flavour. So you could try that instead of making your own if you wanted! 

GaleSF63

Elisheba said:

Wednesday2000 said:

It is true that some people cannot do even simple maths in their head. I went to a very good school in London and I was in the top stream as well, but I remember being told many times that "Girls don't need to know Maths" and I am only 46 by the way. I am okay at basic maths as my Dad helped me with my homework occasionally, but a lot of my friends at school were not. I was the one who had to work out splitting the bill between us in restaurants when we went out.

How odd! I'm 4/5 years younger than you and went to a not particularly good school in a not particularly nice area of Glasgow, and Maths was compulsory until till 4th year (the year we sat Standard Grades, the Scottish equivalent of O levels) and we were all pushed and gender was never mentioned. Things can't have changed that much in 4/5 years surely? 

It is odd! I was at secondary school in the 1960s and there was no difference in the treatment of, or attitude towards girls, at all, from day one right through school.

euronorris

I think it probably depends on the school and/or teacher. The secondary school I attended used to be all boys. When I started it was the first year of them accepting girls (so there weren't many of us). I was very sporty back then and very keen to do PE GCSE. My PE teacher, however, was not. Tried to tell me several times that I couldn't do it. The headmistress had to step in and have a word with him in the end. I'm 39 now, and I remember that this was not a problem in any of the schools that mh other friends attended. 

tooldle

These gendered expectations, comments etc around Mathematics are sadly still very common.
I am a female Engineer, qualified to doctoral level. My work involves an element of trying to improve the balance in the pipeline. Over the years of my career, I've heard far to many comments to quote.  It is really not a surprise that the level of Math and Science education is so low in the population. So many females are lost to Math, Physics, Chemistry etc far too early in their education.
Even in my own family my Grandfather asked my Dad' why he wanted to educate me'. My School brought in a Careers Advisor in the mid Eighties. On hearing my aspirations, he suggested Nursing to be a career i should consider. Nothing wrong with nursing, but it is certainly not engineering, nor it is in anyway aligned to my interests within my chosen field. 

ladyholly

tooldle said:

These gendered expectations, comments etc around Mathematics are sadly still very common.
I am a female Engineer, qualified to doctoral level. My work involves an element of trying to improve the balance in the pipeline. Over the years of my career, I've heard far to many comments to quote.  It is really not a surprise that the level of Math and Science education is so low in the population. So many females are lost to Math, Physics, Chemistry etc far too early in their education.
Even in my own family my Grandfather asked my Dad' why he wanted to educate me'. My School brought in a Careers Advisor in the mid Eighties. On hearing my aspirations, he suggested Nursing to be a career i should consider. Nothing wrong with nursing, but it is certainly not engineering, nor it is in anyway aligned to my interests within my chosen field. 

Unless careers advisers have improved over the last few years the advice that many receive at school is at best useless and at worst destructive. I have not heard of anyone being given useful advice and for girls especially the options they offer and have information on tends to be limited to teaching, nursing, childcare, hairdressing and retail. It really is time that these advisers brought their scope into the 21st century I would say those are all admirable careers for many boys and girls but there is so much more out there and I, for one, wish other jobs were explained a bit more.

Floss

Elisheba said:

Wednesday2000 said:

It is true that some people cannot do even simple maths in their head. I went to a very good school in London and I was in the top stream as well, but I remember being told many times that "Girls don't need to know Maths" and I am only 46 by the way. I am okay at basic maths as my Dad helped me with my homework occasionally, but a lot of my friends at school were not. I was the one who had to work out splitting the bill between us in restaurants when we went out.

How odd! I'm 4/5 years younger than you and went to a not particularly good school in a not particularly nice area of Glasgow, and Maths was compulsory until till 4th year (the year we sat Standard Grades, the Scottish equivalent of O levels) and we were all pushed and gender was never mentioned. Things can't have changed that much in 4/5 years surely? 

There was no national curriculum until after the Education Reform Act in 1988 so schools could do this - although one would have thought reputation would have been a big factor in ensuring girls could get on in the world, unless the school educated pupils who weren't expected to have a career?

greent

I work in a school - mixed gender - and we pride ourselves on our STEM achievements. Our science and maths A level classes have more boys than girls - but so does our VIth form in general, so it's a fair split of how the school is overall. In fact, we have very few students in comparison taking all non-STEM subjects, and the classes for these are much smaller in size. We also really promote STEM careers to everyone - we are quite lucky where I live to have some very good STEM employers who actively encourage girls to apply for jobs and we get these in to school to our 'careers fair' to talk to students and promote themselves. It's quite sad that this isn't the normal, tbh - I forget how lucky we are here with our schools and their links sometimes. The downside in some ways is that fewer schools seem to be offering a wide range of non STEM subjects at A level - the emphasis (and popularity) has seemingly moved away from Humanities and Arts.

I left school in the 1980s and went to an all girls school - even back then we were still encouraged to take STEM subjects for A levels and degrees. 

elsien

I went to a school which had recently changed from all male to mixed. Only 3 -5 girls in each class.
It was a very odd mixture at A level of “why are you doing those nasty boys subjects” and the subtext that any other other than the very traditional subjects weren’t “proper” ones. 

That place did my self confidence no good at all. 

Siebrie

At my primary school (in the 70s) we had a schoolwide 'handycraft afternoon' every Friday. All classes would learn some craft. The first years (6yr olds) had cutting paper and glueing, the sixth years (12yr olds) had sewing machine, woodworking, etc. Now, from 4th year, it was split according to gender, so the girls had knitting, and the boys leatherwork. My Mum (working night shifts at this point) volunteered on these afternoons, and as soon as she figured this out she set about changing things. It took a whole year, but from my 5th year on, we were allowed to pick which 'module' we wanted to take. I always picked the traditional boys' crafts