Snips And Snails And Puppy Dogs' Tails: Genderism And Mathematics Education By Indigo Esmonde

Snips And Snails And Puppy Dogs' Tails: Genderism And Mathematics Education By Indigo Esmonde

In this article Esmonde mainly focuses on genderism and its role in education. Although the title of article promises to explore educating mathematics in the context of genderism, there is not much about mathematics education in particular. She starts his article by emphasizing on boy’s issues in learning mathematics and highlights to what extent “the troubles of boys have not been a major of focus” in the past studies. She represents several boy’s educational problems that have been revealed by Dr. Spence as the director of Toronto district school board, such as underachievement when compared to girls, over-representation in learning support program, anti-learning culture, and disruptive and violent behaviors in schools. From Spence’s point of view, the reasons behind these problematic issues are the lack of role model in boy’s life or having female teachers who do not know the true nature and needs of boys. Esmonde believes that Spence’s solutions to overcome these issues are not appropriate and might make more gender issues.

Esmonde highlights although there are several studies regarding the genderism in education since the notion and definition of gender and sex is not clearly defined, the issues are not addressed well. So, in the rest of her article, she tries to clarify the differences between sex and gender in the view of biology and social terms. She believes there are many parameters that are involved in forming a person character such as culture, society, and personal beliefs, so, it is not so easy to point or judge a person as a man or woman, male or female. She argues people’s behaviors are influenced by the social situation that people are involved. For instance, a manager wears a suit and tie at his work but in the park, he just wears a jean and shirt. She believes, nowadays, gender is not limited to male and female, so, another gender such queer people, or gender non-conforming people must be considered in mathematics education. She put emphasis on mathematical questions that only address male and female and the way people interpret questions means there was not any other gender. From her point of view, neglecting these people in the educational system is a mistake that makes gender issues.

My expectation from this article was reading boy’s issues in mathematics education and understanding the reasons behind these problems and finding at least some solutions. However, I have found this article advocating for involving queer gender people in mathematics education and several issues that have been arisen from this lack of attention. I do not contradict the point of view of Esmonde but I still do not understand the necessity of involving another gender in mathematics educations. Also, I do not see the relevance of this involvement with the boy’s issues in mathematics educations. What is your point of view regarding the involvement of queer people, or gender non-conforming people or another gender in mathematics educations?

As a part of this article, the author states that to overcome issues related to boys and girls in the school, it might be a good idea to de-gender the classroom. As a person who comes from de-gender schools, I am not agreed with this solution. Separating boys and girls might solve some banal problems but my experiences show that it arises several problematic issues. I believe boys and girls have different nature and needs and it is not reasonable to treat them similarly, however, they need to study with each to have this opportunity to know their nature, abilities or even weakness. A combination of boys and girls in a class creates a real life situation that men and women work, live and interact with each other. Lack of this opportunity makes a mystery of woman for a man and vice versa. When they were separated in early age, the desire of togetherness makes a big deal when they are teenager or adult. This desire usually surrounds their mind and affects their every decision. This situation usually happens in a society that relationship between men and women is forbidden. So, young boys and girls take so much time to plan to be with each other and seeing each other secretly. Aside from this issues, when these men and women start working with each other they will face a variety of issues because they have not had this opportunity to know their nature and now in a workplace, it would be too late to know each other. What is your point of view regarding separating boys and girls in the school? Do you believe, nowadays, issues related to boys need more attention and consideration and girl’s issues have had enough attention?