Mansplaining mathematics

Well, mathematics and teaching.

First, let me clarify what I mean by mansplaining. It is not, as some people misinterpret it to mean, any time a man explains something to a woman. Mansplaining is what happens when a man knows that a woman has considerable knowledge in a field, and still decided he needs to explain some basic principle of the field to her. It is more broadly a sign of men (not all men!) disrespecting and devaluing women’s knowledge and expertise.

Mandatory XKCD

For example, when I meet with my advisor and he explains some mistake I’ve made in a proof, or a concept I’ve misunderstood, that is not mansplaining. He has more knowledge than me, and I’ve clearly demonstrated that I need the explanation.

On the other hand, when my brother  decides he needs to explain to me (working on my PhD in probabilistic combinatorics) how lottery tickets  work, that is mansplaining. I made a joke about how it said that every fourth ticket was a win, and I’d not won anything on my six tickets and thus should ask for my money back. He decided that clearly it was serious and I needed to be educated on what “one in four” means, and why it was in fact probably to not win anything on six tickets. Clearly my several semesters of advanced probability theory are useless next to his high school degree.

When I have a booth at a science fair aimed at the general public, and two men respond to hearing that I’m working on my PhD in mathematics by telling me condescendingly that I should watch “The Code” on Netflix to further my education, that is mansplaining. Both of these charming gentlemen were engineers, so had some limited knowledge in mathematics. They still decided that they were qualified to recommend a TV series as a good way to further my graduate studies in the subject area. Not as entertainment for me, but as education. One of them even proceeded to act hurt when I didn’t express my gratitude for the recommendation, and ask me why I wasn’t writing down the name of the series. I don’t know, maybe something about the 10 people sitting in the booth waiting for me to show them how to play Nim?

When I’m having a discussion with a fellow PhD student at a party about university admissions, and an undergrad with zero teaching experience, zero knowledge about public policy, and zero knowledge about pedagogics butts in to tell me that I’m wrong, high school grades are a better predictor for success than motivation, that is mansplaining. The other grad student and I were both backing up our arguments with research studies from our mathematics teaching seminar: the undergrad was just convinced that his ideas were just as valid as our research studies, if not more. He then proceeded to inform us that since he had once explained Lagrange multipliers to his 12-year old brother, high school is pointless and all university instructors are incompetent.

All these three are examples of men assuming without any cause that they could educate me on something they knew I am knowledgeable about. They knew about my graduate studies, the undergrad heard me quote studies to support my view, and still they persisted, thinking that their ignorance is valuable to me.

Please, stop. Before you explain something to a woman, think about it. Did she ask for an explanation? Did you make sure you actually know more about the area than her before starting? Is the explanation even necessary at this point in time? Before you offer advice on say a study plan for a PhD student, think about it. Were you asked for advice? Do you actually know anything about the area?

Almost all women have these experiences, and they are terrible. We come out of them either feeling like men don’t even acknowledge our education and experiences, or ready to laugh at how pathetic you are. Usually it’s some mix of both. For some more examples of truly egregious mansplaining, check out this Tumblr: Academic Men Explain Things To Me

Do you know what’s really sad?

My examples are all from the past three weeks.

December goals

It seems my December goals are about (over)due. This month, I’m going to focus on taking care of myself and having a pleasant Christmas.

The first goal is one I’ve already told you about: developing a morning routine that will actually inspire me to get up in the morning. I have a feeling that will be more effective for making me get up in the morning than an empty promise. I outlined my basic idea for a morning routine in my previous post, and we’ll have to see how it changes during the month.

The second one is to stay away from Christmas traditions that I don’t enjoy and find meaningful. I plan on having a minimalist Christmas by cutting out on all the food I don’t enjoy making and eating, all the people I don’t enjoy seeing, and all the Christmas traditions that never meant anything to me.

The third goal is about practicing gratitude. This month, I will not complain about my work. At all. Because, the truth is that I have a wonderful job, and I’m lucky to be able to work with something I love. So now I”m going to go sit down with my complex analysis take-home final, and enjoy the process of discovering the answers.

Some musings on getting up early

First, a little update on my November goals. This month has been a little difficult for me. I’ve made considerable progress on the paper I was supposed to be working on, but the rest of the goals have not really worked out.

The Russian had to take the backseat to a programming project (implementing the simplex method in C++), and getting up early has been … challenging.

I’m struggling a lot with just finding the motivation to get up early in the mornings. I go to bed on time, wake up right before my alarm goes off, and then just stay in bed. There are a few factors I’ll try to work on. One of my goals for December will be to instead of getting up early, develop a proper morning routine. I think one of the reasons I can’t get up is that I first need to figure out what I need to do, and plan out my morning.

I’m a creature of habits. I hate it when my environment is disturbed and I can’t follow through on my plans; yet I don’t have a proper routine even for when to take a shower. Sometimes I shower when I come home from work, sometimes right before bed, sometimes in the morning. Sometimes I have breakfast first thing when I get up, other times I wait for an hour or two. Sometimes I have a proper cooked breakfast, other times I make microwave oatmeal. Clearly, I need to fix this.

Here is my suggestion for the basic routine:

Shower when I get home from work. I like taking half an hour to reset after work, so I can relax properly or get started on my personal projects.

1) First thing in the morning: get up and wash my face.

2) Make a cup of tea, and drink it while reading the news.

3) Make breakfast consisting of oatmeal with nuts and dried fruits.

4) Enjoy breakfast while listening to a podcast (my current favourite is History of Philosophy without any gaps.

5) Get dressed, brush my teeth, deal with makeup and hair.

6) Go to campus / get started on the day.

I’ll probably have to tweak this considerably as my month goes on, but this is what I’m going to start with. Ideally, I want to fit meditation and exercise / stretching in there as well. That’s a later project though: right now my focus is on getting some kind of basic ritual started.

What does your morning routine look like?

Halloween! + November goals

The spookiest day of the year has arrived! This Halloween also marks the 40-year anniversary of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’m currently recovering from a midnight showing of said movie at the Belcourt Theatre (and a Halloween party the night after). If you like cheesy, so-bad-they’re-good movies, there is nothing better than the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And you haven’t seen it until you’ve seen a live screening, complete with costumes, props, and yelling at the screen.

Today also marks the day I’m supposed to evaluate my October goals, and set new ones for November. Overall, I’d say my October goals went very well. I’ve only had to buy lunch twice during the month, bought nothing I consider unnecessary, and I’ve worked through 4 chapters of The Probabilistic Method. I’ve really enjoyed working with all these three goals, and I’ve enjoyed the extra money that could go in my savings account since because of all the lunches I didn’t buy and all the things I didn’t buy. So I’ll be keeping up with these for the foreseeable future. However, I also need new goals for the new month that will hopefully become habits. After some thinking, they are:

1. Get out of bed by 6.30 on weekdays and 7.30 on weekends. I typically wake up around 6 and just stay in bed, reading, until I have to rush to get ready for work. No more of that. I will get up within half an hour of waking up, so I can sit around with a cup of tea and a book for half an hour instead of checking Facebook from bed.

2. Work on my Russian every day. I took a year of Russian in high school, and then let it lapse. I would like to speak another language, so I’m going to revisit my old Russian books and find someone to practise speaking with.

3. Finish a paper I’m working on with another grad student and one of our postdocs. We are all so busy that the project is a bit stalled. All the little pieces are there: someone just needs to sit down and put them in the right order. So I’m going to sit down with it for an hour every day after lunch and work it out.

Top 5 resources for minimalism

During the past year, I’ve been experimenting with minimalism. I know there is some confusion out there about what minimalism really is. That’s because there are two different things people may refer to when they talk about minimalism: a minimalist style and a minimalist lifestyle. The two are not the same thing. There are fashion bloggers with a minimalist style that own 15 white button-downs so that they can pick the one with exactly the right detailing for each outfit. There are people that love colour, antiques, fussy details, and still live a minimalist lifestyle.

A minimalist lifestyle is simply about having only what you need and love. How much this is depends entirely on you. There are minimalists who take it to the extreme and have only 100 possessions, and minimalists whose homes look like yours or mine, just without all the clutter.

For these purposes, clutter is defined as anything you don’t actually need, that simply takes up space and doesn’t make you happy when you look at it. The and is key here. You can have useful things that don’t make you happy when you look at them, but that you still use on a regular basis. Some practical things fall in this category. On the other hand, you have things that serve no purpose than to make you happy, like art, your book collection, and the family photos on the wall. Ideally, most of your possessions should fall in both categories, but nothing should fall in neither.

Clutter is things like the second set of wine glasses that you never use because you don’t like them, the scented candle that you don’t burn because you don’t like the scent, and the fancy clothes steamer that you don’t ever actually use. You may see a theme here: things you don’t use. Things that serve no purpose. In a minimalist lifestyle, these things have no place.

That’s what minimalism is all about: getting rid of things that serve no purpose. And not just physical possessions, but also social commitments, expenses, hobbies, and habits that don’t serve any purpose. If they don’t have any purpose, then you get rid of them. And it’s completely up to you to determine what purposes are worthwhile.

The end result? Less clutter, more time and money to do what really matters to you. Does this sound tempting? Here are the five best resources I’ve found to help with my journey to minimalism.

Into Mind The entire blog is amazing, but I particularly recommend their 30-day minimalism challenge for anyone who wants to get a jump-start on minimalism.

Zen habits This is the blog of minimalism guru Leo Babauta. He writes interesting, thought provoking posts about minimalism on a weekly basis. Some of my favourites are The myth of discipline, Simple daily habits that ignite discipline, and Beating the anxiety of online reading.

The blissful mind Once again, the entire blog is amazing, but in particular Catherine is the one who inspired me to start setting 3 simple goals every month. She also has some great tips for bloggers in this post. And, of course, her blog is a work of art.

Your money or your life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. This book changed my life. It made me realise that whenever I buy something, I’m trading however much of my life it took me to earn the money, for the item. I’m not trading money for an item, I’m trading parts of my life that I will never get back. I still buy things, but I’m much more aware of what the actual cost is now. I can’r recommend this book enough, even though some parts of it is slightly dated (it was written at a time when you actually earned interest on your savings…).

Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer L. Scott. This is a compilation of 20 lessons the (American) author learned from her host family during 6 months in Paris. It’s funny, thought provoking, and teaches you to enjoy all the little things in life. Placing the strawberries just so on the fruit tart you’re cooking. The slice of camembert after dinner. The cold wind on your face when walking to the store. And this is what minimalism is really all about. Not just paring down your life to what you actually consider essential, but also taking the time to enjoy what’s left. Jennifer also has a blog, The Daily Connoisseur.

What blogs / books / podacasts about minimalism do you enjoy?

Update on my October goals

This far, I’ve been mostly good. I’ve remembered to bring lunch 4 days out of 5 every week. To improve that, I’m modifying that goal to include making the lunch the night before. I tend to not have too much time in the mornings (hello 8 am recitations), so it will be easier to bring my lunch sandwich if all I have to do is grab it from the fridge.

As for not buying anything unnecessary: I’ve bought a couple of things for my Halloween costume and a new eye shadow / eye liner after my old one ran out. I’m mostly being good though. Mostly. I’m new to the whole minimalism thing, and not buying things is a lot harder than it might seem. I’ve managed to stay away from buying books (hello library) and clothes though, and that’s a big win for me. I can’t stop myself from buying books, so I’ve stayed away from Amazon and all the charming bookstores in Hillsboro.

I’ve worked on the probabilistic method 4-5 days every week. I’m not reaching my target of 6 days a week (Saturdays are no math days for me). This is one I’ll have to work much harder on. The book is fascinating, but I’m failing at carving out time for it. From now on, my work in that book will be scheduled every day, so I can’t fail so easily.

The probabilistic method is an extremely clever idea. The basic idea is that if we want to prove that something exists, we don’t need to construct it. We simply construct a probability space, and show that if we randomly select an object from the space, there is a positive probability that we chose our desired object. Since there is a positive probability to chose it, we know that it must exist. I’m currently writing up a post on some examples of the probabilistic method that should go up within a few days.

My 3 goals for October

I don’t do New Year’s promises. They are usually overly ambitious, and realy on the idea that we should only try to improve once every year. Instead, I do monthly goals, and evaluate half-way through. This month, I’m sharing my 3 most important goals for the month.

1 I will work in “The Probabilistic Method” every day. I’m getting really interested in probabilistic methods and extremal graph theory, and this is the book to read in that area.

2 I will bring lunch to work at least 4 days every week. Sigh. I usually plan this out really well, and then get too lazy to prepare lunch in the morning. So I’m going to prepare lunch the night before to eliminate that excuse.

3 I will not buy anything new (except Christmas presents) all month. Minimalism challenge: level 1.

As you can tell: a combination of work-related and personal goals. I find that limiting myself to 3 makes me more likely to succeed than tons of goals. That’s why I try to have one related to work, one related to good habits, and one related to minimalism every month. I’ll let you know how I’m doing in 10 days!

On academic dress

As a somewhat stylish young female scientist, I find myself thinking about the academic dress code. Long gone are the days when academic robes were required to lecture, and the dress code “academic slob” has taken its place. I’ve had lecturers who wear 20 year old t-shirts with holes that show their belly, and lecturers that wear flip flops and khaki shorts every day. Only a single one of my current professors wears slacks and a button-down on a daily basis. And this is most visible in the STEM subjects.

I care about what I wear. There. I said it. There is an attitude in STEM that someone who cares about what they wear is automatically a less competent researcher. However, I was raised to think that wearing nice clothes is a way to show respect to your surroundings and the job your are there to do. Putting on a nice work-appropriate summer dress and a pair of matching ballet flats is a way to show that I care about my job, and that I respect my fellow academics and students. To me, showing up to work looking like you just finished weeding the garden is disrespectful. You don’t show any concern for your coworkers, your students, or your profession dressed in “academic slob”. It doesn’t take longer to put on a dress or a pair of khakis and a button-down shirt (they make wrinkle-resistant ones now, so you don’t even have to iron anything) than it takes to throw on a pair of worn shorts and a holey t-shirt. There is literally no more effort required, but you immediately show that you take yourself, your coworkers, and your profession seriously.

I’m not saying that men should wear a tie and women pencil skirts. That would be excessive. However, would it really be that bad to care just a little that you look like a professional? Tho care how you come across? An argument I’ve heard often why academics should dress down is that it makes us more approachable. That’s bullshit. The only thing I’ve felt and heard from others when faced with yet another lecturer in a tshirt that bares part of a hairy belly is disappointment. It makes students feel like you don’t even care enough about the lecture to put on clothes that fit. If you know your subject, students will respect you for that, but they still feel like you don’t care, so why should they make an effort? Dressing nice is simply a sign of respect for you environment. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Could we all agree to make an attempt? Change the standard from “academic slob” to “academic chic”, and once again take pride in our profession. Put on some clothes that you wouldn’t wear to the gym, or to weed your garden. Some clothes that actually fit you, not clothes that fit the body you had 20 years ago. Showing a sliver of belly is not professional for men or women. It does not make you more approachable. It makes you look less professional. It makes you look like you don’t care about your job, your students or your coworkers.

Stop hating on the PhD

There are so many things everyone loves to complain about when working on their PhD. There’s the crappy pay, the TAing with the hopeless undergrads, the pressure, the long hours, and probably a few more that I can’t come up with right now. I recently took up tweeting (@aajohannas – follow me!) and follow #phdchat. Probably 80% of the tweets are complaints. The other week, I realized that I love the occasional positive tweet about grad school so much more, and I started examining my own attitude to grad school. I’m guilty of many of the above complaints, and I’m barely one fifth through my PhD. That’s tragic. So I started considering my favourite complaints from different angles, and realized just how much there is to love about grad school.

Now, while this is a post on changing your outlook to become happier, it’s not some “the Secret”-level bulls**t about laws of attraction, and how you can choose your happiness. There are some things that objectively suck, and no outlook will make them less sucky. So if you are taking out massive loans to stay in grad school after your husband was killed in a car crash, one of your kids has cancer, you are struggling with mental health problems, and your advisor is an abusive asshole, I’m sorry. My heart goes out to you. This post is not aimed at you. Your life objectively sucks, and you can complain as much as you like. You should stop reading right now. This post is for all the grad students who have teaching assistantships, or research assistantships, a reasonably happy, stable personal life, are mostly healthy, have a nice advisor, and still walk around complaining about the PhD nonstop.

I get paid around $1500 after taxes. Yes, international students have to pay taxes. Yes, they get refunded every summer, but we still have them deducted from our salaries. This is not anyone’s idea of a generous salary, but guess what? I get by. I have a nice apartment, can pay my bills, am planning to buy a car, can go out every now and then for a drink or a meal with friends, and still have money over to buy an overpriced skirt from ModCloth every now and then. For a young, single academic, my salary is perfectly adequate. And what do I do to earn it? I work as a TA for about 10 hours a week. So I work 25%, and still have enough money to live on. And I get to spend the other 75% of my time working on the thing I love the most: graph theory. That’s not a bad life.

That brings us to the next thing grad students like to complain about: teaching. The students are stupid, and lazy and don’t care, and … So many things to complain about. However, there are a few things you have to realize. You love your subject enough to go to grad school. They probably don’t. You’re teaching an introductory level class for non-majors, which exists because the US focuses on liberal arts educations. So you don’t have a classroom full of students who love the subject more than anything. You have a classroom full of students who need to satisfy a requirement. Acknowledge that, and expect things from your students accordingly. Focus on showing them why they should care, instead of assuming they already do. The best math TA I have ever seen focused on explaining why he found the material they were studying really cool, as well as telling students about random ways to apply it to other majors. He loved TAing, and won several department awards. I think it is because he had the right attitude and expectations on the students. Teach the students you have, and not the students you wish you had.

Additionally, you knew what you were getting into when you applied. You knew from the start that there would be 4-5 years of teaching in your future if you got accepted, and more if you then choose to go into academia. If you hate the very idea of teaching, why did you even apply? You love, or at least tolerate, teaching. I treat teaching like every other part of my PhD. It is there for a reason, and I’m going to become as good as possible at it. So I read about efficient teaching methods, and try to apply them, and have professors and other grad students audit me. And since I can tell that I’m improving as a TA, I find myself enjoying it. Treat it like the rest of your job, and try to do it well. It will be far more satisfying that delivering half-assed lectures over and over again for 4 more years.

Finally, the pressure and the long hours. The one you have all been waiting for. Grad school is hard. Some might even say that it’s really hard. I acknowledge that. After all, your goal is to add to human knowledge. And humanity has amassed a lot of knowledge, so it takes a while to figure out how to add something. On top of that, you have a limited amount of time to do so, which is what adds the pressure and stress and long hours. However, I asked myself what I would rather do. And I realized that I already have made time for all the other things that matter to me: weekly potluck dinner with friends, dating, working out, working on this blog, tweeting, keeping up with Game of Thrones (not Jon, please, don’t kill Jon), reading, cooking, Skyping with friends in other parts of the world. Honestly, if I had more spare time, I would just spend it on Reddit. And I love my job, so sacrificing Reddit time to do math is not exactly a difficult. Ask yourself: what would you be spending the time on if you worked less? Is it something you consider more important than your PhD? Then maybe now is not the time to be in grad school. Is it less important to you than grad school? Then you have nothing to complain about, right?

So let’s give grad school a little love. After all, we are here voluntarily, getting paid to do what we love. Right now, this is where I want to be. And it will take me where I want to go in the future. #ILovemyPhD

The 10 commandments of flying

Hey look! I’m back! I’ll tell you more about what I have been doing at some later point, but now I just want to talk about flying. I’ve been on 10 flights during the past 30 days, and I’m amazed at how few people know how to minimize everyone’s discomfort in a plane. This is dedicated both to those fellow passengers who acted exemplary, and those passengers who I now hate with my entire being.

1. If you fly economy, you will be uncomfortable. Seriously, just accept it. You can try to minimize the discomfort (by following the following commandments of flying), but if you want a pain-free flight you need to pay for a business class or first class ticket. There is no way around it.
2. The person in the middle seat shall have full use of two armrests. I mean it. If you have a window seat, you have the window to lean against. If you have an aisle seat, one side of you is not crammed up against strangers or a wall. Enjoy it, and leave an armrest for the poor fellow in the middle. Middle seats are hell.
3. Don’t steal legroom from your neighbours by manspreading. You’re an asshole. Yes, I mean you, person on the flight from Heathrow to Arlanda. If you want more legroom, pay up. Otherwise, suffer with the rest of us. Don’t take the legroom I paid for.
4. Don’t lower your seat back during meal time. Yes, you have every right to lower your seat back. However, if you do it during meal time, you are an asshole.
5. Before lowering your seat back, warn the person sitting behind you. This is for the sake of the laptops I know we all love. Lowering your seat back unexpectedly can splash things all over someone’s poor, unsuspecting laptop. Warn them beforehand so any coffee can be held onto.
6. Make sure your headphones don’t leak. To the person on the flight from Charlotte to Nashville who had leaking headphones: I loved how you kept “Sexy and I know it” on repeat for an hour straight. Really, I loved it. And for unrelated reasons, I hate you.
7. No porn. I can’t believe I actually have to say this, but no porn. Not on your phone, not on your laptop, not in a magazine. This is dedicated to a special someone on the flight from Newark to Arlanda.
8. Stow only one bag in the overhead compartment. You may bring two, but (unless you sit in the front row or an exit row seat) the second bag should go under your seat. Otherwise, someone else will have to store their bags in another part of the plane, or gatecheck it. Don’t inconvenience your fellow passengers if you don’t have to.
9. Be somewhat quiet during sleeptime. I really don’t care what a sick time you and your bros will have in New York. Nor do any of the passengers in the closest 6 rows. Let us sleep.
10. Keep your children in check. I know this is controversial, and children will be children. However, there is a big difference between “kids being kids” and letting you child pull my hair, without so much of a comment, and then being upset when I tell them to stop. Kids screaming or crying during takeoff and landing: understandable. Kids being louder than adults: understandable. Kids assaulting other passengers, while the parents look on silently: unacceptable.

And that’s all. Easy peasy, right? Have a nice flight!