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.

On terrorism

It happened again. A few evil men decided that the best way to reach their goals, whatever they may be, was to murder over 100 innocent people. The death count as I write this is 100 people. 100. Think about that for a few minutes. That is 100 people who will never again hug their mother, see their children laugh, walk in the rain, sing in the shower, fight with their spouse. 100 people is 4 school classes. 4 entire school classes that are dead, for nothing. Imagine if everyone you attended fourth grade with was killed. To inspire fear. To terrorise us. To make us ask: who will be next?

Will it be me, when I go watch a movie? Will it be my brother, watching a football game? My sister, when she goes to a concert? Will they attack the school where my mother teaches?

In the end, it doesn’t matter where they strike next.

Terrorism, regardless of who it comes from, has as its goal to force a change in society. The second we give in, and create a society with more surveillance, with more armed police, with more control, and with less freedom, they win. I understand that France’s immediate reaction after the second serious terrorist attack this year is to close its border. However, I hope for the sake of democracy and openness that once they have the situation under control, France will open its borders again.

I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that we can deal with this without dropping more bombs, starting more wars. Because if we start killing in retaliation, the terrorists win. They get to recruit more potential terrorists, and force us to kill more, and so on in a neverending spiral of violence.

Terrorism should instead be treated like what it is: a war crime. Don’t bomb the attackers, try them in Hague. Show them all the courtesy a civilised country show criminals. Don’t fall to the same barbaric level of killing innocents “because the end justify the means”. They never do. Killing innocent Afghanis, and Syrians, and Irakis to kill the terrorists is wrong, just as wrong as killing innocent Frenchmen for some goal that we don’t yet know what it is, just as wrong as killing innocent Norwegian children because you hate immigrants. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Instead of falling to their level of indiscriminate killing, let’s rise above and show the world how an open, democratic society deals with criminals.

My heart goes out to everyone who was directly affected by this heinous act of terror in France. Nous sommes tous Parisiennes.