Gender and Mathematics Education

inspiringdemimonde: catifabulous: whitewhine: “By the time I...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:06:30 -0400

catifabulous:

whitewhine:

“By the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”

HOLY SHIT this is a priceless teaching tool. Jesus.

hahahahaha “class warfare has never created a job.”

iamwhoiamandidontgiveadamn:

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:05:49 -0400

iamwhoiamandidontgiveadamn:

inspiringdemimonde: Math for social justice

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:05:19 -0400

inspiringdemimonde:

Math for social justice

Too many teachers can't do math, let alone teach it - The Globe and Mail

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:04:51 -0400

Too many teachers can't do math, let alone teach it - The Globe and Mail:

inspiringdemimonde:

This opinion column (and the comments) are basically attacking any university faculty who do work related to equity, diversity, power, difference, and education, because apparently “little Emma” doesn’t know her times tables.

THE LAUREN PROJECT: It's Not Gender Warfare...It's Math.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:27:43 -0400

THE LAUREN PROJECT: It's Not Gender Warfare...It's Math.:

annaholmes:

[…]

Would this software help make me a better, more productive writer? I doubt it; as far as I know, the process and craft of writing is not something you can improve on with data collection and analysis. But I’ll probably never find out, because, like so many millions…

delisubthefemmecub: lawlspy: permutationofninjas: pensandpaper...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:26:06 -0400

delisubthefemmecub:

lawlspy:

permutationofninjas:

pensandpaper:

THIS.

I’m not trying to be an ass here, but “female” is a scientific and biological definition. You can’t simply redefine it.

In practice, a female body is defined by a specific set of characteristics. A female body is XX, it has breasts and a vagina. Being very specific, the definition of female centers around ovaries, but that’s not really the point. This doesn’t in any meaningful way change the validity of your gender identity. If you identify as a man, that’s fine, and I’ll support that. However, you can’t start redefining established scientific fact simply because you don’t like it.

Yes, this seems harsh. I don’t mean it to be, but there’s really no way to put it but bluntly. Just as your body doesn’t define or force your gender to be a certain thing, your gender doesn’t define or force your sex to be a certain thing.

While you may be uncomfortable with someone referring to you as female (and it’s completely within your rights to ask them not to) you can’t redefine what “female” means, that’s not your right.

I actually agree (le gasp?) Too often I find sex and gender abused and misapplied, and very often used to undermine the legitimacy of a transperson’s experience.

Not gonna repeat myself. Just gonna forward y’all to these two posts. And strongly encourage you to get some more information about the social construction of sex. Fausto-Sterlings “The 5 Sexes are not Enough” is one starting place (as one of the most widely cited articles on the topic).

p.s. ACTUALLY YUP. IT IS EXACTLY MY FUCKING RIGHT. THANKS.

inspiringdemimonde: dressupbox: Two Things to Remember when Discussing...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:25:44 -0400

inspiringdemimonde:

dressupbox: Two Things to Remember when Discussing Transmisogyny

glyttr:

Disclaimer: seeing as I am writing mostly based on my own experiences as a binary-identified trans woman with conditional passing privilege, my phasing may be off at times. I often use the phrase “trans women” when I should be writing “trans women and many non-binary trans…

riotsnotdiets: tangledupinlace: inkstainedqueer: innerfatgirl:...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:24:18 -0400

riotsnotdiets:

tangledupinlace:

inkstainedqueer:

innerfatgirl:

EVERYONE WATCH THIS AND GO FOLLOW CRIPQUEER ASAP

cripqueer:

Video: Crip Sex, Crip Lust, and the Lust of Recognition by Mia Mingus

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ellery Russian talk about Crip Sex. This video is part of a blog post and has a transcript available here.

Any sort of open discussion about sex always makes me super happy.

this is super important and applicable to even those who don’t id as queer

love love love this.

This is What a Male-Bodied Person Looks Like

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:20:46 -0400

This is What a Male-Bodied Person Looks Like:

genderqueer:

Submission from wangclub:

This is not my blog, but I really liked the post and thought others would appreciate it too. Here’s a snippet:

“Male is a modifier, a word used to describe things that pertain to men. I am a man. Therefore, I, a man, have a male body, and I am a male-bodied person. My uterus, my clit, my soft chest, and my rounded hips are all part of my male body. Of course, other people have different body experiences, and I speak only for my own experience.”

"Trans people have often been described as those whose physical sex does not match the gender of..."

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:09:09 -0400

“Trans people have often been described as those whose physical sex does not match the gender of their mind or soul. This explanation might make sense intuitively, but it is nonetheless problematic for transfeminism. To say that one has a female mind or soul would mean there are male and female minds that are different from each other in some identifiable way, which in turn may be used to justify discrimination against women. Claiming an essential gender identity can be just as dangerous as resorting to biological essentialism.

Transfeminism believes that we construct our own gender identities based on what feels genuine, comfortable, and sincere to us as we live and relate to others within given social and cultural constraints. This holds true for those whose gender identity is in congruence with their birth sex, as well as for trans people. Our demand for recognition and respect shall in no way be weakened by this acknowledgment. Instead of justifying our existence through reverse essentialism, transfeminism dismantles the assumption that sex and gender ‘naturally’ cohere

”

- Emi Koyama, “The Transfeminist Manifesto” (via suzyxisntreal)(via graftversushost)

peopletips: [Background: five people of different colours,...

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:55:37 -0400

peopletips:

[Background: five people of different colours, hands linked by hearts. Image: “People Tip #1: Some women don’t have a uterus. They are still very much female. peopletips.tumblr.com”]

disabilityawareness: [Description: Two circles, both blue with...

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:54:38 -0400

disabilityawareness:

[Description: Two circles, both blue with white text.

The first circle reads, “WHAT ABLEISM IS: A set of taught practices and subconscious or conscious behaviors against people with disabilities and illnesses which assumes that being able is the norm, and people with disabilities must either strive to fit that norm or keep their distance from people who are able. Ableism often sees disability as an error of life, a wrong way to live, and therefore often negates any life experiences of the disabled.“

The second circle reads, “WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABLEISM IS: My feelings are hurt because you used the r-word.]

garconniere: whynotshesaid: nerdshares: jakec: julieklausner:...

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:53:28 -0400

garconniere:

whynotshesaid:

nerdshares:

jakec:

julieklausner:

Don’t Fear The Dowager: A Valentine to Maturity

An adolescent boy’s bed sheet semen’s worth of ink has been spilled lately about men acting too much like boys. But the trend of reverse-striving has crossed over: adult women are acting more and more like little girls, and it’s really starting to get on my nerves.

There’s so much ukulele playing now, it’s deafening. So much cotton candy, so many bunny rabbits and whoopie pies and craft fairs and kitten emphera, and grown women wearing converse sneakers with mini skirts. So many fucking birds.

…

Totally fine to enforce ideals of How A Woman Should Be. Totally fine.

This actually would’ve been really great if it was a letter that spoke to how the Youngs are idiots, but instead it stereotypes women who like birds and Chuck Taylors as infantile and threatens that liking these things doesn’t make you a Real Woman.

It’s repulsive when these provocative posts incite hundreds of supportive reblogs, as if attaching gender identity to this commercial signifier instead of that one isn’t just as pernicious and hypocritical as the people who run the modern day Cosmo, telling you how to be a woman in June rather than a woman in May. It’d be super if, instead of stereotyping women who ride fixed-gear bikes and like cupcakes as unintelligent children, we stopped making assumptions of people based on the most superficial elements of their personality. Bros don’t need to demean women when there are so many women trying to demean them already.

But anyway, fuck birds, am I right?

I like it when Jake says things so I don’t have to.

(Also, the jokey twee-list includes “craft fairs.” Craft fairs. Because nothing says “infant” like developing a complicated skill set. Girlbabies be knittin’ for days.)

Reblogged for general awesomeness.

do not read the original article unless you want to fly into a rage. THIS IS SUCH A HETERONORMATIVE MISOGYNISTIC SEXIST PIECE OF SHIT i CAN’T EVEN I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN. this is why sometimes i am just like, “just because you think it, doesn’t mean you have to write it and publish it.” julie klausner is basically admitting to everyone and anyone that whatever a woman does (how she dresses, what jewelry she wears, what tattoos she gets, etc.), it is just for men. and i quote:

We all know these manic pixie Muppet Babies are really just in it for the peen.

yeah. and this is a comedy writer. not to mention all the fucked up assumptions that if you dress in bright coloured romper, have a cute tattoo, type in all lowercaps, play the ukulele, or wear lipgloss that you have no respect for yourself, and no desire to develop as a person, have never read anything that was published before they were born (as if that is a marker of being a valuable human being?). since when do people get tattoos to “grow” into them? since when does how you physically present yourself purportedly broadcast everything about your personality to everyone around you? when have we ever policed men’s appearances/interests as hard as we constantly police women and girls, and how do both of those policing perpetuate a shitty, reductive gender binary bullshit?
as one of the commentors put it best: don’t conform to these arbitrary markers of ideal femininity! conform to these arbitrary markers of ideal femininity! and if you don’t, i’m going to assume you’re just a one-dimensional stereotype. FUCK OFF.
and don’t give me any of that “controversial writing is good writing.” no. this is just straight-up girl hate and vitriol masked as cultural criticism. it is mean-spirited, misinformed, everything girls do is for boys bullshit somehow tagged as “feminist.” this is not an insightful critique into north america’s fear of older women. it is hateful, that’s about it. why am i not surprised this was published on jezebel?

yrwelcome: This poster - “words that are transphobic, and why”...

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:24:37 -0400

yrwelcome:

This poster - “words that are transphobic, and why” - is seriously GREAT. It’s certainly not the full extent of transphobia, but it’s a good primer. Everyone should have a copy, read carefully, and share widely!

"When trans women who present femininely or assert a binary identity are blamed for perpetuating..."

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:23:19 -0400

“When trans women who present femininely or assert a binary identity are blamed for perpetuating binary gender roles, while it’s forgotten that many or even more cis women do the same, that’s transmisogyny.

When trans women have every aspect of their presentation examined and labeled either hyperfeminine and therefore fake or not feminine enough and therefore male, while the same traits would be seen as normal in cis women, that’s transmisogyny.

When trans women are told that they are politically ignorant when they object to trans men “reclaiming” a derogatory term that has been used specifically against trans women and not against trans men, that’s transmisogyny.

When trans women are told that they need to stop being assertive and strong because it is a sign of male privilege - invariably by “feminists” who, of course, encourage cis women to be assertive and strong - that’s transmisogyny.

When queer women’s spaces have trans women inclusive policies, yet any trans women who attend are generally ignored or not included in discussions, that’s transmisogyny.

”

- What Transmisogyny Looks Like (via callmebrandy)

Top 10 Reasons Why the BMI is Bogus

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:22:10 -0400

Top 10 Reasons Why the BMI is Bogus:

This article talks about BMI - a mathematization of the body.

The cost of exclusion and erasure.

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:18:20 -0400

dunespicecat:

There’s a lot of back and forth on some issues, such as non-binary policing and cis appropriation, and to be honest I can see both sides. However, that does not mean I don’t have first hand experiences with being told that I’m clearly lying about my experiences and identity. That does not mean I don’t remember vividly being told that I’m just trying to appropriate trans experiences, and that asserting a non-binary gender was hurting binary trans people. I remember, and it still hurts. I struggled for years to come to terms with my gender and my body, and all the while people were intent on undermining me and telling me that I was just being a special snowflake, that my gender wasn’t real, that I should just “suck it up and pick one or the other instead of inventing some silly new gender” and that I didn’t belong in trans spaces because I had stopped transitioning.

The fact of the matter is, while you might not police the identity of someone who says they’re non-binary, others will. And it hurts. It’s a stab to the soul to be told that you don’t belong anywhere, that your identity is fake, that your very existence undermines others’ identities (which isn’t true, of course, but still). And it’s not just non-binaries that get flak, it’s any trans person who doesn’t want to transition via hormones or surgery, or even changing their name. And you know the root cause of this attitude? Cissexism and binarism. The construct of transition being a validation of someone’s gender is the same busted essentialist crap that tells us trans people we’re “deluded” for wanting to “mess with nature”, only with a twist that says if we want to be ~taken seriously~ that we must change our bodies to fit an essentialist standard. It’s a catch-22 of harmful essentialism that ignores our comfort and imposes rules on our bodies and our lives.

“If you do X, Y, and Z we’ll respect you!” turns into “Because you weren’t always [gender] (according to our standards) we don’t have to respect you!” and it hurts us all over again. Following cis rules rarely, if ever, gains us the carrot they dangle on a stick to tempt us.

Our bodies are personal, and transition doesn’t have so much to do with affirming our gender as it does feeling right in our own skin. There is nothing wrong with wanting to attain the right body for you; I am not against medical or hormonal transition, if it’s possible for you to get it. There is, however, something wrong with being told that you’re “not really trans” unless you want to change your body. And of course there’s something wrong with the way things are when some of us are unable to have our bodies be right due to the binarism rampant in society.

And the thing is, cis society still doesn’t take us seriously even if we follow all their gate-keeping rules and change our bodies; the only way we can ever manage to be safe is if we erase all traces of our ASAB and evidence that we weren’t always how we are post-op. That isn’t possible for so many of us, not just those of us who wouldn’t feel comfortable with full surgery even if we could get it the way we wanted.

The main issue with assimilation is that it’s so insidious in convincing us that if we just follow all the rules we’ll be accepted, when the reality is that we not only hurt ourselves in the process but that due to the structure of the kyriarchy (as a self-perpetuating system) there will always be some excuse for the privileged to say we’re still not one of them. The latter is the biggest problem I have with assimilationists, that instead of striving for equality, they seek the privilege of being accepted as part of the power structure that keeps the rest of us under the collective boot heels of society, and not for reasons of safety but because they often think of themselves as better than those of us who cannot do that, or those of us who must do it for safety reasons. There is a huge problem when in order for us to be safe individually we have to hide our history, when we’re forced to lie and pretend so we’re not subject to discrimination and violence. It’s not our fault that the kyriarchy forces us to do this, but we don’t need to keep following cissexist rules, especially when we can still be hurt by them.

Inevitable disclaimer for clarity: Again, I am not against doing what makes you comfortable, whatever that is, and most importantly I’m not against what we do for our safety in society. I am critiquing society for its fucked up ideals that are imposed on our bodies and our labels, especially when perpetuated by the structures of gate-keeping and the language created by cis people for us. I am also critiquing those among us who perpetuate cissexist and binarist ideals (the assimilationists) because that attitude hurts so many of us both in words and actions. There is no single trans narrative, nor a single way to be non-binary.

Sorta born this way: What the rhetoric of self-acceptance means for people who transition

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:15:17 -0400

xxboy:

I’m beautiful in my way / cause god makes no mistakes / I’m on the right track baby / I was born this way

Don’t hide yourself in regret / just love yourself and you’re set / I’m on the right track baby / I was born this way

For those of you living under a pop culture rock (not that there is anything wrong with that), the above is a sampling of lyrics from Lady Gaga’s self-acceptance anthem, “Born This Way.” The song encourages people to embrace what makes them different, what other people might criticize, and though it covers a lot of ground, has been largely adopted by the queer community as a new “I’m Coming Out” (that’s Diana Ross for those of you REALLY living under a rock). In the song, Gaga actually says “no matter gay, straight or bi / lesbian, transgendered life / I’m on the right track baby / I was born to survive.”

And yet, since its release (all thoughts on the actual quality of the music aside), I’ve been hesitant to adopt it as my own power queer anthem. Because I was only sorta born this way. I mean, I was actually born pretty different. Without intervention, I’d physically be very feminine right now. My face would be slender and stubble-free, my voice would be higher, I’d have a fully developed female chest (aka boobs!), my frame would be even smaller than it already is, and the little bit of fat I’ve accumulated (I blame you Arkansas) would be sitting almost solely at my hips and not just above my waist line in this skinnyboy mini beer gut fashion. I might be oversharing.

The point is I’ve medically intervened to change some of the ways I was born. And even before Gaga tried to help us all celebrate the ways we were born, I’ve had a hard time aligning my decision to transition with the self-love movement. It’s been a slight point of tension that I always planned to address when I inevitably return to therapy. There are people who choose not to medically transition, who say, “I am a man, that is my gender identity, and this is the kind of man’s body I was born with.” I always half-wondered if they had discovered some truer ability to love themselves than I had. I don’t believe in God, but if I did, wouldn’t I be suggesting that a mistake had been made if I in fact needed to change something?

This stems from another difficulty I’ve had in intellectualizing my transition. I’ve always been torn about discussing it as an illness/problem as opposed to natural variation. I believe in gender diversity among our species. I believe there are lots of ways to be men and lots of ways to be women and lots of identities and expressions in between or that include both ends of the spectrum, even. And yet, my need to change my body to (mostly) match that of a non-trans man, of a man assigned male at birth, suggests that there was something to correct.

The way I usually toe the line is to celebrate the fact that I am a man with a different history – to see my medical changes as necessary but still appreciate the need for them and what it means about my history and process and gender and sex. I try not to think of the female aspects of my body as problematic but just as another element in the complicated equation of my gender and of my sex. And I try not to think of my surgeries and hormonal intervention as “fixing” something and instead frame it as encouraged physical evolution.

But this encouraged evolution, this forced development into a more typical male body STILL means I’m not living the way I was born, or at least not the way the way I was born indicated I would. That’s wordy, but I hope you follow.

Glee had an episode dedicated to self-acceptance, titled after “Born This Way,” in which the characters were encouraged to accept the parts of their personality or body that were most criticized, even their faults. The effeminate gay boy again embraced his sexuality, the Jewish girl decided against a nose job, the singing coach celebrated his “butt chin.” My discomfort with the aforementioned tension I felt between loving myself and having needed to change my body was pretty high through most of the episode. It doesn’t help that a lot of anti-trans and anti-transition writing centers around this idea that trans men just need to love our female bodies and trans women their male bodies. The all too famous Dirt blogs (in a very misinformed, transphobic, and propagandic way) about how “young girls” wouldn’t need to transition if they could just accept their butchness and stop perpetuating a misogynistic culture. I don’t buy that, but like I mentioned earlier, I often have the creeping feeling that I can’t fully claim self-love and self-acceptance.

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i don't fit very well in the blank-2-blank model.

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:14:20 -0400

queerboywonder:

I identified as FTM for a while. And then I identified as genderqueer. And now I identify mostly as femme. F2m2gq2FEMME doesn’t really roll off the tongue very well for me. :/ I mean, FTM works really well for some people, and I’m all down for self-identification.

But it doesn’t really work for me, and I’m kind of tired of people assuming that because I’m on testosterone and am CAFAB that I’m FTM. Or that I’m going TO somewhere. I guess the linearity doesn’t work very well for me either.

BLAH. Also, I’m finding increasingly that “queer” is a phrase that seems to be trafficked in terms of whiteness. My person of colourness erases my queerness, or my queerness erases my person of colourness and I can’t be both at the same time and not have to “choose” one over the other (and because I am mixed race I am expected to identify with one race over another, and often it is assumed that I identify more with my white heritage than my API because GOSH WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE AZN?)

so all these things were bothering me so much I didn’t go to class and stayed at home and read some fanon and then got depressed so watched some white collar and played with my flea-laden cat.

the end.

my trans* confession?

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:12:44 -0400

delisubthefemmecub:

I don’t feel trapped in the wrong body and I never have.

My “persistent discomfort” is not caused by my gorgeous bod, its caused by the cissexism around me.

I don’t wish I was born a cisgender male, nor have i ever wanted a “cock” in the cisnormative sense.

When I was a little girl I LOVED BARBIES (granted all I did was dress them up and make them have lots of queer poly sex).

My masculinity is not threatened by… anything. Not my own femmeness, not my body, not my girlfriend’s masculinity. nothing.

I LOVE having sex, i LOVE being a switch, and the parts of my body to which gender and sex are assigned are not off-limits to my partner.

I have never ever felt sure about testosterone or top surgery. If I ever choose to engage with either of those things in anyway, I will probably feel a lot of hesitation, pain, doubt, confusion, excitement, fear, joy, and other rich and complex emotions.

My gender does not have a destination or a starting point and it cannot be pinned down or accurately described ever.

I’m not particularly interested in looking how “men are supposed to look.”

I ADORE being FEMME. Reclaiming femme has saved my life.

and last but not least

I STRONGLY disagree with more mainstream transgender politics.

MY “LIBERATION” WILL NOT COME FROM INCLUSION IN A CISSEXIST, RACIST,(NEO)COLONIAL, HETEROSEXIST, ABLEIST, NATIONALIST, CLASSIST, CAPITALIST (etc) STATE.

I won’t fight for marriage rights, or the opportunity to join the military. But I will fight tooth and nail to question systems of power like these, and to encourage my fellow trans* folks to do the same.

(I don’t mean to imply there is something wrong with your experience if you feel differently. This is just my experience.)