by Tracee Sioux

Perfection - it's the pervasive modern-day feminine Achilles heel and we're passing it down to our daughters according to The Supergirl Dilemma a report about the pressure girls today are under.

Girls feel strong pressure to be perfect, look perfect and behave perfect all the time.

And I don't feel this is something we can blame on men. When was the last time you heard a man exclaim, I can't be perfect! I can't be everything to everyone all the time! Um, Never.

No, this is not an external problem - it's an internal feminine problem stemming from MOTHERS.

{{{{{Gasp}}}}} I said it.

To illustrate why I think so, here's two quick references to mother's preoccupation with perfection in our current feminine dialogue: Christine Fugate writes in the foreword of her new book, The Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood Volume 1,

Over one hundred essays poured in from 26 states and four countries. Reading the essays shed light on the current state of the mom-mind. For example, the word 'perfect' (of a variation of it) was used over 92 times. That's almost one 'perfect' for every mom. While I think the questioning of perfection is positive (although not every essay questioned it), the frequency shows that the desire to be 'perfect' continues to loom over our sense of identity.

In The Feminine Mistake, Leslie Bennetts writes,

All too many American women are in thrall to increasingly deranged ideals of perfection. We live in a culture that constantly exhorts us to improve ourselves - and that assumes the perfectibility of virtually everything. If you don't like your nose, get a nose job! If you don't like the color of your hair, dye it! If your thighs are lumpy have liposuction! If you want abs of steel, go to the gym! Personal maintenance has become a national obsession that consumes a staggering amount of energy and resources; if American women put even a fraction of the time they spend on their appearance into working or social and political change, this country would be utterly transformed.

The Supergirl Dilemma, the report we discussed on Friday about gender stereotypes by Girls Inc., does not ignore the influence of adults in the girls' perceptions of what is important.

It's no surprise that the adult women - mothers and nonmothers included - answers to the questions mirrors the girls' answers to the questions.

True, People think that girls care a lot about shopping, 92% of the women said.

True, girls are under a lot of pressure to please everyone, 84% of the adult women said.

True, Girls are under a lot of pressure to dress the right way, 89% of the the adult women said.

What's fascinating is that women were much more likely than men to say they disliked that these stereotypes are true. Women are also more likely than the girls to say they disliked that these stereotypes are true - by a lot.

One reads the women's answers to the questions about girls and wonders if they aren't really answering what it was like for themselves as girls.

Perhaps because the women themselves are caving under the pressure of being perfect?

Our daughters emulate us, especially emotionally.

As in most reports about girls there's a lot of talk about media influence and pressure.

I'm definitely interested in helping Ainsley resist media pressure - but, who is helping her resist internalizing my feelings of being under pressure?

I'd like to see a report about how the media - television, marketing and advertising - is impacting mothers.

Are mothers figuring out how to deal with The Onslaught about women's bodies and sexuality, or are we internalizing it in an unhealthy way and then passing that onto our own daughters?

How are mothers going to resist media pressure that tells us we're never good enough?

If we can get right with ourselves, learn to accept our own selves in our imperfect states, and let this perfection pressure go, nothing will be able to hold our empowered daughters back.

If not. . . well, there's a lot of pressure to be perfect and I don't have to tell you how that feels - you already know.

Empowering Girls: Criticize Daughters' DNA

My Face/Her Face

Self-Loathing Sin Bank
Empowering Girls: Marketing Boundaries

APA Reports Sexualization of Girls Devastating

Math: It's A Tie

Stop what you're doing right now and dance a little gig.

This is a big moment in girl evolution, a big moment in feminism, a big moment for education and a big moment for the future of the United States of America.

Girls and boys are officially equal in their math scores, at all grades, according to a Science article published in July.

Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math, said Janet Hyde in an MSNBC article, Girls' math skills now measure up to boys', the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who led the study. And girls who grow up believing it wind up avoiding harder math classes.

So, really. Stand up and do a gig for all your hard work. All the hard work of math teachers and educators, all the hard work of feminists, and female mathematicians who did math anyway.

Read more on the study at Women in Science.

If you want a lot of different commentary on the study and its meaning, look at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker which has rounded up links (thanks to Women in Science for this link).

Next time your daughter tells you she's not good at math or doesn't want to take calculus, tell her you have statistical evidence that she can and will do just as well as her brother, and there's no reason to let her husband handle the money when she grows up.

By Tracee Sioux

Girls suck at math and boys can't read.

Studies prove there is a gender gap in reading and math. But a new study tells us it's not a biological fact, but one of social conditioning based in gender inequality.

This matters because we have limited control over biological factors, but we can seriously effect our childrens' social conditioning.

The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development conducted a Programme for Internatinal Student Assessment (PISA) performance study of 400,000 15 year olds in math, science, reading, and problem solving. Their main intent was to discover science aptitude, which we discussed here on So Sioux Me yesterday.

The most significant part of the findings for me was that girls are performing on par with boys, but experience much lower confidence in their science abilities to male counterparts. As a parent that encourages me to build confidence in the scientific area.

In the areas of reading and math however, boys and girls had significantly different scores.

Girls Suck at Math

However, the study indicates a sociological disparity in math scores as opposed to a genetic one.

The gap between how girls and boys performed in math was less in countries with high scores in gender equality, like Sweden. In countries where gender inequality is significant, such as Korea, the gap between girls scores and boys scores was more extreme.

The more gender equity we achieve, the better our girls do at math.

Peggy from Women in Science explored the implications of the math gender gap.

There is also an article in Arse Technica about the math gap.

An article in The Boston Globe says Girls Don't Want to Do Science.

Girls don't want to do science though they're capable? The article says it's because girls like people and boys like things.

Perhaps this is because girls receive toys as babies that encourage their interaction with people and their focus is almost entirely on seeking the approval of people through beauty and dress and manners. Gifts to my daughter before even turing two were books about relationships and dress up clothes, and household caretaking items like kitchens.

While boys are exclusively given action toys like tools and cars and trucks and actively forbidden interaction with relationship toys like dolls and play kitchens?

By the time they turn two the gender scripting is complete, unless parents actively challenge gender roles.

Boys Can't Read

We should note, however, gender differences in mathematics were less than one-third as large as for reading, 11 points on average across OECD countries. This statistic hasn't changed since the study was performed in 2003.

Perhaps it's safe to assume that since the women's movement and the focus on gender equity in education that girls are making significant strides in math, but we're not doing so hot in engaging boys in language.

Our gender expectations from the second a child is born explains both gender gaps for me.

Last week, on Blog Fabulous, I wrote about the unenlightened idea that we disallow care-taking and nurturing behaviors by forbidding boys to play with dolls. Thus creating emotionally unattached and unempathetic husbands and fathers for future generations of women and children.

I would take that argument a step further and say we're disallowing boys full access to language.

How can we expect them to be great readers when we have a minefield of rules regarding how we allow them to express their feelings using their language skills?

Much of reading is about empathy and compassion regarding characters, yet we disallow outward learning activities - like playing with dolls - that teach compassion and empathy in boys. We forbid expression of such "feminine feelings" of sadness or affection even.

No wonder they are disconnected from the reading experience.

My hypothesis is that when we allow boys the same emotional and relationship vocabulary as we allow girls we're going to see boys engage in reading on par with their sisters.