BYU’s Women in Math poster features only men

Hehehe :clap: :clap: :clap:

They really should’ve changed the title. Here’s a few suggestions for the future:

“Women in Math: Myth or Fact?”

“Women in Math: We’ve heard they are great.”

“Women in Math: We’d sure like to get some.”

“Women in Math: Please. We’re so alone.”

It was really a faux-pas on their part, but the truth is… looking over the BYU Math Department Faculty, only 2 of the 37 faculty members are women. Even if you stuck both women in the program (given they were interested, wanted to work extra for no extra pay, and didn’t have any other plans), you’d still have two extra spots open. I don’t think the poster was meant to be sexist at all. I’d wager in the Math Department, you are far more likely to receive admittance into the program, as well as substantial financial aid, solely for being a woman. But I think most women just aren’t interested in Math. They are not applying.

I don’t think the BYU Math Department is worth all the heat they are getting over this. They desperately want women. They are trying to cater to women, to get them interested in the Math programs. Rather than malicious, they are really just being the well-meaning, yet socially-inept, un-seductive math geeks that they are.

Going after the all-male Church Leadership is one thing, but targeting the Math Department feels like hitting below the belt.

[img]https://wheattares.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/untitled.png?w=588&h=794[/img]

This additional info is important:

The person who made the poster is a female student leader of the student group, Women in Math. She invited four professors who were not affiliated with the group, in order to connect the women in the group with more professionals in the field. She missed the problems with the way the poster was organized and the impressions it gave. She issued a heartfelt apology, in which she took full responsibility for the uproar.

1) This should serve as a great reminder how easy it is to misunderstand and misconstrue something – and then to spread misinformation and ridicule over an innocent mistake.

2) The student has had her teeth kicked in, metaphorically, by many thousands of people at this point – and her mistake has been ridiculed and used a single proof of the Church’s insensitivity to and oppression of women on lots of sites. We won’t do that here, since we now are aware of what actually happened.

Fwiw, I think this would be an excellent thread to discuss point number 1 above. I think it is a good opportunity for self-reflection, and those opportunities are important.

2) The student has had her teeth kicked in, metaphorically, by thousands of people

Thread jacking just a bit – but this rage issue is everywhere. My barely twenty year old son talks about how favorite websites and groups he used to participate in are just full of angry filled people. If a video game isn’t just what someone thought it should be they spend days and hours calling for the creators to be fired. Pages of online verbal beatings take place. If anyone dares say, “Well I liked it.” Too bad. They are verbally run over and destroyed.

Snark is the light end, viciousness at the other end.

Today instagram and twitter are waring over the outcome of Olympic ladies figure skating.

Admin Note I am guilty of being wound up. I knee jerk react all the time. My response includes me looking at my own self.

There are no words. At least the math department is trying. The Sisters’ Meeting poster is embarrassing and utterly tone deaf.

Hey at least they used pink and pastel colors.

I applaud the intentions of the “Women in Math” group.

Information Technology is another field that needs more women representation.

I greatly lament that in our present day, our supposed enlightened times have led us simply to be quicker to judge and sharper in our judgments. It’s easy to point out the flaws and assumed moral shortcomings of strangers. This appears to be a an example of wanting to find something insidious in what was nothing more than an innocent and embarrassing mistake. Maybe we’d be better off in all aspects of our interactions with others if we first assumed innocence before assuming deficiency.

This was a bit gauche, let’s be frank. But in the LDS we do things like this all the tme without realising it.