News > Geek > Beauty Vs. Brains: Winnie Cooper and the Girly-Girl Conundrum

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WEDNESDAY AUGUST 8 2007 7:00 AM

Beauty Vs. Brains: Winnie Cooper and the Girly-Girl Conundrum

Perhaps you will say that this story doesn't apply to you. Maybe it's that you never struggled with mathematics, or maybe you aren't a girl. Moreover, if you're reading this -- let alone commenting -- then it's probably safe to say that you aren't a teenager. Being, however, that I've at one time or another been all three of those things combined, I find this story pretty interesting. (And it doesn't hurt that I've got quite a soft spot for TV shows I used to watch as a kid, either.)

Much like, well, everyone on the show who wasn't named Fred Savage, Danica McKellar (nee Winnie Cooper) seemed to drop off the map after The Wonder Years ended in 1993. The next time she showed up on my radar was three years ago, starring in Proof at the San Diego Reperatory Theatre, all acting up a storm and begging questions like "What has she been doing all these years," and "I hope things aren't bad for her like Corey Feldman," and "What ever happened to Paul?" Things actually seem to be working out pretty un-Corey-esque for McKellar: sure she did some work on The West Wing, I guess, but mostly she spent the last ten decade just chillin'out, maxin', relaxin', coolin', just studying mathematics at UCLA and co-writing a theorem entitled Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic Ashkin–Teller models on Z2 and giving mathematics lectures at Rutgers and graduating summa cum laude. Not bad, eh?

Today's news, however, isn't McKellar's theorem or graduation or even her impressive Erdos-Bacon number, but the fact that she is about to have just published a slightly different kind of book from that last mouthful of a proof. It's called Math Doesn't Suck, and as is highlighted in Wired this week, it's geared toward middle-school girls without a natural eye for pre-algebra.

McKellar's math book for junior high girls, called Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math and not Break a Nail, will be at bookstores Thursday. It has the look and feel of a teen magazine, but puts heavy emphasis on fractions and pre-algebra.

Each chapter includes clear explanations that make manipulating numbers sound easy. "Going back and forth between percents and decimals is very easy. All you need to do is take away the % sign, then move the decimal point two places -- that's it!" The book includes horoscopes, testimonials, cute doodles and quotes from girls. Word problems are brought to life with descriptions of lipstick, beads, cookies and similarly girly examples that might make the feminist in some women cringe.

So now some of my more staunch internet co-workers are likely rolling wildly in an early grave from several massive lipstick-doodle-induced strokes, but Wired gave McKellar a chance to explain herself and her tactics this week in a full-on interview.

WN: There are a lot of references to baking cookies, expensive clothing, cosmetics and accessories. This could be viewed as fun -- or reinforcing gender roles.

McKellar: What do you think? If I'm teaching girls that do love to make cookies and do love fashion -- that they can use math as a part of that -- you think that's me saying, come on girls you belong in the kitchen, you belong shopping? Or, do you think it's me showing them how math is part of all their life, even the part they thought it had nothing to do with?

In the introduction and other places in the book, I reinforce the idea it's OK to be girly. It's fun to be girly and being smart is part of who you want to be. Picture yourself clicking down Wall Street in your heels with your designer bag, and you're going to need a really great job to support that shopping habit of yours, aren't you? Well, yes.

[...]

WN: You don't think that there are so many mentions of expensive shoes and expensive purses that it's encouraging them to be materialistic?

McKellar: You think my book is going to make them more materialistic than they are already being trained to be? You have a lot (to learn). You're putting my book on quite a pedestal. That's like throwing a drop of rain into an entire ocean. When they see these things reinforced in every part of society -- and it does surround them -- they'll start to make a connection to math they never would have before.

There are two ways to look at this. The first is to say that McKellar is grossly underestimating her influence, and that any encouragement toward girly-girl materialism is a step toward implicit sexism and ought to be frowned upon, no matter how small a drop in the ocean. Truly, that's the way I want to lean. Nevertheless, there's a small part of me that remembers a middle-school girl ten years ago, grappling tooth-and-nail through Algebra Concepts (being that she was much-too-much of a genius to really dig into Algebra 1 in anything less than two school years). How would that girl have responded to a math book that, instead of developing concepts around the perimeter of sheep farms and the area of grain silos, focused on her own real-life needs and interests? Had she found a math book (besides the embarrassingly mom-approved Math For Smarty Pants, anyway) written with bored and disgruntled kids in mind, a book that strove to engage her actively with images and situations she could relate to, might she be a respected and world-renowned astrophysicist, math professor, or Wall Street stock broker today?

One can always dream, though it's a moot point anyway, as world-famous millionaire internet writers often have no time for maths. (For the record: this middle-school refugee in question would probably have been mortified by a math book about pearl necklaces and lipstick, but she might have read it in secret until the day someone wrote a book about using pi to find the circumference of a seven-inch single.) Oh, well. It's too late for me now, but at least for the bubblegum-smacking factor of those awful Algebra Concepts classes, there just might be a brand new hope of getting out alive without a spirit crushed to dust.

Oh yeah, and Paul became a lawyer. Hey Wayne, what's your excuse?

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Comments

PointBlank

New York, NY

November 2004

AUG 08, 2007 07:16 AM

_DictionaryGirl_ said:

WN: You don't think that there are so many mentions of expensive shoes and expensive purses that it's encouraging them to be materialistic?

McKellar: You think my book is going to make them more materialistic than they are already being trained to be? You have a lot (to learn). You're putting my book on quite a pedestal.

God, I hate this sort of thinking. Okay, your book is important enough to help defeat the conventional teenage wisdom that "Math sucks," but god forbid you try to combat materialism instead of shrugging your shoulders and saying "Too hard. Doesn't matter anyway."

testykitten

Andorra

February 2005

AUG 08, 2007 07:20 AM

i wish i had this book in middle school. sure, i wasn't like, totally into pearls and expensive handbags. but i could at least see them in the same world with me. algebra, however, was just a great black hole of failure.

Cash

USA

OLD SKOOL

AUG 08, 2007 07:20 AM

As a kid who grew up with serious math anxiety...I think a book like this would have helped me. If there was a boys' equivalent...perhaps I wouldn't have spent so much of my time (and my parents' money) with math tutors.

I know I wasn't stupid...because my English skills were always above average...I just blew at math. A little positive reinforcement would have gone a long way.

I see no problem with a book that will help make math more fun and/or interesting to kids. The benefits are far greater than the potential liabilities.

ObservingOne

Monroe, LA

April 2006

AUG 08, 2007 07:26 AM

I think it's amazingly positive.
It's obviously geared towards the girls who are already interested in things like lipstick and baking cookies, etc. Using that to create an interest in math. If they aren't interested in those things, this book isn't going to matter to them.
But for those that it does help, they might go on to do things lke Winnie. Er....Danica.
It's ok to "be girly" (if you want) AND be smart.

photoline

Edmonton, AB

January 2005

AUG 08, 2007 07:26 AM

How about this number?

farva

Portland, OR

November 2005

AUG 08, 2007 07:30 AM

The themes are both a way to relate foreign principles in familiar terms and a marketing angle. She is trying to help kids with math and sell books. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Jesus.

farva

Portland, OR

November 2005

AUG 08, 2007 07:32 AM

ObservingOne said:...It's ok to "be girly" (if you want) AND be smart.

Bingo.

You don't have to have to be a hairy monster of an amishnazi vagithug to be intelligent.

saltonsea

Toronto, ON

July 2004

AUG 08, 2007 07:53 AM

i've always figured: einstein sucked at math, so i can too...

I PAINT BY NUMBERS, BITCH!!!