Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!agate!wauford@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu
From: wauford@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu (melissa wauford)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Countering discrimination your children will face
Message-ID: <13055@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 8 Aug 88 21:34:55 GMT
References: <12984@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
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In article <12984@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, fester@math.berkeley.edu writes:
> 
> 1.  I demonstrated a natural ability for math in junior high, a fact
> which was commented on by my teachers and then soundly ignored.
> 
> Experiences of course will vary, but I tend to think that if I ran
> into so much sexism in a quite liberal environment, then it can only
> be worse in other places around the country.  Sometimes this surprisingly
> proves false, however.

Interesting.  My experience is so different.  When I was in 6th grade, a
teacher started me (and no one else, male or female) on single variable
algebra.  On the strength of this I was put in an advanced math course
the next year and an advanced science class a year after that.  It
wasn't until the year after that that they put me in advanced English.
This was in Tennessee and Texas, hardly bastions of liberalism,
educational or otherwise.  The advanced math and science courses were a
tad more male-dominated than the advanced English, but in general considerably 
more than a third of all the classes was female.

I'm not sure what all of this proves.  Does the relative academic
standing of the school have something to do with the amount of sexism
there? (My mother was always careful to move into school districts with
the best schools.)  Does the timeframe?  (I started 6th grade in 1973.)
Is it the difference between large and small towns?  Most importantly,
have things changed?  For the better or worse?

                                      Melissa Wauford
                                      MWAUFORD@UTKVX1.UTK.EDU