The world of Math Girls . . .

     This past weekend my oldest granddaughter turned sixteen -- and I intensely want every career door to be open to her and to my other granddaughters (and my grandson).  The times are changing, new doors are opening for girls and women,  Still, these syllable-square thoughts are on my mind this morning.  

     Math Girls     

          A math girl must be       
          smarter than the rest –-
          yet must be modest
          and never claiming.
          Math-World is not fair.

And here are more of my mathy-perhaps-poetic thoughts.

     When you’re a math girl you may be the only girl in the room.
          A math girl must be three times as good to be equal.   

     For girls, belonging in math feels like Russell’s paradox.
          When you’re a math girl, a math boy looks like 
                    an attitude to conquer
                         and a male teacher doesn’t understand 
                              unless he has a daughter.
     When you’re a math girl, a female teacher looks like multiplication.
          When you’re a math girl you are divided.
     For math girls, the Contents listing for a journal is a reminder 
                    that the subject is MatHEmatics.
     For a math girl who can forget her loneliness, topology is fun.
          When you’re a math girl, 
                    a tree looks like a tree, 
                              a shoreline looks like a fractal.
     As a math girl you know that pi may be normal and every planar map
                    needs only four colors.
     A math girl can meditate on transcendental numbers.  
                   She’s friendly with imaginaries
                              and knows that not all reals are rational.
     For a math girl, contradiction is an important style of proof.
     For a math girl, poems shine like theorems 
                   built on rhyme schemes and permutations –
                                   and heartbeats and breath.

A curious reader may find still more on this topic by doing a blog search for "math girls"