Euclid and Barbie -- and attitudes toward math . . .

     Teacher-poet-musician Glen Brown has shared with me his mathy poem that has for its epigraph a controversial line once spoken (back in 1992) by Mattel's Teen Talk Barbie.   Brown makes playful use of a variety of math terms but with an somewhat sexist point of view.

     Euclid and Barbie      by Glen Brown
                                Math class is tough.
                                                            --Barbie
     Sure it doesn’t add up:
     countless camping and skiing trips with Ken,
     swimming and skating parties without danger,
     dancing and shopping engagements
     with Midge and Skipper
     like an infinite summer vacation.
     Nothing here hints at a dull math class
     for integral Barbie and her complex playmates!

     Even her curvaceous body
     proves mathematically impossible.
     She’s an isosceles bimbo
     with the whole greater than the sum of her parts.
     Just bend her at an obtuse angle,
     press her into her pink Porsche
     and watch her scud across miles of linoleum
     or catapult down the stairs.
     You’ll know that her appeal
     is an equation of Euclidean beauty and speed.
     She doesn’t need school.
     She was created to multiply
     fantasy by freedom in every young girl’s mind.
     Why be upset when Barbie says,
     Math class is tough?
     You can always add for her --
     the numberless accessories
     to her version of the American dream.

Brown's poem was previously posted here in his blog -- and offers, I think, a provocative stimulus for student discussion about math attitudes regarding women.  And here is a link to a posting from almost eleven years ago that includes "Barbie Says Math is Hard" by Kyoko Mori and some other useful math-girl links.