Mathematics and its other: (dis)locating the feminine

‘I’m not a “maths‐person”!’ Reconstituting mathematical subjectivities in aesthetic teaching practices

“…Paradoxically, in conjunction with experiences of severe stomach aches, anguish and hate, they also wrote about how they appreciated and felt pleasure in working with the maths book A. Palmer and with the competitive activities organised by the teachers in their childhood classrooms. This paradoxical relationship in subjectivity-constituting processes has also been discussed by other researchers (Butler 1999;Walkerdine 1998;de Freitas 2008). Butler (1997) theoretically describes the process of subjectification as a simultaneous process of being subjected to discursive practices while taking up one's discursive agency through that very same process.…”

“…However, it is vital that these polarised categories are not essentialised and treated as oppositional, but are regarded as going beyond fixed end essentialising ideas about the feminine and masculine to show how they overlap and shift (de Freitas 2008). In our work with students we have tried to understand mathematics as a more co-operative and creative process (as in the aesthetic/maths workshop).…”

“…Several studies have shown that mathematics is generally regarded as a masculine subject (Mendick 2006;Walkerdine 1998;Ernest 2004;de Freitas 2008;Brandell et al 2005). This idea of mathematics as masculine has been generated throughout the history of Western Enlightenment thinking.…”

Interpreting unproblematic high achievement in mathematics: towards theoretical reflexivity

“…A rich vein of research about gender and mathematics (e.g. Cann 2009;de Freitas 2008;Palmer 2009) theoretically positions itself within the post-structural feminist tradition, drawing on the gender theory of Judith Butler (1990), Bronwyn Davies (2002) and others, and on Michel Foucault's (1972) work on discourses. Major contributions to this body of work have been made by Valerie Walkerdine and colleagues (Walkerdine 1998), and more recently by Heather Mendick and colleagues Mendick 2006).…”

“How many sums can I do”? Performative strategies and diffractive thinking as methodological tools for rethinking mathematical subjectivity

“…as a masculine, rational, scientific subject, also interrelates with these expectations of boys and girls (cf. Mendick 2006;Walkerdine, 1998;Ernest, 2004;de Freitas, 2008). The girl in Ella's story can subsequently be understood as an autonomous subject, in that she conforms to the dominant order in the classroom developed by the teacher, the children and (unexpressed) gendered expectations.…”