Math class

Math class

In 1968, junior year of high school, this happened.

I was in an “advanced” class in math based on texts by the School Math Study Group, SMSG.  We had taken tests to qualify for the SMSG program back in junior high. I was good at math.

One day, the teacher, a male, was doing a lesson on the famous “story problems” that required problem solving and logic to figure out how to set up an equation. He had drifted over into philosophy-logic, posing a riddle that was, he said, an example of a paradox, a riddle that has no solution: “Every man in town who does not shave himself is shaved by the barber. Who, then, shaves the barber?” The teacher explained that the barber cannot shave himself, because the statement is that only men who don’t shave themselves are shaved by the barber; someone in class suggested that the barber had a beard, but, again, the statement says all men are shaved, either by themselves or by the barber. I suggested that the barber is a woman. The teacher became flustered and said, “Women shave some places.” I said the original statement didn’t say anything about women shaving or not shaving, but that if the barber is a woman, the statement is not a paradox. (Clearly, you can change the statement to say “Everyone in town … “ leaving out gender, but that was not the problem as presented.)

Was the teacher impressed? Nope. He was angry. He did not like bright young women in his math classes, and he did not like to be shown up, especially not by a girl. He moved on to the next story problem.

And he was one reason why many young women, at least in that town, did not pursue studies in science and math. It was undoubtedly true in many, many towns in that era, and unfortunately may still be true in some places today.