Mythbusters
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz recently said in an interview with ForbesWoman, “If I had one goal, I’d have every young girl learn math to the point of college calculus, at least. If you can’t pass basic university math, you are closing yourself off to three-quarters of the careers in America.”
Bartz’s words go to the heart of the vision behind Pretty Brainy: to keep girls’ confidence levels up by showing them they can be accomplished in the subjects they need to fulfill their life’s aspirations. For every girl I know today who says she wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up, I know two women who wanted to be a vet, but changed direction because of the math and science requirements.1 Goals and dreams unfulfilled lead to the self-disappointment that, in turn, can manifest in myriad problems with one’s physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological health. (The short list of examples includes obesity, low adult self-esteem, and underemployment (example: working as your spouse’s secretary rather than building your own career).)
The ForbesWoman article, “Mythbusters,” begins “Who says women can’t do math and science? Look at the top of corporate America.” Sixteen women executives with science degrees who are leading some of the largest companies on the globe are listed. They include Ursula Burns, CEO, Xerox, who began at the company as a summer intern. As CEO, Burns is the first African-American woman to lead a major American Corporation.
Burns and Bartz give our work at Pretty Brainy tremendous energy because they are among the women to whom we can refer ’tween girls who need a greater perspective on what they can do with their lives. The fact of their leadership and accomplishments boosts our vision of more girls pursuing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Those pursuits are among girls’ natural interests in the world, and Pretty Brainy was founded to help preteen girls discover the self-confidence, interest, and know-how they need to stay engaged in these subjects and, in the process, not sacrifice what it is to be a girl.
A Pretty Brainy Hand in Replacing Myth with Fact
I am passionate about helping girls connect with their life’s work, and they have to avail themselves to studies in math and science to find out what that work is. Among Pretty Brainy’s contributions to busting the myth is to change the perspective on ’tween girls. For example, we place our logo on the front of each Pretty Brainy girls graphic tee, which works to label girls “pretty” and “brainy” in balanced measure. When we entered commerce in December 2008, grown women bought Pretty Brainy graphic tees to wear themselves. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Footnote
1Yes, the low admission of women to vet schools began to change in the U.S. and Canada in the late 1970s. In Aug. 2009, women comprised nearly 82 percent of those admitted to the College of Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State University (College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University). That number is on par with vet schools nationwide. But, at the same time, the percentage of women has increased in part because the number of male applicants has declined. See the Canadian Veterinary Journal, vol. 44, no. 7 (July 2003): 533–535.
Tags: