Chapter 2: What does it mean to Characterize Mathematics as “Masculine”?: Bringing a Psychoanalytic Lens to Bear on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics

When we think about the social world, we have a tendency to categorize people, attitudes, and behaviors as either male or female, masculine or feminine (usually spoken in that order), and these labels come laden with powerful messages and expectations. Bronwyn Davies (1997) highlights the way these gender binaries have come to be seen as absolute, essential truths and facts, rather than stories we tell about ourselves and our world:

It is precisely the difficulty of imagining beyond these binaries that keeps them in place and maintains their power. Indeed all dichotomies, not just the male–female binary, rely on the definition of one as “this,” and, therefore, “not the other” (try defining heat without mentioning cold). Such definitions can exist only in opposition to their binary-pair; the essence of one is bound to a negation of the essence of the other. It is the destructive tit-for-tat of dichotomous thinking that locks us in conflict; in a world of me and not me, there can be no us (Benjamin, 2004). I suggest that the adoption and valorization of one side of a set of dichotomies and the concomitant rejection of the other side is an example of psychological splitting. I explore this more fully below.

If we accept for the moment the widely held belief that “mathematics is masculine,” what implications does this have for teaching and learning mathematics? This chapter uses psychoanalytic theories to investigate this question. There are a number of ways the claim that mathematics is masculine might be read. The phrase elides distinctions that might be made, for example, between mathematics as a masculine subject (its content and processes) and mathematics teaching as masculine, or perhaps reproductive of particular masculinities. The version of masculinity that hovers over and is deemed to pervade mathematics relates to an unemotionally authoritative, rule-giving, rational, systematic, and logical set of values and practices, which simultaneously (and necessarily) separates itself from apparently feminine qualities, such as warmth, emotional attunement, and creativity (Bibby, 2002a; Shaw, 1995). The analysis developed in this chapter, while framed differently than Valerie Walkerdine’s (1990, 1998) discussions of the role of gendered and classed discourses in the production of subjectivities, has strong similarities in intention. The conclusions demand a no less radical break with current practices.

Important to the argument developed in this chapter is a desire not to essen- tialize gender, that is, not to attribute masculine behaviors solely and necessarily to boys and men and feminine behaviors to girls and women (Butler, 1990; Youdell, 2006). In following these feminist, poststructuralist understandings of gender and psychoanalytic theories stemming from Klein and Riviere (1937), like Britzman (2009), I see masculinity and femininity, boy and girl, as elements within gender.

I am interested in people’s relationships to school mathematics, rather than the subject per se, although separating these two things is never entirely possible. I tend to think about relationships to mathematics as relationships to authority. Britzman (2006) has written about pedagogical relationships and highlighted the many names that learning assumes in psychoanalytic writings (the Oedipus complex, the drive, infantile sexuality, insight) and in education (influence, authority, curiosity, affection). She points to the extreme difficulties of working with and between these terms. In this chapter I draw on psychoanalytic discussions of the oedipal family and the Oedipus complex to explore relationships to mathematics, particularly as they are constituted in primary schools. I will draw on post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories of authority to explore the sort of extreme masculinized notion of mathematics exemplified by traditional school mathematics pedagogy, with its emphasis on an adherence to rules, speed, and right answers. Drawing on a theoretical discussion, I suggest that a reconsideration of the experiences of learners of mathematics framed through the Oedipus complex can be used to recast the now-familiar argument that mathematics is masculine. I will then explore some potential consequences of the dichotomizing involved, the tensions that inhere in the situation, and the consequences for teachers and students living with the effects of these splits in policy and practice. Finally I will suggest a possible way to think beyond the dualisms and to see what it might mean, were education to “serve as gender’s playground,” although how do-able the suggestion is remains unexplored here (see also Gilbert, 2001; Walkerdine, 1998).