If girls are so good at math, where are the female mathematicians?

Girls are good at math until they reach Junior High. Another important thing happens in Junior High. Many young girls and boys begin dating, and boys begin to sexualize girls. But it isn't just boys as the agents of change. Girls become interested in these relationships, and begin paying more attention to the people around them than abstract theories, and math, especially after a while, is rather abstract. English, social studies, and the earth sciences are more tangible, and thus see more interest from young people more focused on life around them, which is what happens in Junior High. Men mistake the disinterest for lack of ability, and do not encourage girls the same way they encourage boys. And thus, math departments in colleges become sausage fests.

I never went through this process, and I continued to focus on my studies and excelled at math. But I found that math wasn't that important. Math wasn't going to figure out the problems of the world, math wasn't going to hold my interest. The grand purpose to the study of math did not impress me at all. Math Departments and mathematicians are just as useless as any English major, or rather, English majors are as useful as mathematicians. But that is just a tangent, a hypothesis, a thought for everyone to ponder. You can unpack that idea for yourself, or you can reject it wholesale, I don't give a crap.

No, my point is this - I was never sexualized in Junior High. I was unattractive, and I didn't dress well. I was over weight and my hair was weird. Even the gross kid avoided me. But I was smart. I consistently vyed for the top spot in the class - I never even looked past the top five for my name. I tutored the so-called "cool" kids and I never wanted to be anyone but myself. I spoke to anyone, regardless of social rank. And I wasn't sexualized. Sure, it hurt to know that I couldn't get a date. Sure, I wished like hell to be skinny and pretty, but any time I wished to be someone else, I always remembered that doing that would mean giving up my brain, and I couldn't do that for the world.

I made a promise to myself as a young girl - or rather, I just made a realization. I thought that I wasn't pretty, so I may as well be smart. That one moment, at the age of 4 or 5, seemed like an embarassment for so long. I told my first counselor during one tear filled session. Later, my mother learned that I felt that way, and it hurt her that her daughter thought she wasn't pretty from such an early age. But as an adult, I wonder why I worried so much. Pretty didn't get me my Master's degree. Pretty didn't get me $70k a year with tons of room for advancement. No, pretty didn't, but that committment to being smart did. And now I know I'm not ugly, but I am still reaping the benefits of thinking I was, because it made me smart.