Tainted Love

On a rainy day this March, I took my first ever math olympiad, the USAJMO. And in those nine hours, at the ripe old age of 16, I discovered love.

I fell in love with uncertainty and infinity, the boundless nature of math stretching beyond what I could ever imagine. The beauty of math seemed to fill another dimension, brimming with logic and creativity. I was in awe that math did not have to be restricted to concrete numbers, but could instead spill out into the abstract. My shaking hand transformed my ideas into a tangible reality, filling page after page with illegible scribbles even I could barely understand. I found the purity of mathematical thought in this chaos of ink-stained palms and clothes covered with eraser shavings.

It was exhilarating how jumbled ideas and mathematical expressions could fuse into the harmony of understanding. It was a pure, intimate type of beauty, but it was also incendiary. The rush of adrenaline ignited my lethargic bones, filling me with determination. I was breathless with emotion, my racing heart pumping electricity through my veins. I was unconstrained, as if my existence could not be bound by the physicality of pencil and paper. There were no rules or formulas or numbers to guess, only possibility and exploration. If love is supposed to make you feel alive, then I must be head over heels for math.

But no love story is complete without an antagonist.

The more I accomplish, the lonelier it becomes. I carry the burden of "girl in math" everywhere I go now, the weight of my gender constantly threatening to overwhelm me. Their expectations and demands for constant perfection feel suffocating. And when I inevitably fail, they say that I’m not deserving of this title I never asked for. I can tackle math problems, but I still don’t know how to solve the issue of people.

People often shower me with compliments, but at the end of their praise, they add "and you're a girl", as if my successes are only worthy because of my gender. They constantly tell me that I’m a “girl in math”, but when I claim that label as my own, they say that my experiences are just some malicious conspiracy trying to tear hard-working boys down. But I assure you, the sexism I face is very much real.

Sexism is when others credit my achievements, not to the countless hours I pour in, but to simply “being a girl”. They degrade my accomplishments with snide remarks about “Pink” MOP, Math Prize for Girls, and lower cutoffs. When they see me, they don’t see a competitor or teammate or fellow math lover. All they want is a poster child to justify their claims that discrimination in math doesn’t exist.

Sexism is when year after year, my school’s math team fails to elect any female officers. I watched as my male teammates turned a blind eye to the brilliant female candidates and continued the endless cycle of male leadership without a second thought. I once dreamed of someday becoming the captain of my high school’s math team, but perhaps it was just that; a fantasy, a childhood delusion. Because how can a girl ever be worthy of representing a male-dominated club, when all anybody has ever known is being surrounded by boys?

My story may not be a happily-ever-after, but it is also not a heartbreak. I refuse to be broken.

My hope for a more equitable future gives me the strength to push through all of the external negativity and focus on the subject I am deeply passionate about. Even though my own competition math journey will be coming to an end soon, I use my voice to inspire younger girls to continue pursuing their love for math through teaching, blogging, and giving advice. I can’t wait to see what the next generation of female mathletes will achieve.