Here is a song written for the Lost in Lexicon / Ice Castle series, produced by Pendred Noyce.  The song is entitled “Girls Can’t Do Math” — but we all know this is not true.   In the real world, things are quite the opposite!

It’s a fun song to play in the classroom, and sign along with.

 

Lyrics: Girls Can’t Do Math

 

The world around us has an order

All of us made to fit in our roles

And the male mind is the perfect tool

To seek and find that grand design

You’re not fit to know

 

Because Girls…Can’t do math

 

The female brain is a delicate flower

When exposed to math, it wilts and cowers

The way that they think means they don’t have the power

To solve the kind of higher mind

Problems we endure

 

Because Girls…Can’t do math

 

Explaining numbers to girls is a waste like no other

Why not teach a camel to sing?

It can’t be done – why do such a thing?

 

Women have a harder time with logic

All their emotions just get in their way

And they haven’t a shot at an abstract thought

To let them start would mock the art

And lead us all astray.

 

Because Girls…Can’t do math

 

They’re all feeling all passion, no reason, no measure

Why not teach a whale to run?

Why try such a thing?  It can’t be done.

 

Their high voices squeak while reciting their tables,

Their long hair gets caught in their abacus cables

They can’t draw straight lines and their graphs have no labels,

Their moods, on whole, are variable

In all, irrational

 

Because Girls…Can’t do math (2x)

 

 

The Debate:

Archimedes, Al Khowarzmi, there’s really no point to pretend.

Gauss & Cantor & Fermat:  Mathematicians are men

.Euler, Reimann, Newton,  Euclid, Ramanujan,

Weierstrass, Pythagoras:  Every last on is a man!

 

Emmy Noether & Agnes Baxter:  Open your minds and you’ll see

Kovalevskaya & Doris Schattschneider:  Double X chromosome just like me.

Sophie Germain, Florence Nightingale, Malone-Mayes: don’t make me laugh!

Litvinava, Hypathia:  A female’s place is in math.

 

You can’t see that the solution in front of your faces.

Can I teach the blind to see?

I haven’t a choice it’s all up to me.

 

Well, you couldn’t be more wrong and you haven’t a clue

I just helped solve this problem YOU boys couldn’t do,

If you gave us 1/2 a chance we could prove that it’s true

That we can grasp the highest math

Just as well as you.

 

Because Girls…Can do math  (6x)

 

Copyright 2013, Pendred Noyce