Book-smart is okay for girls, as much as any sort of smart is okay for girls. But math-smart isn’t the same. Math-smart belongs to skinny boys with glasses and pocket protectors and heads full of science. That’s what the books say. That’s what the TV says. And that’s what her classmates say in a thousand tiny ways, every time she finishes her math book ahead of the rest of them. Even the math-smart boys don’t like her, because she’s smarter than them, and some things are too much to be borne.
