海角大神

When she heard her name called, Megan Joshi couldn't quite believe it.聽

Earlier in the day, 266 of the brightest young minds in the country 鈥� the 16-year-old Californian among them 鈥� sat hunched over desks in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's largest classroom, silently scribbling numbers and formulas as test monitors strolled the aisles.

At first glance, it could have been just another math exam at MIT. But the Advantage Testing Foundation鈥檚 Math Prize for Girls contest, held in September, had some key distinctions: Participants competed not for grades, but for $31,000 in cash. None had yet graduated high school. And, as the competition's name would suggest, all were girls.

During the contest itself, Megan, a second-time participant, had felt unusually relaxed. Later in the afternoon, as she was named one of three first-prize winners at the awards ceremony, that calm feeling quickly disappeared. 聽

鈥淎s soon as I was called, I was just freaking out and hugging my friends,鈥� Megan, a senior at Newbury Park High School in Thousand Oaks, Calif., recalls. 鈥淚 kind of remember walking up to the stage, but not really.鈥�

A sense of both competition and camaraderie permeates throughout the annual Math Prize for Girls event, one of a number of all-girls math competitions aimed at righting the deficit of women working in math and other STEM fields.

While some critics argue that gender-segregated math contests send a message that women aren鈥檛 capable of competing with men, others say such competitions can be a crucial pipeline for young girls hoping to pursue STEM careers. They offer an opportunity to gain recognition in the field while forming a network of female friends and mentors with similar interests.聽

鈥淪o many of our participants share the story of being the only girl on their schools鈥� math teams,鈥� said聽Arun Alagappan, co-founder of the Math Prize for Girls, in an email to the Monitor. 鈥淲e want to give these girls the opportunity to thrive in an environment in which their sense of belonging is never in question.鈥�

Battling the gender gap

The gender gap in math and other STEM fields is well-documented. Roughly 4 in 10 undergraduate math majors are female, according to data from 2014. But women hold just聽15 percent of tenure track positions in mathematics, and roughly聽9 percent of all math journal editorial positions.

Ami Radunskaya, professor of mathematics at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., and president of the Association for Women in Mathematics,聽compares the gender ratio along the trajectory from math student to high-level mathematician to a 鈥淧acman pie chart,鈥� with the percentage of women diminishing as the level of difficulty and prestige rises.聽

鈥淸The percentage of women]聽cuts up in half, and half, and you look at who wins the big math prizes: it鈥檚 like zero [women]. The pie chart that completely closes up,鈥� she says. 鈥淚f you see women winning prizes at these contests, or being applauded as one of the top researchers, that might give you encouragement that you could [do] that as well.鈥�

For aspiring young mathematicians, competitions can provide key visibility and lead to scholarships and other opportunities, Dr. Radunskaya and other observers say.聽

Thus, to narrow the STEM gap later in life, it鈥檚 important that girls engage in math contests early on, says Richard Rusczyk, co-author of 鈥淭he Art of Problem Solving鈥� textbook series.聽

鈥淚f you have an event that鈥檚 dominated by men or one ethnic group, they experience the culture earlier, they learn to navigate it sooner, they learn its mores and ways, and what obliquely stated things actually mean,鈥� Mr. Rusczyk says. But, he adds, getting more girls involved in the world of competitive mathematics at a young age wouldn't just benefit women in STEM.聽

鈥淚f [women] can experience this culture earlier ... they might also be able to improve it鈥� by offering a new perspective, he suggests. 鈥淚f you can bring in an outside group who comes at the problem from a different angle or help develop a group along different lines, that's really powerful.鈥�

Whether all-girls competitions are the best avenue for narrowing the STEM gap is up for debate in the math world. Events such as the European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad, an international competition founded in 2012, have been criticized by some women mathematicians for promoting negative stereotypes about women in the field.聽

Such a contest 鈥渙nly helps stigmatise all girls as being less talented and capable in mathematics,鈥� argued Jana Madjarova, president of the Swedish Mathematical Contest, in an interview with The Guardian, a London-based newspaper. A better way to increase the number of women in the field, Dr. Madjarova suggested, is through sponsoring and publicizing unisex competitions.聽

An important tool

Megan, the first-prize winner at this year's Math Prize for Girls competition, says she understands the arguments against all-female contests, but sees them as an important tool for bringing more girls into mainstream unisex competitions, where some might feel discouraged by a lack of peers.聽

鈥淚f you have a competition bringing 300 girls into practically the same room, then they automatically see that, 'Hey, these are a group of girls who I could hang out with,鈥� and that will motivate them to join the regular math competitions,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o I think that they're definitely necessary, and hopefully after girls become a bigger part of the mainstream competitions, then we won't need all-girls competitions anymore.鈥�

The social aspect of the competition was a big part of why Sara Rubin chose to participate in the first Math Prize for Girls contest as a high school senior in 2009. This year, Ms. Rubin, now a graduate student in the聽Health Sciences & Technology track of the MD-PhD program at MIT and Harvard University, was one of a handful of alumni who returned to offer wisdom and a helping hand.

鈥淚t was cool to be a part of something where other people like me would be getting together, and I was hoping to make some new friends,鈥� Rubin says, noting that while she had several friends at her high school who were also interested in science and math, most of her competitors in other math contests were men. Throughout college and beyond, she says, she has crossed paths with fellow Math Prize for Girls participants.聽

鈥淪cience and research is such a small world,鈥� Rubin adds. 鈥淎nd to have a strong support network of other people who are like-minded and are on the feminine side of it ... is really important.鈥�

Staff writer Jessica Mendoza contributed additional reporting from Los Angeles.