I am 100% confident that the barrier is not anything inherent to girls or

minority students themselves. The issue of the gender/race gap in math is

one that has been research extensively and is certainly a complicated issue
without a single clear root cause. Based on my personal experiences,
however, I feel that one of the biggest barriers comes from social
expectations. Often when girls and minority students look up to the students
who are older than them and who are good at math, it seems that most, if
not all of them, are not like them. Theres already a common stigma around
math, that its hard or boring, that already prevents many people from even
considering pursuing math at a higher level. Many people dread walking into
math class each day.