Exploring & Reconciling Your #FOM (Fear of Math) [LISTEN!]

Exploring & Reconciling Your #FOM (Fear of Math) [LISTEN!]

01.06.2021 - By: Anastasia Barbuzzi

“I find so many people, women specifically, are not confident making decisions around finance or around politics, or being opinionated because they don’t feel comfortable with numbers and that needs to stop.” - Vanessa Vakharia

@themathguru had a hot girl summer. 

When she’s not busy running her boutique math and science tutoring studio in Toronto (where they serve Pi tea lattes!), playing music with her band @goodnightsunrise or hosting her own podcast, Math Therapy, she’s grabbing the attention of major executives at massive corporations like AT&T by calling out recent tone-deaf advertisements about women being bad at and disinterested in math.

Without hesitation, Vanessa jumped at her chance to point out the major disrespect paid to women in general, but especially those working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. Her success in changing their strategies and attitudes can be viewed publicly (and enjoyably) on Instagram, Twitter and the like. 

V and I spoke back in May of 2020 when I started recording interviews for $HMONEY Radio. Needless to say, I was little nervous since the last time I was behind a mic was when I was in journalism school, and Vanessa’s quite the pro herself. 

Given $HMONEY’s mission, I thought it was important to begin discussing why some women feel uncomfortable and have difficulty learning about finance by analyzing the cause: a fear of math, or what I like to call, #FOM. 

“I feel like math is where a lot of people very early on in life get told they can’t do something, so what if we could change that?” - Vanessa Vakharia

I can trace my own insecurities about dealing with numbers back to a fear of math (which I’ve documented here), but I know I’m not alone considering the lack of financial literacy that exists for millennial women today, and it all starts with the splintered foundation that cancelled out conducive learning for many. 

The questions that Vanessa asks of Math Therapy listeners struck me the first time I read about it:

“Have you ever said that you hate math? Do you avoid doing certain things just so that you don’t have to do math?! Do the words ‘I’m not a math person’ sound familiar?!?!”

…If your answer to any of those questions is a YES, then you’ll want to listen to this episode. On Math Therapy, Vanessa decodes your math trauma, and today on $HMONEY Radio, we get to #TheRoot of it. Listen now.

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