In the spirit of Hortense's Faceoffs, here goes:

Danica McKellar played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, then went on to study math at UCLA, help prove the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem, become the only undergraduate to speak at a statistics conference, and write two books, Math Doesn't Suck and Kiss My Math. She also continues to act.

Danica Patrick started racing go-karts at age 10, was the first woman to win an IndyCar race, and this year placed third in the Indy 500.

Advantage: McKellar, for renaissance-womanness.

Danica McKellar posed in lingerie for Stuff, and a swimsuit for Details.

Danica Patrick posed in a bikini for Sports Illustrated (twice) and in a minidress for Playboy.

Advantage: Tough to call, but Stuff folded, so you can only find McKellar's underwear photos at places like Guns, Girls, and Other Things and, um, GolfHos.com. So, advantage goes to Patrick, I guess.

Danica McKellar did a Volkswagen commercial once, but she also did public service announcements for a Math-A-Thon to fight childhood cancer
and spoke before Congress about getting more women and minorities involved in math.

Danica Patrick played out several frat boy fantasies in her GoDaddy commercials: showering with another woman, and watching a hot female cop strip and pole-dance (this always happens when you speed).

Advantage: Hmm, taking a shower vs. doing math while fighting cancer. McKellar wins.

On girliness, Danica McKellar says,

I think that being girly, and playing with glamorous make-up and fashion is fun. I don't see anything wrong with it, as long as you don't think that it's the most important thing. [...] To all those who'd say or argue are you dumbing down math for girls?' I'd say, 'only if you think there's something inherently dumb about being girly.'

And Danica Patrick says,

There's nothing I can't do in a race car because I'm a girl. These days I love being a girl.

Advantage: Both seem comfortable with both their sexuality and their chosen career. Draw.

On intelligence, Danica McKellar says,

I certainly want to do my part to show girls that the more you develop your intelligence, the better equipped you're going to be able to handle the decisions you'll be making in your life. And hopefully you'll make better decisions, and not think that you need to be reckless and irresponsible in order to be glamorous.

And,

To all those who'd say or argue are you dumbing down math for girls?' I'd say, 'only if you think there's something inherently dumb about being girly.'

But Danica Patrick says,

I've never claimed to be a handy person. [...] I used to be able to do a lot of stuff. I'm sure I still could, but I play dumb and say I don't know how. It's easier when you don't have to do it.

Advantage: McKellar.

The verdict: While McKellar's Stuff spread crosses the line between being comfortable with your body and using it to further your brand, her brand still has a lot more substance than Patrick's. Both women inhabit sort of uncomfortable territory — by being sexy and successful, are they showing girls merely that it's possible to be both, or that they must be both? McKellar is more firmly in the former camp, spending a lot more time telling girls they can achieve — and achieving herself — than she does posing, showering on television, or talking to Sports Illustrated about not wearing underwear. And while Patrick's image may have something to do with the sexist nature of sports culture (Sports Illustrated asked her about underwear, after all), she seems to be buying into this culture wholeheartedly. McKellar's not perfect, but of the two Danicas, we'd still rather see her on a teen girl's wall.

What Danica Patrick Could Do for Nascar, Sponsors [AdAge]
Danica McKellar [Official Site]
Danica Patrick's Q&A [Sports Illustrated]
Danica Patrick 20Q Interview [Playboy]
Danica McKellar [Wikipedia]
Danica McKellar Interview [UGO.com]
Danica Patrick Shower Commercial For The SuperBowl 2009 [YouTube]
Speeding - Internet Only [Commercial, GoDaddy.com]

Inspired in part by Larry Summers's comment that "issues of intrinsic aptitude" were behind the gender gap in math performance, Professors Janet Hyde and Janet Mertz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison decided to review the available evidence and see if boys consistently outperformed girls at the highest levels. Summers's claim — and one accepted by many others — was that while girls might perform as well as boys on average, boys had a greater variability of mathematical aptitude and thus might always dominate in the upper echelons of mathematics. No woman, some note, has ever won the Fields Medal, math's most prestigious honor. But Hyde and Mertz found that the gap between boys and girls at the top levels of achievement did not persist throughout the world, and was smaller in countries with greater gender equality.

In Iceland, Thailand, and the UK, 15-year-old girls outnumbered boys at the top levels of math achievement. In most countries studied, girls' math skills were just as variable as boys', and in the Netherlands they were actually more variable. In general, countries where girls matched or outperformed boys were also countries with high gender equality — like Denmark, Iceland, in the UK. All of these are in the top twelve — the US is 31, right before Kazakhstan. This suggests that culture, not biology, is holding girls back in countries where boys still outperform them.

Hyde and Mertz found that the gender gap in math doesn't even hold across all ethnic groups in the US. For Asian-Americans, more girls than boys scored in the top 1% in one battery of tests. Essentially, Summers's claim of greater variability seemed only to apply to white American kids. Mertz says, "U.S. culture instills in students the belief that math talent is innate; if one is not naturally good at math, there is little one can do to become good at it. In some other countries, people more highly value mathematics and view math performance as being largely related to effort."

It's no surprise that in a country where math skill is assumed to be innate, and where prominent people tell girls they have less innate skill, that girls might not always measure up to boys. We know that negative stereotypes can affect performance, but even in the face of people like Summers, girls in the US are catching up to boys. Girls now take high school calculus at the same rate as boys, and 30% of math doctorates go to women now, as opposed to 5% in the 1950s. American girls may have a ways to go before they reach total equality, but it's going to take more than Larry Summers to keep them down.

Girls Worse At Math? No Way, New Analysis Shows [Reuters]
Culture, Not Biology, Underpins Math Gender Gap [EurekAlert]
Girls Get Math: It's Culture That's Skewed [LiveScience]
Gender Gap In Maths Driven By Social Factors, Not Biological Differences [ScienceBlogs]
Gender Stereotypes Can Affect Men's And Women's Test Performance in Math, Study Shows [NYU]
The Global Gender Gap Report 2007 [World Economic Forum]

• A choir teacher in San Diego called a student an "ugly brat," then literally kicked her out of the classroom. • Disturbing fertility news: even half a serving of soy a day can lower a man's sperm count — effects are more pronounced if he's overweight. • Disturbing adoption news: DNA tests show an abducted Guatemalan baby was adopted by a US couple. Several more abducted babies have been found in Guatemalan orphanages, leading some to believe the practice is widespread. • And some reassuring news: belly and thigh fat is a great source of stem cells, which could cure disease and even remove wrinkles. So eat that donut — unless you're a man, you want a baby, and it's made of soy.

Of course, these studies also mention the culturally ingrained messages we receive from the cradle. Even if female PhD students are encouraged in the same way as male students, it's entirely possible that the way they've been socialized affects the "choices" they're making when opting out of soaring science career paths. The effect of socialization shows up in studies like one mentioned on Salon, which shows that "In Sweden, about the closest thing we've got to a 'gender-equal society,' the difference between boys' and girls' [math] scores is negligible."

Writing in Wired, Anna Kushnir, PhD, doesn't suggest a complete societal overhaul, but she does put forth some very reasonable measures that might help keep women in the hard sciences. "Institute reasonable day care at universities. Allow for extended maternity leave and the option of paternity leave. Don’t cut women any breaks," she reasons. "They are no less inherently able to achieve than men, regardless of what certain Nobel Prize winners and heads of major Universities may say. They don’t need pity or hand me downs. They just need the freedom to choose."

The Freedom To Say 'No' [Boston Globe]
The Education Gender Gap [Salon]
Why Are Senior Female Scientists So Heavily Outnumbered by Men? [Wired]

Earlier: Do We Suck At Math Because Of Biology Or The Patriarchy?

Mariah Carey [WalMart]

[Image via Oh! My God! I Miss You]

Finally, more than 50% of women "asked maths questions by their children or family said they struggled to answer them," reports the BBC. If the vintage calculator ad above is any indication — "If you can't remember numbers, Rapidman can!" displayed with a picture of a smiling, groceries clad couple — it's not that the average woman is worse at math than the average man, but that, as the BBC implies, she's just less confident in her abilities. (Age also was a major factor in the poll, as men and women over 55 were the most confident in their mathematical abilities, while 25 to 34-year-olds were the least sure of themselves.) Studies have shown that in the bell curve of mathematical ability, most women end up clustered around the middle, while men more often fall on the high and low ends of the ability spectrum, and in American schools, girls and boys are now equal in their math courses. Once again we say to the Daily Mail: sod off. Your proclamations about women's frivolousness are only discouraging their latent math skills. Danica McKellar, Winne Cooper from the Wonder Years and the co-author of a scientific paper about a theorem in mathematical physics is our new math deity.

[Image via Vintage Ads.]

Earlier: Do We Suck At Math Because Of Biology Or The Patriarchy?
It All Adds Up
A Blast From The Past Brings A Glimmer Of Hope For The Future

The most interesting part of Scientific American's survey is the discussion of the "real-world impact" of attitudes towards women in science. The magazine says that at the top levels, many aspects of scientists' careers are determined by peer reviews and that there is a "shroud of secrecy" surrounding these reviews and that "awarding of grants, acceptance of academic papers for publication and decisions about hiring — are judged by a panel of other, often anonymous, scientists." It's possible that these anonymous scientists have completely sexist attitudes, keeping women from the highest levels of scientific achievement.

That still doesn't explain why Anna and I were awesome at math (and even enjoyed it!) until about age 12 or 13. Did teachers stop encouraging us? Were we getting tacit cultural messages telling us that girls aren't good at math? Were our tween brains addled by hormones? It's not entirely clear. What about you? Did you feel like you were encouraged at math and science, or did you find the same adolescent math block that we did?

Sex, Math And Scientific Achievement [Scientific American]