A couple of years ago, The Mattel Corporation marketed a new version of their immensely popular (and now somewhat controversial) Barbie Doll. This particular model could "talk." And one of the phrases in her vocabulary was, "Math is hard." I can’t argue with that. Anything beyond simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division has always given me difficulty. I can balance my checkbook, but don’t ask me to figure out algebraic equations (as my daughter can tell you).

But several national women’s organizations took offense at this innocent-sounding remark. They said that it implied that mathematics is a skill which men typically have less difficulty mastering than women do. I could not understand both the logic behind their conclusion (the doll did not say, "Math is harder for girls…