Math is hard

So I’ve been working on this web project that’s a partnership between a major US testing service and a major US textbook publisher. It’s a set of online standardized tests for K-12 students — totally straightforward stuff, multiple-choice questions on a variety of subjects, with radio buttons instead of filling in bubbles with a #2 pencil, and with audio files standing in for the proctor’s rote speech about do not turn the page until etc etc. It will be used in schools. It will be used in lots and lots and lots of schools.

It’s been specced to an obsessive degree. Like not only did they specify the exact color and size of every box, line, and letter to appear on screen, they went down to the “put all the text in 14pt Arial, but for numbers set the thousands separator in Times New Roman” level of detail. Which is unusual, but not that unusual, and I mention it only as evidence that what I’m about to say was not accidental on their part:

They specified that for all the english and reading tests, the audio files alternate between male and female voices. But for all the math and science tests, the audio files should use a male voice.

Because, like, math is too hard for girls, amirite?