The larger culture thinks that math is just about impossible to learn, especially for girls. We have valuable allies fighting this misconception, in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics with its new Standards , which is trying to foment a much needed revolution from kindergarten through high school. We need to learn from and work with them. The message that all children are capable of learning mathematics includes within it the message that girls are capable of learning mathematics. The larger culture thinks that mathematicians are geeks anyway, and if they are girls they're ugly.
Grassroots response is necessary here.
Unfriendly subcultures exist within the mathematical community. Here is a dirty little secret that, like most dirty little secrets, needs to be talked about. But if these are the values which are perceived as dominating all others, we can expect most women and many men to be turned off to mathematics. Students come to us with emotional baggage that works against them. The bright young woman sitting in your class did not spring full-blown from the head of Zeus.