Girls Just Want to Have Sums

"Girls Just Want to Have Sums" is the nineteenth episode of the seventeenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 30, 2006.

Plot

The Simpsons and many other prominent Springfielders go to see a performance of ''Stab-a-Lot: The Itchy and Scratchy Musical''. The audience greets the performance with a standing ovation. Juliana Kellner, the show's director and a former student of Springfield Elementary School, greets the reception along with Principal Skinner, who acknowledges Juliana's straight A's at the school but attributes her "B or two" in math to being a girl. The audience is outraged by Skinner's remark. Skinner's attempts to defend himself make the situation worse, and he is beaten by the ''Itchy and Scratchy'' puppeteers.

The next day, the teachers of Springfield Elementary and other Springfield women stage a protest outside the school against Skinner. To pacify them, Skinner holds a conference in the school's auditorium, inviting all protesting ladies to attend. Nothing he says or does (such as wearing a skirt, and saying that men and women are equal but not identical) appeases the women, so Superintendent Chalmers introduces the students to their new principal, Melanie Upfoot, who for her first act, segregates the school across gender lines. During the morning after the incident, Marge tries to cheer Lisa up by pointing out the contributions of the women to society, including how her own role as a housewife requires math to manage their family finances. When Homer and Bart interfere with the conversation, remarking that the men are more important than the women, Marge retaliates by forcing Homer to sleep on the couch. After failed attempts to apologize to Marge for his sexism, Homer tries to get comfort from Santa's Little Helper, but he unwittingly insults the dog's intelligence. The offended dog then kicks Homer out of the house and forces him to sleep in his dog house.

At first, Lisa looks forward to the all-girls school, but quickly grows disenchanted when Upfoot does counterproductive New Age-type math "lessons" like asking the girls how math makes them feel. Lisa infiltrates the boys' school, where she sees that actual math is being taught, but Skinner, now an assistant to Groundskeeper Willie, tells Lisa to leave. With the help of Marge, Lisa disguises herself as a boy named Jake Boyman and attends the boys' school, where she gets nicknamed "Toilet" by the boys after she gets toilet paper stuck to the sole of the shoe. During math class, she gives a wrong answer and is corrected by Martin, but she feels happy to have learned something. Unfortunately, being with the boys means having to act like one, and during lunch, Lisa inadvertently gets into a fight with Nelson, despite her efforts to use her intelligence to escape her situation. When Bart returns home that day, he is happy to have seen a fight and runs upstairs to tell Lisa, only to discover that Lisa is the boy who got beat up. Slightly amused but ultimately outraged by his sister's mistreatment, Bart vows to help her blend into the boys' school.

Lisa begins to master the code of the boys, including eating French fries that fell onto a dirty restaurant floor and punching a defenseless Ralph Wiggum; this last act wins over Nelson and the other bullies and "Jake" becomes an accepted part of their world. Lisa does well in math class, and at an awards ceremony is recognized for her outstanding performance in the subject. She then reveals her true identity to the whole school, and she explains why she had to disguise herself. Proud of his sister, Bart praises her for fitting in because she was acting like a boy; in response to which she throws her award at him, immediately then becoming shocked at the violent turn her masculine behavior has taken as the boys all engage in a chair fight. Lisa ends her speech by saying how proud she is of her feminism and her intelligence. She walks off stage to Martin playing the flute, but quietly sneaks up behind him and hits him with a chair.

Awards

Matt Selman was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Writing in Animation at the 59th Writers Guild of America Awards for his script to this episode.

References

External links

*

See also

*Sex segregation
* "Math class is tough!" --Teen Talk Barbie
*Social Justice Warrior

{{The Simpsons episodes, 17

The Simpsons (season 17) episodes
2006 American television episodes
Cross-dressing in television
Television episodes about sexism