Photo: web

A mathematics reference book for junior high students published by the East China Normal University Press (ECNUP) has created heated debate over sexism as the book has different versions for its male and female audience, media reports said Thursday. 

"Blue version for the boys, red version for the girls," ECNUP said at the promotion website on its WeChat official account. Using big data analysis, authors of the book claimed to have identified the strengths and weaknesses of different genders, and designed different angles of learning and levels of difficulties accordingly, guancha.cn reported Thursday. 

As some parents raised questions about whether the "male version" has a higher level of advancement compared with the "female version," the publication explained that there were only certain chapters of the book designed differently, and the differences only lay in the cognitive approaches of learning, iFeng News reported Thursday. 

In a video posted on Chinese twitter-like platform Weibo by iFeng News, ECNUP listed more advantages of girls learning math than boys in its gender analysis report. However, an article posted by the East China Normal University showed that male students generally have better performance in more flexible and complex matters, while female students often stand out in small quizzes or other content that is closer to textbooks, the video revealed. 

"For example, the 'male version' would include questions in the form of games, since boys are more into games. For the 'female version', we would add more practical scenarios, such as buying fruit and vegetables in the market," an author of the book was quoted by iFeng as saying. 

Soon after the book was published, it sparked heated controversy over its underlying sexist ideologies, especially the ironic title on ECNUP's official WeChat account: "My daughter is great at math, so maybe she should buy the 'male version.'"

"I fear that my daughter would become more unwilling to learn math when she sees the book. She might think that she is born inferior to boys in the field of math," a parent was quoted as saying by guancha.cn.

Some netizens on Weibo also expressed worries that the book would add to the burden on male students, since "those boys who are bad at math would be looked down upon by their peers and by society," the Shanghai Observer reported on Thursday.

In response to the controversy, ECNUP announced Wednesday evening that it will stop issuing the math reference books immediately.