"The number of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36% to 13%. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women," stated Susan Goldenberg in her article posted in The Guardian. The article was about the president of Harvard University arguing that men out perform women in science and math because they are biologically different. Since the beginning of time, women have been discriminated against and told they are not as good as men in just about everything. Women in math especially is rare because people do not think women are as smart as men when it comes to mathematically thinking. However, there are many women throughout history that prove that theory wrong (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsgendergap.genderissues).
To start, one of the earliest woman mathematicians is Hypatia. She was the daughter of one of the last known members of the library of Alexandria, Theon. She studied mathematics and astronomy and worked with her dad on translating the commentaries of mathematical works. She also created her own commentaries, and taught math from her home. Hypatia was also a philosopher and a follower of Neoplatonism, "a belief system in which everything emanates from the One." She also would give public lectures on Plato and Aristotle to many people who would gather to listen. Although she was a very popular woman figure, she became involved in a debate between the governor and the city's archbishop and ended up being killed by a mob of Christians (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Another woman that made an influence in history was Sophie Germain. She started studying and reading at a young age, when the revolutions started to take off in Paris. The study of Archemeaies and his death is what started her interest in mathematics and geometry. Although she was not allowed to study at École Polytechnique because she was a girl, she found a way to get the lecture notes and would submit papers to a facility member, Joseph Lagrange, at the school under a fake name. Once he figured out she was not a man, Joseph became a mentor and Sophie started corresponding with other mathematicians. Her work was not as great as other men because of the lack of resources she had, yet she won an award from the French Academy of Sciences for her work on theory of elasticity, and a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Ada Lovelace was another influential woman in history. Ada grew up never knowing her father and her mother was very overprotective, but encouraged her study of math and science. When she grew up, she started corresponding with Charles Babbage, an inventor and a mathematician. He asked her to translate a memoir written in Italian that was analyzing what he called his Analytic Engine. The Analytic Engine was "a machine that would perform simple mathematical calculations and [could] be programmed with punchcards and is considered one of the first computers." Not only did Ada analyze the Analytic Engine, but she wrote her own notes and figured out how to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli Numbers which was known as the first computer program (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Additionally, Sofia Kovalevskaya was from Russia where woman were not allowed to attend university. Therefore, she married a paleontologist, Vladimir Kovalevsky, and moved to Germany. When she arrived however, she was not able to attend lectures so instead she was privately tutored and finally received her doctorate after she wrote treaties on partial differential equations, abelian integrals and Saturn's rings. Kovalevsky ended up dying and Sofia became a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Stockholm. She also became the first woman in Germany to become a professor. She continued to make contributions in math and won the Prix Bordin in 1888 from the French Academy of Science, followed by an award the next year from the Swedish Academy of Sciences (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Finally, Emmy Noether was known as "the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began” by Albert Einstein. Emmy grew up in Germany, yet due to rules against woman in Universities, her mathematics education was delayed. She received her PhD for a dissertation on abstract algebra and got a position at the University for many years. People started to call her the "unofficial associate professor" at the University of Göttingen. However, she lost her job in 1933 because she was Jewish. Therefore, she moved to America and became a researcher and lecturer at Bryn Mawr College and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. This is where Emmy discovered some mathematical foundations for Einstein's general theory and made many contributions to algebra (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Clearly women crucial to the development of mathematics and it is sad that they are being unrecognized still today. However, the number of women receiving doctorates in mathematics is rising according to the article "Has the Women-in-Mathematics Problem Been Solved?" The article states that over 50% of doctorates in the math department were given to women at Dartmouth College throughout the past eight years. It also talks about a woman named Carolyn Gordon, who is the president of the Association for Women in Mathematics. She creates atmospheres where women in math is normal so that everyone feels equal in the classroom. The reputation for women in mathematics has changed drastically in the past twenty five years and the most visible problems have been eliminated. The only problems now, which are harder to see and are being over looked are not easy to fix or straightforward. The article states that this is the reason that the issue has not been addressed. Things may have been improved from previous years, however since the problem has been severely fixed and the new problems are not staring you in the face, society does not know how to handle it, thus ignoring it all together (http://www.ams.org/notices/200407/comm-women.pdf).
In my opinion, I had never noticed that women were being over looked in the math department until it was brought up in class. Of course I had known about women's rights in the past, yet I had no idea that women in the mathematics department was still an issue. However, looking over data the results shocked me to say the least. I feel very fortunate to be receiving the degree in mathematics that I am, and not being told that I cannot do something because I am a girl.
To start, one of the earliest woman mathematicians is Hypatia. She was the daughter of one of the last known members of the library of Alexandria, Theon. She studied mathematics and astronomy and worked with her dad on translating the commentaries of mathematical works. She also created her own commentaries, and taught math from her home. Hypatia was also a philosopher and a follower of Neoplatonism, "a belief system in which everything emanates from the One." She also would give public lectures on Plato and Aristotle to many people who would gather to listen. Although she was a very popular woman figure, she became involved in a debate between the governor and the city's archbishop and ended up being killed by a mob of Christians (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Another woman that made an influence in history was Sophie Germain. She started studying and reading at a young age, when the revolutions started to take off in Paris. The study of Archemeaies and his death is what started her interest in mathematics and geometry. Although she was not allowed to study at École Polytechnique because she was a girl, she found a way to get the lecture notes and would submit papers to a facility member, Joseph Lagrange, at the school under a fake name. Once he figured out she was not a man, Joseph became a mentor and Sophie started corresponding with other mathematicians. Her work was not as great as other men because of the lack of resources she had, yet she won an award from the French Academy of Sciences for her work on theory of elasticity, and a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Ada Lovelace was another influential woman in history. Ada grew up never knowing her father and her mother was very overprotective, but encouraged her study of math and science. When she grew up, she started corresponding with Charles Babbage, an inventor and a mathematician. He asked her to translate a memoir written in Italian that was analyzing what he called his Analytic Engine. The Analytic Engine was "a machine that would perform simple mathematical calculations and [could] be programmed with punchcards and is considered one of the first computers." Not only did Ada analyze the Analytic Engine, but she wrote her own notes and figured out how to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli Numbers which was known as the first computer program (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Additionally, Sofia Kovalevskaya was from Russia where woman were not allowed to attend university. Therefore, she married a paleontologist, Vladimir Kovalevsky, and moved to Germany. When she arrived however, she was not able to attend lectures so instead she was privately tutored and finally received her doctorate after she wrote treaties on partial differential equations, abelian integrals and Saturn's rings. Kovalevsky ended up dying and Sofia became a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Stockholm. She also became the first woman in Germany to become a professor. She continued to make contributions in math and won the Prix Bordin in 1888 from the French Academy of Science, followed by an award the next year from the Swedish Academy of Sciences (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Finally, Emmy Noether was known as "the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began” by Albert Einstein. Emmy grew up in Germany, yet due to rules against woman in Universities, her mathematics education was delayed. She received her PhD for a dissertation on abstract algebra and got a position at the University for many years. People started to call her the "unofficial associate professor" at the University of Göttingen. However, she lost her job in 1933 because she was Jewish. Therefore, she moved to America and became a researcher and lecturer at Bryn Mawr College and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. This is where Emmy discovered some mathematical foundations for Einstein's general theory and made many contributions to algebra (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-historic-female-mathematicians-you-should-know-100731927/?page=5).
Clearly women crucial to the development of mathematics and it is sad that they are being unrecognized still today. However, the number of women receiving doctorates in mathematics is rising according to the article "Has the Women-in-Mathematics Problem Been Solved?" The article states that over 50% of doctorates in the math department were given to women at Dartmouth College throughout the past eight years. It also talks about a woman named Carolyn Gordon, who is the president of the Association for Women in Mathematics. She creates atmospheres where women in math is normal so that everyone feels equal in the classroom. The reputation for women in mathematics has changed drastically in the past twenty five years and the most visible problems have been eliminated. The only problems now, which are harder to see and are being over looked are not easy to fix or straightforward. The article states that this is the reason that the issue has not been addressed. Things may have been improved from previous years, however since the problem has been severely fixed and the new problems are not staring you in the face, society does not know how to handle it, thus ignoring it all together (http://www.ams.org/notices/200407/comm-women.pdf).
In my opinion, I had never noticed that women were being over looked in the math department until it was brought up in class. Of course I had known about women's rights in the past, yet I had no idea that women in the mathematics department was still an issue. However, looking over data the results shocked me to say the least. I feel very fortunate to be receiving the degree in mathematics that I am, and not being told that I cannot do something because I am a girl.