Advertisement

The Historical Context of the Gender Gap in Mathematics

  • June Barrow-GreenEmail author
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Association for Women in Mathematics Series book series (AWMS, volume 20)

Abstract

This chapter is based on the talk that I gave in August 2018 at the ICM in Rio de Janeiro at the panel on The Gender Gap in Mathematical and Natural Sciences from a Historical Perspective. It provides some examples of the challenges and prejudices faced by women mathematicians during last two hundred and fifty years. I make no claim for completeness but hope that the examples will help to shed light on some of the problems many women mathematicians still face today.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

Acknowledgements

I thank Deborah Kent, Caroline Series, and Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze for their valuable comments and suggestions which helped me produce an improved final version of this article.

References

  1. 1.
    Blum, L. (1991). ‘A Brief History of the Association for Women in Mathematics: the Presidents’ Perspectives’ Notices of the American Mathematical Society38, 738–774.MathSciNetzbMATHGoogle Scholar
  2. 2.
    Findlen, F. (2011). ‘Calculations of faith: mathematics, philosophy and sanctity in 18th-century Italy (new work on Maria Gaetana Agnesi)’ Historia Mathematica38, 248–291.MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. 3.
    Montucla, J.-E. (1799–1802) Histoire des Mathématiques, Volume 2, p. 171.Google Scholar
  4. 4.
    Lovelace, A.A. (1843) ‘Notes by A.A.L. [August Ada Lovelace]’ Taylor’s Scientific MemoirsIII, 666–731.Google Scholar
  5. 5.
    Hollings, C., Martin, U., Rice, A. (2017). ‘The Lovelace-De Morgan Correspondence: A critical reappraisal’ Historia Mathematica44, 202–231.MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. 6.
    Somerville, M. (1873). Personal Recollections from Early Life to Old Age of Mary Somerville, John Murray, 1873, p. 172.Google Scholar
  7. 7.
    Somerville, M. (1826). ‘On the magnetizing power of the more refrangible solar rays’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London116, 132–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. 8.
    Mason, J. (1992). ‘The Admission of the First Women to the Royal Society of London’ Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London46, 279–300.MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. 9.
    Koblitz, A.H. (1983)/ A Convergence of Lives. Sofia Kovalevskaia: Scientist, Writer, Revolutionary, Birkhäuser, pp. 215–217.Google Scholar
  10. 10.
    Kovalevsakya, S. (1978) ‘My Recollections of George Eliot’ in R. Chapman, E. Gottlieb ‘A Russian View of George Eliot’ Nineteenth Century Fiction33, p. 359.Google Scholar
  11. 11.
    Kovalevskya, S. (1895). Sónya Kovalévsky. Her Recollections of Childhood (tr. I. F. Hapgood), The Century Company (New York), p. 219.Google Scholar
  12. 12.
    Kovalevskaya, S. (1978) A Russian Childhood (tr. B. Stillman), Springer-Verlag, p.ix.Google Scholar
  13. 13.
    Kaufholz-Soldat, E. (2017). ‘[…] the first handsome mathematical lady I’ve ever seen!’ On the role of beauty in portrayals of Sofia Kovalevskaya’, BSHM Bulletin32, 198–213.MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. 14.
    Loria, G. (1903)‘Les Femmes Mathématiciennes’ Revue Scientifique20, 385–392.Google Scholar
  15. 15.
    Cooke, R. (1984). The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya, Springer-Verlag, pp. 175–176.Google Scholar
  16. 16.
    Cooke, R. (1984). The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya, Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. 17.
    Laubenbacher, R., Pengelley, D. (2010). “Voici ce que j’ai trouvé:” Sophie Germain’s grand plan to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, Historia Mathematica37, 641–692, p. 644.zbMATHGoogle Scholar
  18. 18.
    Laubenbacher, R., Pengelley, D. (2010). “Voici ce que j’ai trouvé:” Sophie Germain’s grand plan to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, Historia Mathematica37, 641–692, p. 690.zbMATHGoogle Scholar
  19. 19.
    Anon. (1880). The Spectator, 7 February 1880.Google Scholar
  20. 20.
    Anon. (1890). Miss Fawcett’s Honor: the sort of girl this Lady Senior Wrangler is, The New York Times, 8 June 1890, p.5.Google Scholar
  21. 21.
    Cartwright, M.L. (1944). Grace Chisholm Young, Journal of the London Mathematical Society19, 185–192, pp.185–187.MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. 22.
    Grattan-Guinness, I. (1972). A mathematical union: William Henry and Grace Chisholm Young Annals of Science29, 105–185, p. 141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. 23.
    Rothman, P. (1996) ‘Grace Chisholm Young and the division of laurels’ Notes and Records of the Royal Society50, 89–100.MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. 24.
    Grattan-Guinness, I. (1975) ‘Mathematical bibliography for W.H. and G.C. Young’ Historia Mathematica2, 43–58, p. 43.MathSciNetCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. 25.
    Mihaljević-Brandt, H., Santamaría, L., Tullney, M. (2016) ‘The Effect of Gender in the Publication Patterns in Mathematics’. PLoS ONE 11(10): e0165367.  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. 26.
    Kant, I. (1960). Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, tr. J.T. Goldthwait, University of California Press, p.79. Originally published in German in 1764.Google Scholar
  27. 27.
    Tobies, R. (in press) ‘Internationality. Women in Felix Klein’s Course at the University of Göttingen 1893–1920’.Google Scholar
  28. 28.
    Siegmund-Schultze, R. (2018) ‘Emmy Noether: “The Experiment to Promote a Woman to a Full Professorship” ’, Newsletter of the London Mathematical Society, May 2018, 24–29, p. 27.Google Scholar
  29. 29.
    Green, J., LaDuke, J. (2008). The Pioneering Women in American Mathematics. The Pre-1940s PhDs, American Mathematical Society.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. 30.
    Greenwald, S.J. et al. (2015). ‘The Association for Women Mathematicians: How and Why It Was Founded and Why It’s Still Needed in the 21st Century’, The Mathematical Intelligencer37, 11–21, p.13.zbMATHGoogle Scholar
  31. 31.
    Bayer-Fluckiger, E. (1994). ‘Women and Mathematics’ in First European Congress of Mathematics: Paris, July, 6–10, 1992. Round Tables, Birkhäuser, pp. 37–74.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Association for Women in Mathematics and the Author(s) 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.The Open UniversityMilton KeynesUK

Personalised recommendations

Cite chapter

Buy options