Women's Contributions to Mathematics
Women in the world of mathematics is a subject that people rarely hear about. The only
time people do is if it’s a female math teacher. But what many do not know is that
women have made extremely important contributions to the world of mathematics.
Women have been documented to be involved in mathematics, since as early as the fifth
century A.D. Women such as Hypatia, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Sophie Germain, Emmy
Noether, Ruth Moufang and Sun-Yung Alice Chang. These women have lived through
difficult times such as women’s oppression, the French Revolution, World War I and II,
which included Hitler’s administration over women’s schooling, and social prejudices.
This did not stop their yearning for math though. These women combined have earned
many different awards, specifically ones usually given to men. They have conquered the
biases people have had towards them and made what they do best count. Many of their
theorems and equations are still used today, and some are even being perfected by others.
It is important that the reader realizes that educating children about women in
mathematics is important. Many children think of mathematicians as men, and that is
totally untrue. That thought could possibly contribute to the fact that women are less
likely to enter the mathematics field compared to men. This is because they are not
educated properly on the subject, and are not given the opportunity to excel. There are
many more women in mathematics then mentioned above, but the ones named are very
important to the field and children need to know that. By taking these 6 women’s
contributions and focusing on how they apply to the middle school curriculum would...
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Taylor, Mandie. (1995). Emmy Noether. Agnes Scott College [Online]. Available:
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/noether.htm [2 February 2000].
Unlu, Elif. (1995). Maria Gaetana Agnesi. Agnes Scott College [Online]. Available:
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/agnesi.htm [1 March 2000].
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biggest one, if a player is very good say in high school, then they will think that they are
In the 17th and 18th centuries women in science emerged that regarded themselves correct in doing so. Also there were those who announced their opinions to the world that women should not practice science and some who believed the women can and should practice science.
Sanders, J. (1997). Teacher Education and Gender Equity. (Eric Document No. ED408277). World Wide Web: http://ericir.syr.edu/plweb-cgi/obtain.pl. Retrieved March 16, 2001.
Researchers such as Harper and Linda in." Research in Higher Education, Have conducted studies that also confirms that women are going to school more than men. There are many reasons contributing to this, although the most prominent is the change in gender roles of females in the country. In the early 1900s, women are known to be the housekeeper, the one who takes care of the whole family and her office is usually in the kitchen at home. However, in today’s society, there has been a major shift in gender role. Women are now participating actively in the labor force. They are even taking over jobs that are considered to belong to the men.
Gender inequities in the fields of math and science are well researched and the results are shocking. Women compromise 45% of the work force, they hold jobs concentrated in clerical, service, and professional fields such as teaching and nursing, rather than in mathematics, science, or engineering (Levin & Matthews, 1997). Gender inequities start in school due to teacher interaction, language, role models, gender expectations, and the method in which the curriculum will be taught.
Cole wants her readers to understand that everyone should have the right to learn this magnificent tool. K.C. Cole believes women did not have the same opportunities as men on the subject that they want to pursue in. She didn 't realize what an odd creature a woman interested in physics was until she saw a University’s conference, out of several hundred young students of physics and engineering in the room, less than a handful were women. This is especially true in the current society, where some occupation are considered women only, and some are men only. As said in her essay, “women are simply made to feel out of place in science. Her conclusion was supported by a Ford Foundation study by Lynn H. Fox on the problems of women in mathematics. When students were asked to choose among six reasons accounting for girls ' lack of interest in math, the girls rated this statement second - Men do not want girls in the mathematical occupations.” The author K.C. Cole uses historical allusion from another person to help support her idea of the exclusion of women in the science field. As we all can imagine, this did not only happen to K.C Cole. As she described in her essay, some of her friends and people she knows about also face challenges on this field, she remembers that, “A friend of mine remembers winning a Bronx Wide mathematics competition in the second grade. Her friends both boys and girls warned her that
In early American history, society believed that women did not have a place in education and high-level learning. They were told not to bother their brains with such advanced thinking. Middle and upper class women learned to read and write, but their education ended there. A woman’s place was said to be in the home, cooking, sewing, and taking care of the children. In the case of upper class women, their “to-do” list was cut even shorter with the servants present to do the work.
Chipman, Susan F. Women and Mathematics: Balancing the Equation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Hillsdale, NJ 1985.
People may not totally believe in stereotypes but just having knowledge of them increases their chances of being biased to that group sometimes unknowingly. A lot of teachers have not created a mathematically encouraging learning environment for females as a result of these negative stereotypes. Females don’t necessarily have to be exposed to these stereotypes or negative treatment to be affected by them. If teachers create a less encouraging learning atmosphere when it come to math without showing patience or giving more challenging materials to girls, it will directly affect them. Students may never be exposed to the actual stereotype, but will still be affected by them.
Some boys around the age of seven, are reported to believe that their male peers are better at math than fellow female students. As for girls at this age, believe that both male and female students are equally capable in math, until the age of 10. This is where female students begin to believe that males students are better in the math areas. However, during adolescence years, boys begin to agree that girls and boys are equally good at math, as girls continue to state males are more successful in math (Saucerman and
In the 21st Century the number of women enrolling in higher education institutions is surpassing the numbers of men enrolled. The graduation rates of women from high school and higher education are most often higher than for men. The number of women graduates from most professional occupations, including higher paying medicine, law and business, will exceed the number of men graduates in the near future. In numerous occupational areas with a majority of women graduates, salaries already surpass salaries in occupational areas with a majority of men graduates.
Carol B. Muller, “The Underrepresentation of Women in Engineering and Related Sciences: Pursuing Two Complementary Paths to Parity.” National Academies Press (US); Web. 2003.
their individual talents and they have no way of pooling those talents toward achieving a
Some people are more successful than others while others work their butt off every day and cannot seem to ever fulfill the satisfaction of certain desired goals. There are various factors for the explanation of one’s failure to compete or succeed against another, such as intelligence, luck, talents, and so on. The most important element would be the environment or the culture itself, the person is born into. Like how some people are more successful than others, certain races are better than others. Every race has developed its own culture, and not all cultures are created equal due to the diversity between them. Any culture can be inferior to another, but there is much controversy over the diversity of the mainstream culture and black
Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) asserted that three specific cognitive abilities, verbal, quantitative, and visual-spatial, were at the core of gender differences. Their findings were the genesis of a whirlwind of studies designed to further research cognitive thinking and its relationship to gender differences, including mathematical problem solving (Zhu, 2007). In a separate study, Fennema and Sherman (1976) took a different route and first introduced the topic of gender stereotypes in school by measuring a student’s perception of his parent’s and teacher’s view of his ability to succeed in math, and the student’s attitude, confidence, and anxiety toward his own learning ability in math. They found that high school students felt that boys w...