Women Becoming Mathematicians: A Look Back and A Look Forward Marge Murray MIT Celebration of Women in Mathematics, April 13, 2008 1
B.K. (Before Kovalevskaya) Hypatia (370-415) Emilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) Maria Agnesi (1718-1799) Sophie Germain (1776-1831; Göttingen 1830) Mary Somerville (1780-1872) 2
The Ph.D. Gauss (Helmstedt 1799 in absentia ; 1777- 1855) U.S. degrees (Yale 1861-62) Sofya Kovalevskaya (Göttingen 1874; 1850- 1891) Christine Ladd-Franklin (Johns Hopkins 1882/1926; 1847-1930) Winifred Edgerton Merrill (Columbia 1886; 1862-1951) 3
U.S. Math Ph.D.’s to 1939 Years Total Men (%) Women (%) 1862-69 3 3 0 1870-79 10 10 0 1880-89 32 31 (97) 1 (3) 1890-99 84 76 (91) 8 (10) 1900-09 155 138 (89) 17 (11) 1910-19 251 216 (86) 35 (14) 1920-39 1132 970 (86) 162 (14) 1862-1939 1667 1444 (87) 223 (13) 4
Women Ph.D.’s at MIT (before 1960) Dorothy Weeks (1930, Wiener) Martha Plass (1939, Struik) Domina Spencer (1942, Struik) Helen Beard (1943, Struik) Miriam Lipschutz-Yevick (1948, W. Hurewicz) Violet Haas (1951, N. Levinson) Phyllis Fox (1954, C.C. Lin) Evelyn Bender (1954, Irvin Cohen) 5
The Forties & Fifties Years Total Men (%) Women (%) 1940-44 364 321 (88) 43 (12) 1945-49 471 427 (91) 44 (9) 1950-54 1059 1008 (95) 51 (5) 1955-59 1266 1208 (95) 58 (5) 1940-59 3160 2964 (95) 196 (6) 6
1960-1989 Years Total Men (%) Women (%) 1960-69 6407 6044 (94) 363 (6) 1970-79 10,877 9791 (90) 1086 (10) 1980-89 7356 6197 (84) 1159 (16) 1960-89 24,640 22,032 (89) 2608 (11) 7
U.S. History • Women’s Suffrage (1920) • Great Depression (1930s) • World War II (1939-45) • GI Bill (1944) • NSF (1950) • NDEA (1958) • Title IX (1972) 8
1990-2003 Year Total Men (%) Women (%) 1990-1994 5253 4191 (80) 1062 (20) 1995-2003 7726 5882 (76) 1844 (24) 1990-2003 12,979 10,073 (78) 2906 (22) 9
What is “The Women-in- Mathematics Problem”? Access to education? Parity? Employment? Academic employment? Underemployment? Role conflict? 10
Being, Doing, and the Question of Identity • “The Myth” • What is a Mathematician? • What is Mathematics For? 11
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