It’s never been easy being a woman mathematician. Larry Summers, president of Harvard, isn’t the only one who blames the underrepresentation of women in mathematics on differences in aptitude between men and women. And yet, there have been women mathematicians as far back as the ancient Greeks.

In the 5th century B.C., a woman named Theano ran a famous mathematics academy. She was involved in many mathematical discoveries, the most famous being the concept of the Golden Mean, which, among other applications, can be used to understand musical intervals, specifically those described as the most “pleasing” to the ear.

Almost certainly there were women mathematicians before Theano, but she became known because she was the wife and then the widow of Pythagoras, one of the most famous mathematicians of all time. Every student of algebra to this day knows Pythagoras as the guy who first enunciated a principle that’s hardwired into your brain by the eighth or ninth grade: a2 + b2 = c2—the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. It seems so simple, yet even the simple right triangle with sides of 1 and 1 created huge trouble. Pythagoras believed that everything in the world was “rational.” This belief was the very foundation of the Pythagorean School. So when Hippasus, one of Pythagoras’s students, proved that the square root of 1 was irrational, all hell broke loose. Hippasus was drowned, reportedly on the orders of Pythagoras himself. If history is correct, a peace-loving vegetarian who didn’t even believe in wearing animal pelts had one of his own students killed. No wonder Tom Lehrer, the 20th-century mathematician and musical satirist, once told me that the square root of 2 represents the most dissonant chord one can play.

And no wonder Theano preferred the Golden Mean.

Then, in the 4th century A.D., entered the second woman mathematician on record: Hypatia. The daughter of a prominent mathematician and philosopher named Theon, Hypatia was raised to be the “perfect human.” Reportedly surpassing her father’s knowledge at a very early age, Hypatia grew up to be a noted philosopher, mathematician, orator, teacher, and athlete. Among her other accomplishments, she contributed original, thoughtful work in conic sections (ellipses, hyperbolas, etc.). But when the political and religious climate changed in Alexandria, Hypatia and her father found themselves on the wrong (i.e., Roman) side of the fence. Hypatia was reportedly attacked by an angry mob of Christians and killed, her body dragged through the streets of Alexandria.

Still, she set a precedent for hundreds of women mathematicians after her. Many of these women were not allowed to go to school formally, so instead they taught themselves from their fathers’ old notes and books. Some entered into marriages of convenience so that they could go to college. To this day, it’s startling how many women mathematicians had fathers or husbands who encouraged them.

Mercifully, my own story is nowhere near as dramatic as Theano’s or Hypatia’s. But my mathematical career was almost aborted in seventh grade when I brought home a C on my report card. Prior to that, I had been good enough to tutor my fellow students.

“Don’t feel bad, honey,” my mother said. “I was never good at math. I failed algebra in high school.”

Fortunately, my stepfather, a math teacher, refused to buy into this excuse. “On Monday,” he said, “you’re going to ask your math teacher to move you to the front of the class. Then, every day after school, we’re going to work through your homework, and I’m going to bring home extra worksheets for you to do after that.” In six weeks, my grade had changed to an A. Years later, when my mother was working on her doctorate, my stepfather tutored her as well. Amazingly, the woman who couldn’t pass high school algebra earned the top score in San Diego County on the statistics portion of her doctoral exams.

It’s certainly true that it’s difficult to separate gender from socialization when assessing the “intrinsic aptitude” for mathematics and science in boys and girls. It should be noted that the studies cited by the president of Harvard used data from high school students, a time of life when a lot of socialization has already taken place—and a time when many girls fear competing with their future prom dates.

Without my stepfather’s intervention and refusal to accept the “gender card” I was trying to play, I would probably never have majored in mathematics. I still wonder how many other females (and minorities) underrepresented in math there are in our country who succumbed to a facile underestimation of their abilities. How many women have enrolled in graduate school only to hear, as I did, one of their professors say that men are genetically predisposed to do better in math than women? If this happened to me in one of the most famously progressive universities in the country, how many others have heard the same demoralizing message?

Instead of genetic theories, what I believe women need is mentors—people who have access to knowledge and resources and are willing to share them. I encourage the many talented students I teach here at Baruch to question anything they’ve heard about their abilities and to seek out people who can help them meet their goals. For starters, I know a lot of talented tutors at the Student Academic Consulting Center.

 

— A native Californian, April Allen studied mathematics at San Diego State and the University of California at Santa Cruz. At first a college instructor in Salinas, she gave up tenure in order to play the lead in an off-Broadway musical comedy in New York. She began teaching at Baruch while continuing to pursue a theatrical career and working at the investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston. She is now a full-time member of the Baruch community, teaching in the Department of Mathematics and supervising math tutors at the Student Academic Consulting Center.

(Photo: Jerry Speier)