Women Mathematicians: Why So Few?
The great field of mathematics stretches back in history some 8 millennia to the age of primitive man, who learned to count to ten on his fingers. This led to the development of the decimal scale, the numeric scale of base ten (Hooper 4). Mathematics has grown greatly since those primitive times, in the present day there are literally thousands of laws, theorems, and equations which govern the use of ten simple symbols representing the ten base numbers. The field of mathematics is ever changing, and therefor, there is a great demand for mathematicians to keep improving our skills in utilizing the numeric system. Many great people, both past and present, have made great contributions to the field. Among the most famous are Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, and Pythagoras, all of which are men. This seems to be a common trend in mathematics, for almost all classical mathematicians were male.
The twentieth century has been a century of change for women and their rights. They have been successful in gaining the right to vote, equal opportunity in the workplace, and many other freedoms. So why then is the field of mathematics still so sexually separated? Can it be that women just aren’t as well endowed in the area of mathematical thinking so that they just can’t compare to the male mathematical geniuses? This theory has been proven totally false on many occasions. A study by Jane M. Armstrong in 1978 showed that 13-year-old females actually performed slightly better than males on tests of mathematical computation, spatial visualization, and performance in algebra (Chipman 8). An analysis by Project TALENT in 1960 showed that males in 9th grade are slightly more mathematically inclined, but the stand...
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Friend’s Support and Encouragement
20
19
Undergraduate Research Experience
7
7
Job Experience
3
3
Table 2: How Often do You Question Your Ability to Succeed in Mathematics?
% for Females
% for Males
Always or Often
56
32
Sometimes
27
49
Rarely or Never
16
19
(Nolan)
Works Cited
Chipman, Susan F. Women and Mathematics: Balancing the Equation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Hillsdale, NJ 1985.
Hooper, Alfred. Makers of Mathematics. Random House, New York, 1948.
Love, Lauren. Dusa McDuff. http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/mcduff.htm, 10/26/99.
Nolan, Deborah. Women in Mathematics, Scaling the Heights. MAA Notes 46, pp. 1-15, 1997.
Perl, Teri. Math Equals: Biographies of Women Mathematicians. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA, 1978.
In her essay, “When Bright Girls Decide That Math is a ‘Waste of Time,’” Jacoby talks about how often times nowadays girls decide that they no longer want to take math and science courses in favor “easier” subjects such as English or art. Jacoby argues that this is because of stereotypes of women that have been instilled in girls by society; they think math and science are too hard or they aren’t as smart as boys so it’s not worth it to take them. Jacoby claims that “The real problem is that so many girls eliminate themselves from any serious possibility of studying science as a result of decisions made during the vulnerable period of midadolescence, when they
Introduction: For this research proposal, I will study the effects of perceived and actual sexism on the upward mobility of women in academia. It is clear that sexism affects women’s progress in many facets of society. The gender gap is especially prominent in time-consuming and intensive professions such as academia. This research seeks to explore the causal factors for the gender disparities in order to help develop effective solutions.
“Since 1990, over 6 million Americans have died of cancer, more than the combined casualties from the Civil war, WWII, and the Vietnam and Korean conflicts combined” (Faguet, p. 5). According to American Cancer Society projections, there were 1,529,560 new cases of cancer in 2010. Cancer is becoming more and more common around the world. New cancers are constantly being discovered. Researchers are finding new ways to detect cancer and treat it so that the fatality rate does not rise. However, there are some cancers that researchers have not yet discovered a cure for. It is very important for Cancer Research to continue so that one day these cancers will no longer be a treat.
Welcome to Brazil, it has awesome events and foods to enjoy, come and discover with Jason Kan. There are six categories I'm going to talk about, they are geographical features, economy, culture, tourist attractions, hotels and restaurants, and the exchange rate. First, the geographical features of Brazil is the Amazon Rainforest, it is 2.124 million sq miles. It is a moist broadleaf forest that caps most of the Amazon Basin of South America. It extends pretty long it is 2,965 mi north-south, 2,691 mi east-west, and bounds every country on the continent except Chile and Ecuador. It's divided into the Brazilian Highlands, in the south and the Amazon River Basin in the north. Next, the economy has industries, agriculture, and exports. The industries
Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country in terms of land mass and population. The near 200 million people living in Brazil are heavily concentrated on the Atlantic coast. Brazil’s democratic constitution established in 1988 has brought around a period of economic reform. More responsible monetary policy has been introduced, successfully put an end to Brazil’s hyperinflation. Brazil weathered the 2009 global downturn better than many developed countries. The middle class is growing, the currency is stable, economic growth is stable, relatively low inflation rates exist and there have been improvements made in terms of social well-being. Brazil will play host to the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016.
Brazil has the 7th largest economy by nominal GDP in the world and also 7th largest by purchasing power parity. It is moderately open to free markets and is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with an annual GDP growth rate of 5%. Brazil is closing the competitiveness gap with India and China among the BRIC economies. The major components of GDP of Brazil are: service sector (68.1% of GDP), industrial sector (26.5 % of GDP) and agriculture (5.5% of GDP). Various industries include textiles, shoes, chemicals, lumber, iron ore, tin, steel, machinery and equipments. Coffee is the major product of agriculture; other agricultural produce include soybeans, wheat, rice, corn, sugarcane, cocoa, etc. Touris...
Parents and educators both display actions that could be and continue to affect the gender gap in STEM. By parents not giving both their sons and daughters an equal to the questions they ask, it supports the idea of why there is a lack of women in these areas of study. Female teachers also may be openly expressing their struggles with math and other similar areas have negatively affected the gap in STEM today. Direct biases and unconscious biases are both reasons that lead to a gap in these areas. But as female teenagers mature and grow older, they have different wants than men do when they grow
Zuckerman, Harriet, Jonathan Cole and John Bruer (eds.)” The Outer Circle: Women in the Scientific Community” New York: Norton, Print. 1991
Although, trying to get women in this field is very difficult due to many reasons that involve females from going into this job. Whitecraft and Williams, stated, “Some argue that women are less likely than men to possess cognitive abilities at the extreme right tail of the distribution, which are necessary to compete in computer science” (Whitecraft and Williams 222). One of the reasons women avoid STEM jobs is because research has found that males are more capable in highly math courses than females. The subjects that males and females excel in were also researched, and were found to be an important contribution to why women are not in computer science. “Males excelled in science, mathematics, spatial reasoning, social studies, and mechanical skills. Females excelled in verbal abilities, associative memory performance, and perceptual speed” (Whitecraft and Williams 223). The fact that more men are in STEM careers is because the research indicated that males excel in science and mathematics, which are two subjects that are needed to pursue STEM jobs. The way men and women thinks is one of the reasons there are not more women in the computer science
Minas, A. (2000). Gender basics: Feminist perspective on women and men.Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning.
James A.F. Stoner, R. Edward Freeman, Daniel R. Gilbert (1995), “Management”, 6th Edition, US: Prentice Hall.
Especially, women are very serious hiring discrimination in mathematic fields. They are very less selected for the new position. Employers are tendency unfair to hire women for several reasons: first, they might think women have fewer job skills than men and women are less qualified to perform nontraditional jobs and can’t handle higher-paid positions. The employers usually favored men, even if women have the same background, education, and job experience. The three nation’s top business schools examined why women make a small portion of studying or working in math and science field. The research found the discrimination even though the same credential (Alan par. 2). Male applicants are twice likely to be by hire the company over the female applicant within the math field and persist the discrimination after the applicant reported how they are done on the math task. When women give a full information for past math performance, discrimination rate fell by nine percentage points, but discrimination is still remain in the workplace. Alan argues that “The gender gap in hiring decisions is due to a systematic underestimation of the performance of women compared to men (par.
It was earlier believed that the caspases dependent apoptosis governs all regulated cell death in mammalian cells (Fuchs and Steller, 2011; Thompson, 1995). But this perspective has recently changed after Christofferson et al and others have comprehended the non-apoptotic cell death pathway which includes apoptosis inducing factor 1 (AIF1)-dependent parthanatos, caspase-1-dependent pyroptosis, poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) and receptor interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1)- dependent necroptosis (Bergsbaken et al., 2009; Wang et al.,2009; Christofferson and Yuan, 2010). Yang et al h...
Hanson K., & Shwartz W. (1992). Equal mathematics education for female students, 78. 4. Retrieved November 4, 2002. ERIC Digest.
16. Denault, J., & Salvesen, G. S. (2008). Apoptotic Caspase Activation and Activity. In Mor, G., & Alvero, A. B. (Eds.), Apoptosis and Cancer: Methods and Protocols (pp. 191 – 220). New Jersey: Humana Press Inc.