March 8th 2021 is International Women’s Day.
We’ll start with an image I have shared many times before that I think still says it all! Thank you, Steve Lomax (Photo courtesy of the wonderful children of Mansfield Green E-ACT Primary, @mgeact @EducationEACT) who shared this wonderful response to the task ‘Describe a mathematician’…
This year’s theme is #ChooseToChallenge.
To quote from their site…
IWD sees a number of MISSIONS to help forge a gender equal world.
Celebrating women’s achievements and increasing visibility, while calling out inequality, is key.
Note one of the missions, perhaps particularly relevant to educators is “To celebrate digital advancement and champion the women forging innovation through technology“.
It seems appropriate to mention the resources from the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme, Find ways to encourage girls to study Mathematics. Note the free resources here, including (for girls and boys!) Maths, Opening the door to your future, a leaflet which explores the post-16 maths qualifications available to students, to help them decide which one is best. There is a girls’ participation self-audit resource to review your strategy and identify aspects to develop.
Note too the 30 minute presentation, Why Study Maths, for students and parents/carers which is about the importance of studying maths post-GCSE. It outlines the options available, and provides compelling reasons for choosing to take an advanced maths qualification. Slides and speaker notes are available to download. These resources could be an excellent way of helping Mathematics Departments link curriculum learning to Careers, for all students, helping to meet the Gatsby Benchmark on this.
From amsp, we also have Where maths meets the world of work. The AMSP is working on videos, which showcase the maths in different careers; each video is paired with a resource for the classroom or for use online, so students can get a real taste of what the job may entail.
Some further useful references on women in Mathematics:
- From the American Mathematical Society: Women Doing Mathematics. Note there is much information on this site. Women@NASA caught my eye.
- European Women In Mathematics
- MIT highlight MIT Women in Mathematics
- Follow @womeninmaths the Women in Mathematics Committee of the London Mathematical Society (@LondMathSoc).
- From the Cambridge Core blog written for International Women’s Day 2020, Influential women in STEM
From Lucy Rycroft-Smith, see this wonderful collection of books about Maths by women. Lucy chose these 13 books last year, I like the way she has categorised the books, a book for the artist, for the rebel…. Brilliant – I bought several of those books!
And for some History
- The excellent St Andrews site has information on female mathematicians. Look for example at Florence Nightingale, a pioneering statistician. Or Caroline Herschel perhaps less well known than brother William!
- From Nrich: Women in Mathematics
- Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia, pages to illustrate the numerous achievements of women in the field of mathematics.
- ThoughtCo: Women in Mathematics History from Hypatia of Alexandria (355 or 370 – 415) to Amalie ‘Emmy’ Noether (1882-1935) Lewis, Jone Johnson. “Women in Mathematics History.” ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020.
- Smithsonian.com: Five Historic Female Mathematicians You Should Know
- Wikipedia: a list of women in mathematics
Finally I’m honoured to be with these fantastic women! Thank you to The Mathematical Association!