Women in the world of mathematics is a subject that people rarely hear about. The onlytime people do is if its a female math teacher. But what many do not know is thatwomen have made extremely important contributions to the world of mathematics. Women have been documented to be involved in mathematics, since as early as the fifthcentury A.D. Women such as Hypatia, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Sophie Germain, EmmyNoether, Ruth Moufang and Sun-Yung Alice Chang. These women have lived throughdifficult times such as womens oppression, the French Revolution, World War I and II,which included Hitlers administration over womens schooling, and social prejudices. This did not stop their yearning for math though. These women combined have earnedmany different awards, specifically ones usually given to men. They have conquered thebiases people have had towards them and made what they do best count. Many of theirtheorems 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 inmathematics is important. Many children think of mathematicians as men, and that istotally untrue. That thought could possibly contribute to the fact that women are lesslikely to enter the mathematics field compared to men. This is because they are noteducated properly on the subject, and are not given the opportunity to excel. There aremany more women in mathematics then mentioned above, but the ones named are veryimportant to the field and children need to know that. By taking these 6 womenscontributions and focusing on how they apply to the middle school curriculum would bevery useful to any teacher. The children could each pick a female mathematician, andmake a poster and do a presentation about their findings. It could also be done as agroup project. As long as the topic gets discussed and that the girls come out feeling likethey could also get involved in ...
