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<DIV>As a 79 year old, as of the 21st of this month, I am delighted to hear things have changed, and I know they have though not totally. For a look at the 1940-1960 era see Margaret Murray's "Women Becoming Mathematicians" Lida</DIV>
<DIV class=signature id=signature>--<BR>Lida K. Barrett <BR>3407 Crown Point Road <BR>Louisville, TN 37777-3331 <BR>865-984-6599 <BR>lida-k-barrett@att.net</DIV><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">-------------- Original message from "Crowley, Lillie F (Bluegrass)" <lillie.crowley@kctcs.edu>: -------------- <BR><BR><BR>> I'm a fifty-something in mathematics. In response to Sarah Natividad's comments <BR>> about having never experienced any discrimination because she's female, I would <BR>> suggest that a significant factor is that those battles have been fought for her <BR>> by a lot of fifty-somethings...and sixty-somethings and forty-somethings... <BR>> <BR>> That's about all I am going to say, except to suggest that, should she decide to <BR>> pursue a doctorate later after her children are older, she will find it MUCH, <BR>> MUCH more difficult to do than she would have when she was in her twenties. <BR>> There are two reasons for this (this is my opinion only, but based on personal <BR>> experience...): first, she won't have the mental acuity in he
r forties that she <BR>> did in her twenties, and will also have to re-learn much of the mathematics she <BR>> learned in graduate school before she left; and incorporating graduate study <BR>> into an already full and complicated life is a real challenge. <BR>> <BR>> Cheers, Lillie Crowley <BR>> <BR>> ________________________________ <BR>> <BR>> From: rume-bounces@betterfilecabinet.com on behalf of Murphy, TJ <BR>> Sent: Tue 4/25/2006 8:21 AM <BR>> To: Sarah Natividad; rume@betterfilecabinet.com <BR>> Cc: tjmurphy@ou.edu <BR>> Subject: Re: [RUME] Proof and Prejudice: Women in Mathematics and Physics <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> Sarah, <BR>> <BR>> I suggest you read the book Why So Slow: The Advancement of Women by researcher <BR>> Virginia Valian. <BR>> <BR>> Best wishes, <BR>> Teri Murphy <BR>> <BR>> At 9:20 PM -0600 4/24/06, Sarah Natividad wrote: <BR>> <BR>> I'm a thirty-something-year-old woman and your mileage
may vary, but I <BR>> for one have never experienced prejudice in the mathematical world. No <BR>> one has ever once said to me that I can't be as good at math because I'm <BR>> female. I've always been hired for what's between my ears. I've never <BR>> been treated more poorly than my male colleagues. I have been treated <BR>> poorly on occasion, but mostly because I'm not so high up on the faculty <BR>> food chain. <BR>> <BR>> Now you might argue that it's because I'm a woman that I'm so low on the <BR>> faculty food chain, and you'd be right. I chose to stop at a Master's <BR>> degree and be a Lecturer because it was a job I could do while raising <BR>> children. But nobody made me choose that. Nobody told me I had to <BR>> choose it because I was a woman. I just wanted to. Kids are important <BR>> to me and I enjoy raising them. I saw my mom being pregnant at age 40 <BR>> and I knew that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to have my kids e
arlier <BR>> in my life, when my body was more capable of keeping up with them. And <BR>> nobody's stopping me from going back to get my doctorate, if I so <BR>> choose, whenever I'm ready. <BR>> <BR>> True, if I were a man, I would not have had to choose between kids and a <BR>> fabulous career at the cutting edge of mathematics. I could have had <BR>> the career first and the kids later, if I wanted, instead of choosing <BR>> between kids-then-career or career-but-no-kids. But that has to do with <BR>> biology. If you don't like it, you can take it up with God (or <BR>> Evolution, take your pick), but it has nothing to do with the prejudice <BR>> of our fellow human beings. If a man had as strong an interest in <BR>> raising kids as I do, he wouldn't be able to pursue a fabulous career at <BR>> the same time either. There are only so many things one can do at the <BR>> same time. <BR>> <BR>> I'm not denying the facts, and I'm not sa
ying there's never any <BR>> discrimination. I'm just suggesting that some of the reasons why women <BR>> earn less than men in mathematics, why women are not as highly <BR>> represented, etc. could possibly be due not to prejudice, but to the <BR>> fact that women are biologically different, and therefore are not able <BR>> to be remedied by anti-discrimination policies or projects. There are <BR>> undeniable biological differences between men and women, and these <BR>> differences are bound to drive different sets of life choices. It's <BR>> entirely possible that women can be just as good as men at mathematics, <BR>> that their talent can be recognized (anyone who says women aren't as <BR>> good at spatial relationships as men has obviously never seen a mother <BR>> pick the left shoe out of a pile of shoes and put it on the left foot of <BR>> a squirming toddler) and cultivated, and that women would still not be <BR>> proportionally repres
ented in professorships. You can offer them all <BR>> the choices in the world, but you cannot make them choose what you want <BR>> just because it makes your statistics look more symmetrical. <BR>> <BR>> Just my two cents on an issue that makes me want to get up on my soapbox <BR>> every time I hear the old canards trotted out. <BR>> <BR>> Sarah Natividad <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> _______________________________________________ <BR>> Rume mailing list <BR>> Rume@betterfilecabinet.com <BR>> http://betterfilecabinet.com/mailman/listinfo/rume_betterfilecabinet.com <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> _______________________________________________ <BR>> Rume mailing list <BR>> Rume@betterfilecabinet.com <BR>> http://betterfilecabinet.com/mailman/listinfo/rume_betterfilecabinet.com </BLOCKQUOTE>
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