Reflection question 35.7

QUESTIONS 415 the returned Soviet Union. Questions for Reflection ed by Stalin, 1 1941) She 45 5. What were the advantages and disadvantages of marriage for a woman seeking an academic career before the twentieth century? How much of this depended on the zi policy of particular choice of a husband at each stage of the career? The cases of Sof ya 1886-1954 Kovalevskaya, Grace Chisholm Young, and Emmy Noether will be illuminating, but pengler and it will be useful to seek more detailed sources than the narratives above. 15.6, How important is (or was) encouragement from family and friends in the decision to study science? How important is it to have a mentor, an established professional in more and the same field, to help orient early career decisions? How important is it for a young d to such woman to have an older woman as a role model? Try to answer these questions to Herr along a scale from "not at all important" through "somewhat important" and "very tures and important" to "essential." Use the examples of the women whose careers are sketched above to support your rankings. 35.7.)How strong are the claims that Loria adduces in his argument against admitting women to universities? Were all the women discussed here encouraged by their ying there. families when they were young? Is it really true that it is impossible to "fix with ul careers. precision" the original contributions of Sof ya Kovalevskaya? Would collaboration was forced with other mathematicians make it impossible to "fix with precision" the work of any brief. She male mathematicians? Consider also the case of the three women discussed above. s possible is it true that they were exhausted after finishing their education? hen, after Next, consider that universities select the top students in high school classes for developed admission, so that a student who excelled the other students in high school might be able at best to equal the other students at a university. Further selections for graduate school, then for hiring at universities of various levels of prestige, then for academic honors, provide layer after layer of filtering. Except for an extremely tiny elite, those who were at the top at one stage find themselves in the middle at the next and eventually reach (what is ideally) a level commensurate with their talent What conclusions could be justified in regard to any gender link in this universal process, based on a sample of fewer than five women? And how can Loria be sure he knows their proper level when all the women up to the time of writing were ered? systematically locked out of the best opportunities for professional advancement? was she Look at the twentieth century and see what becomes of Loria's argument that women never reach the top. Finally, examine Loria's argument in the light of the cold facts of society: A woman :matical who wished to have a career in mathematics would naturally be well advised to find a mentor with a well-established reputation, as Sof ya Kovalevskaya did. A woman who did not do that would have no chance of being cited by Loria as an example, since she would never have been heard of. Is this argument not a classical example of Catch-22? 35.8. The primary undergraduate competition for mathematics majors in the United States is the Putnam Examination, administered the first weekend in December each year by the Mathematical Association of America. In addition to its rankings for the top teams and the top individuals, this examination also provides, for women who Ar, suited n. By the choose to enter, a prize for the highest-ranking woman. (The people grading the berbach examinations do not know the identities of the entrants, and a woman can enter this