More Than Women

Whoever you are, wherever you are, you will be judged. Whether you are titled as some lazy man, longing his glory days or as some gangster pimp, pushing drugs or as some mindless twit, painting her nails, you will always have some stereotype uttered behind your back. Discrimination is a blind gossip who thrives on, often erroneous, face-values. Through all fields of life, discrimination exists, not excepting the field of mathematics. Still, there are many who break through glass ceilings and work around, through, and despite the monster of prejudice. Specifically, female mathematicians have come along way from a time when girls were excluded from higher learning. You see, one plus one equals two, no matter what your demographic may be. Here, the blinders go down and judgments matter not; because whatever typecast is plastered on your forehead, the genius speaks for itself. Math does not look at the outward appearance, but at the brain, as displayed through the lives of Christine Ladd-Franklin, Mary G. Ross, and Svetlana Jitimirskaya.
Christine Ladd-Franklin was born 1847 and died in 1930. She was in love with learning. Although she had to drop out of school for financial reasons, without assistance she continued to study, focusing on trigonometry, biology, and languages. Having a passion for languages, her first publication was a translation of Schiller’s “Des Madchens Klege” into English. In 1868, she returned to school at Vassar College and graduated one year later. Her passion for math and endeavors as a mathematician became significant only after graduating. She was author of many mathematical publications in the Educational Times of London and, an American journal, The Analyst. She studied at Harvard with some of the “greats.” Then with the aid of J. J. Sylvester, Christine was able to take on graduate courses in math at John Hopkins University. She found much success in her work at John Hopkins, even in the midst of the fact that the university was closed to women. At the university, she focused on her unique interest in symbolic logic. He dissertation on “The Algebra of Logic” was renowned, but by the end of her time there she was forced to leave the university without the Ph.D. she deserved. John Hopkins would not offer official recognition of the degree she had earned. That year, she married a member of the mathematics department at John Hopkins. Though she had two children with him, only one child lived on to be an adult. Christine worked on through the loss and changed her mathematical concentration to the arena of physiological optics. After 37 years, in 1929, she published a compilation of her efforts concerning color vision, titled, Colour and Colour Theories. Despite the label “female” taped to her back, she achieved many goals and eventually got the full recognition she deserved. In 1887, she received an LL.D. Degree at Vassar. In 1926, she finally was afforded her doctorate degree from John Hopkins. She championed efforts to allow women receive graduate educations and academic employment. For 17 years, she played a monumental role in the direction of the Sarah Berliner fellowship to aid women just getting their Ph.D. In March of 1930, she struggled with pneumonia. She died that month, more than a label, more than a woman. She died a mathematician.
Another champion of genius is Mary G. Scott, the first Native-American female engineer. She graduated from Northeastern University in 1928, her alma mater being a foundation attributed to her great-great grandfather, Chief John Ross, a leader of the Cherokee tribes during the conquest of America. Her family supported her in all intellectual undertakings because they understood the importance of an education. Through the master’s degree in mathematics, which she received from Colorado State College, she was able to become a part of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Her first couple years there, she contributed to the development of fighter planes. Because her work was unavoidably brilliant, Lockheed offered Mary an education as an engineer. In 1949, she completed her rigorous training and became a leader in the pioneering projects of Lockheed. With a focus on rockets and missiles, she developed the criteria for the Agena rocket, making way for an America’s space age. Soon after, she began her work for missions to Mars and Venus, leading her to an esteemed involvement with NASA. In the 1960s, her leadership at Lockheed flourished. By 1973, she retired only to take on the mantle as a spokeswoman for women in the field of mathematics and more specifically to Native-American women. She was a respected and prominent member of the Society of Women Engineers. And, she had a hand in the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and the Council of Energy Resource Tribes. Her efforts in those two groups made way for great expansion in the education programs available. In 1992, Mary G. Ross entered the Hall of Fame, through the Silicon Valley Engineering Council, and was honored with the Woman of Distinction Award. In 2001, she was chosen as the subject for a sculpture, celebrating the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, which honors the achievements of minority, indigenous women in the past century. In the “Art Across Borders” exhibit, her sculpture, by Lawrence Kinney, is titled “Mary G. Ross: Scientist, Engineer, Cherokee-American.” A legend lives on, more than a label, more than a woman. She lives on having earned the titles that coincide with her name.
Our last heroine is the acclaimed Svetlana Jitomirskaya. She was born in 1966 in the Ukraine. Svetlana was raised in a family of mathematicians, traced throughout her lineage. Her mother was the venerated Valentina Mikhailovna Borok. Svetlana got her Ph.D. in 1991 from Moscow State University. That year, she moved to California with her family. Throughout her career, she held a prominent research position at the Institute for Earthquake Prediction Theory, was a part-time lecturer, assistant professor, and regular faculty member at the University of California, was a Sloan Fellow, a speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians, and was awarded the 2005 Satter Prize from the American Mathematical Society, an award given out every two years to women having offered outstanding efforts and research spanning the prevailing five years. She is celebrated for her pioneering efforts in the field of non-perturbative quasiperiodic localization. The committee states, “In her Annals paper, she developed a non-perturbative approach to quasiperiodic localization and solved the long-standing Aubry-Andre conjecture on the almost Mathieu operator. Her paper with Bourgain contains the first general non-perturbative result on the absolutely continuous spectrum.” In 2004, her mother died; yet, Svetlana believes that she carries on her mother’s character through her own labors in mathematics and that of her children (Borok’s grandchildren). Svetlana is the proud mother of three children, ages ranging from one to seventeen. She strives on, more than a label, more than a woman. She strives on as a mother.
The lives of these three amazing women, Jitomirskaya, Ross, and Ladd-Franklin, shows that math does not stereotype. It does not judge. It breaks through barriers. Math looks at the genius and the potential and the devotion of the inner character. Women are more than labels; they are mathematicians, living titles, mothers. People are then measured by their passions, not their genders. Demographics fade, prejudice falters, and glass ceilings shatter. What labels have others placed on you, or vice versa? What labels have you given yourself? Are you no more than a label, a stereotype, a demographic? Can you choose to be more?


Selected Bibliography
Riddle, Larry. Biographies of Women Mathematicians. 1995-2005. Agnes Scott. 14 December 2005. http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/women.htm.