My father recently sent me a big box of memorabilia, including a "book" I wrote at around age seven. This book is several sheets of paper stapled together, and its text in my handwriting explains counting and using different bases and place value. The book is entitled Mathematics. I also added an author's name, a very White Male name, complete with a fake author bio and picture on the back cover. My parents loved this book and were very proud of me and my mathematics. But it didn't occur to any of us circa 1980 that someone should have said, "why didn't you put your own name as the author, Leah?" I guess we figured that authors of mathematics books would not be little girls.
About a dozen years later, I was a math major at MIT. After attending a semi-formal party, a group of us went back to my then-boyfriend-now-husband's suite and worked on some number theory problems. I loved how it felt, to be wearing my royal blue brocaded dress while sitting and doing math - Math! At MIT! In a ball gown! This is the life, I thought.
I was working on a problem from one end, while four men in the suite were working on the other end - the final answer would be a very long integer with certain properties. At one point, I overheard one of the guys say a string of four numbers which matched what I had found, and when we overlapped our work, we had solved the problem! I signed my name with a flourish on my page and stepped out to go to the bathroom. When I came back, my husband's roommate was making fun of the fact that I put my name on my work. In fact, he wrote some nasty comments below it on my paper. I wish I had defended myself. I wish I had demanded credit for my work. I wish I had told that guy to unpack his overstuffed backpack of male privilege and take a flying intercourse. Instead, I made a dumb comment about how I always write my name on my work and said I was sorry. Too bad I hadn't remembered the author of Mathematics and written his name instead.
That wasn't the only time I encountered sexism about math at MIT, not even close. There was the time a professor implied that I might have trouble in what ended up being a trivially easy class. There was the complete lack of women professors in the department, and the matching lack of women's bathrooms in Building 2.
Interestingly, I disagree with naming as sexism something that also happened around that time. My very favorite math professor from MIT (with whom I have recently restarted correspondence) used to mention when girls had gotten the highest marks in his advanced courses. He would tell the class, "the highest grade was earned by a girl in this class!" in what I thought was a joyful celebration. In the early 1990s, it wasn't considered feminist to notice gender, and he faced criticism for calling out that a girl had done particularly well.
But I think my favorite professor meant to call attention to the problem that sometimes, women at MIT were not encouraged, and we were not celebrated for doing well in math. I'm glad that he saw this very real problem, and wanted to encourage us. He is a true champion of women in mathematics.
