The culture for women in math and the sciences

Perhaps the phrase "ordinary" women scientists is an oxymoron -- but it should not be.  Women should be free to populate the full range of aspiration and dedication to science or any other profession.   In this spirit, I offer below the opening lines of a thought-provoking poem, "Ordinary Women Scientists," by science writer and poet Mary Alexandra Agner, from the excellent and important anthology Raising Lilly Ledbetter:  Women Poets Occupy the Workspace.

     Here are links to several recent items about math-women:

This link leads to a young mathematician's view of being "a female role model."

Here is a report of a panel at Harvard discussing roles of women in mathematics. 

Here is a link to the Women in Maths Facebook page where visitors 

may post information and offer support for math women.

This link leads to my poem celebrating Emmy Noether.  Here we celebrate Caroline Herschel.

Here at mathblogging.org is a place to find all sorts of math-links.

     from    Ordinary Women Scientists          by Mary Alexandra Agner       
                                                                                      for R.C.
      leave the lab late, flasks washed and waiting,
      computer on an overnight crunch job,
      warm dinner in the microwave
      while wondering at excited water molecules,
      wave their kids goodnight, grateful    
      to the man or nanny who nodded them off,
      fall asleep to old friends' emails.
      Ordinary women scientists love
      the secrets of the ordinary world,
      coax and capture them with math and models,
      breastfeeding between the lines
      of code and chalk notation on the blackboard . . .
    

Mary Alexandra Agner has written many science poems -- and links are available on her webpage; "Ordinary Women Scientists" has made its first appearance in the anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter:  Women Poets Occupying the Workplace (edited by Caroline Wright, M.L. Lyons & Eugenia Toledo, Lost Horse Press, 2015).  Jo Pitkin's poem celebrating Ada Lovelace -- and from this same anthology -- was posted here on July 16, 2015.