Luckily for all of us, the gender equality has found its way into the society so now, not only that the women have the same rights in making decisions, but they are equally acknowledged for their work and contribution to the science, which is why I decided to take a look at 10 most famous female mathematicians in the 21st century.
But although the feminism took many steps forward, sometimes it seems like men are still inferior to women in some areas. When it comes to STEM, the huge gender gap is still noticeable when it comes to choosing the right candidates. According to the National Science Board Science and Engineering Indicators, in 2013 women received only 17.9% degrees in computer science and 19.3% in engineering.
On the official website of the Nobel Prize, you can see all the winners of this high award from the first ever award given in 1901 until 2016. According to their website, there were 48 women in the period of 115 years, and the majority of them were the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature, and fewer were the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Only one woman, Elinor Ostrom won The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2009, while Maria Curie won the award two times: the first one was for hers and her husband’s contribution in the field of the nuclear physics and share the Nobel Prize for Physics reward that they shared with Henry Becquerel in 1903, and the other one was in Nuclear Chemistry, in 1911. Interesting fact, Maria and Pierre’s daughter Irène Joliot-Curie inherited their love of science and years later, she and her husband also won the award of their own.
As you can see, out of 911 laureates between the year of 1901 and 2016, only 48 were women. After all of these years after establishing in 1936, in 2014, the Fields Medal (the Nobel Prize of Mathematics) first time went to the woman. This award is given to all of the mathematics influencers under the age of 40 and only Iranian female mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani, managed to be named a winner of this high reward.
Throughout the years of education, we are all taught about Platon, Aristotle, Pascal, Newton, Einstein, but how many female mathematicians you are familiar with? We will go through the history some other time, but now, let’s pay a respect to these 10 most famous female mathematicians in the 21st century.
