Description
We all have math stories to tell. The discipline pervades our understanding of who we are. We tend to relate to mathematics in a much more intimate way than we do to most other disciplines. Whether we hated it or loved it, very few of us have neutral feelings about the field. My own math story is no exception. My relationship to mathematics has never been easy, nor has it been consistent; sometimes I hated math and did not think I could achieve success. Sometimes I loved mathematics with so much passion I could not imagine doing anything else with my life. My earliest memory of mathematics is of attending a remedial math class during the summer after kindergarten. I remember asking my mother what “remedial” meant. By third grade, it was well established that mathematics was not one of my strengths, and when I transferred to a new school, I was tracked into the lowest-level math class. In middle school, I began to do better in mathematics, and I discovered, to my surprise, that I enjoyed it. After doing well on a competency test and achieving high marks in class, I told my eighth-grade math teacher that I was interested in enrolling in the honors section of high-school algebra. She told me that was probably not a good idea and encouraged me to enroll in a nonhonors section. I chose not to listen to her. During my sophomore year of college, I declared an undergraduate major in mathematics after a chance conversation with my calculus professor, who told me I was very good at mathematics and that I seemed to have a natural talent. I went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and graduated with honors, after completing my senior thesis in knot theory. Yet I chose to pursue a doctoral degree in feminist studies rather than mathematics, in large part because I never really believed that I could become a mathematician…………..
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 The Discursive Construction of Gendered
Subjectivity in Mathematics 15
Chapter 3 Mathematical Subjectivity in Historical Accounts 49
Chapter 4 The Role of Portraiture in Constructing a
Normative Mathematical Subjectivity 89
Chapter 5 The Ethnomathematical Other 125
Chapter 6 Conclusion 159
Notes 169
Bibliography 173
Index 187