The pioneering women mathematicians

Abstract

The first creative and professional woman mathematician was Sof'ya Vasil'yevna Kovalevskaya (1850-1891), [11] and [20], bu t six w o m e n are k n o w n to have achieved some distinction in mathematics before her (cf. the very title of [17]). The lives of those six pioneers were extraordinary in the strict sense of the word, since no ordinary woman could possibly have succeeded in an intellectual activity in which only a tiny minority of men had worked seriously.