Draft:Women in mathematics

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Pre-Hellenistic
Before the Hellenistic era and in particular the Pythagoreans, it is unclear that mathematics was studied as a discipline in its own right, and rather was developed, at least in Babylon and Egypt for practical purposes, including administrative purposes such as taxation and development of timekeeping systems, and for engineering. As such, there were no mathematicians in the modern sense of the word, though there were people who used mathematics, particularly those in administrative positions.

Hellenistic
The earliest records of possible individual woman mathematicians come from the Hellenistic era.

One woman referred to as a mathematician from this period was Theano. Theano was linked to Pythagoras, and was likely his wife, placing her in the 6th-century BC. She was an active participant of the Pythagorean order, which included mathematics as a central part of its doctrine. Some sources claim she wrote on the golden ratio, but there is no evidence from the time to justify this claim.

Hypatia lived several hundred years after, born some time between 350-370 AD and died in 415 AD. She was the first female mathematician of whose life and work we have a good body of reliable evidence. She was a renowned and well-liked teacher of mathematics and astronomy among other subjects. Regarding her known mathematical writing, Hypatia wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which had been written sometime around the year 250 AD. She also wrote a commentary on Apollonius of Perga's work on conic sections, but this commentary is no longer extant.

United Kingdom
From a report undertaken in 2013 on behalf of the London Mathematical Society, the proportion of those graduating from first degree, masters and postgraduate programmes in the 2010/11 year who are female were 44%, 34% and 25% respectively. The proportion of mathematics professors in 2010/11 who are female was 6.3%, up from 2.5% in 2001/2.

United States
From a 2017-18 report by the American Mathematical Society, 29% of doctorate recipients for doctorates in the mathematical sciences were women, the same as for 2016-17. Of the PhDs taking academic jobs, 28% were women. Both of these percentages decreased from a common high of 32% in 2014. In terms of academic job hires, a 2018-19 report from the AMS states that of all hires, 34% were women. Bachelor's departments hired 37% and doctoral departments hired 28%.