ABSTRACT
A couple of months ago I was invited to give a series of lectures at a major university as one of a “series of distinguished guest lecturers” on mathematical aspects of biology. Having just finished teaching a course on women at my own college, I somehow felt obliged to violate the implicit protocol and address the anomalous fact of my being an apparently successful woman scientist. Though I had experienced similar vague impulses before, for a variety of reasons arising from a mix of anger, confusion, and timidity, it had never seemed to me either appropriate or possible to yield to such an impulse. Now, however, it seemed decidedly inappropriate, somewhat dishonest, and perhaps even politically unconscionable to deliver five lectures on my work without once making reference to the multitude of contradictions and conflicts I had experienced in arriving at the professional position presumed on this occasion. Therefore, in a gesture that felt wonderfully bold and unprofessional, I devoted the last lecture to a discussion of the various reasons for the relative absence of women in science, particularly in the higher ranks. The talk formed itself-with an ease, clarity, and lack of rancor that amazed me. I felt an enormous sense of personal triumph. Somehow, in the transformation of what had always appeared to me an essentially personal problem into a political problem, my anger had become depersonalized, even defused, and a remarkable sense of clarity emerged. It suggested to me that I might, now, be able to write about my own rather painful and chaotic history as a woman in science.
