Women’s Contributions to the Progress of Mathematics: Lights and Shadows

It’s undoubtedly worthwhile to analyse the role played by women in mathematics. Men have obtained many recognitions in this field, but the same cannot be said about women. Indeed, how many people are aware of the contributions of Hypatia, Emilie du Chatelet, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Sophie Germaine, Mary Fairfax Somerville, Sonya Kovalevsky and Emmy Noether? Nevertheless, today we can confirm that these women made substantial contributions to the progress of mathematics. For this reason they deserve our attention, but also because they had extraordinary lives and peculiar personalities which are interesting to observe closely.