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From: ladkin@kestrel.ARPA (Peter Ladkin)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles
Subject: Re: career vs. relationships
Message-ID: <5753@kestrel.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 13-Mar-86 00:23:09 EST
Article-I.D.: kestrel.5753
Posted: Thu Mar 13 00:23:09 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 08:19:56 EST
References: <11785@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <660@rti-sel.UUCP> <936@felix.UUCP>
Organization: Kestrel Institute, Palo Alto, CA
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Xref: watmath net.women:9710 net.singles:10936

In article <936@felix.UUCP>, daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards) writes:
> In article <142@rtech.UUCP> linda@rtech.UUCP (Linda Mundy) writes:
> >When I was an undergraduate (CS) at Berkeley, there was a flap over hiring a
> >woman professor in mathematics.  They decided against her, ostensibly 
> >because she could not speak English well enough
> 
> An optimist might say that the reason they didn't hire her was because they 
> learned their lesson about professors who can't speak from the very guy you
> mention having as a math professor.

The lady in question is Marina Ratner. She is now tenured at Berkeley.
Her ability in English was not a real issue, but the student paper
tried to make it into one. The question, as always, was *quality
of research*. And the misogynists can always denigrate research
and appear objective. 
The example becomes better if shifted - 
Julia Robinson was one of four who contributed
to solving Hilbert's Tenth Problem (outstanding for 70 years),
and probably made the major contribution, but not the final link.
She was never offered a position at Berkeley until her husband
retired. She was awarded a quarter-million dollar stipend from
the MacArthur Foundation in, I think, 1980, was elected to the
National Academy of Science, and chaired the American Mathematical
Society. She has recently died from leukemia.
Some years ago, I had the misfortune to listen to one of the
world's great logicians put down her work as not really worthy
of serious consideration as good mathematics, as a small group 
of us went to dinner. It was disgusting. I would have given
almost anything to have a fraction of her talent. 
I dined elsewhere.

On another note, I suspect Adrian Kent is talking of
his experience at Cambridge?

Peter Ladkin