Numbers and Narratives - From the ‘woman’ question in mathematical sciences to the ‘mathematical’ ma

Invited talk

From the ‘woman’ question in mathematical sciences to the ‘mathematical’ matter for feminism

Prof. Anna Chronaki, University of Thessaly, Greece and Malmö University, Sweden

Sandra Harding back in the 80s discusses how the feminist critique of science evolves from reformist to revolutionary positions that require either to improve the existent science cultures or to transform them radically by questioning Western onto/epistemic foundations. Specifically, Harding (1986) argues how ‘the radical feminist position holds that the epistemologies, metaphysics, ethics and politics of the dominant forms of science are androcentric and mutually supportive’ and that ‘…gender symbolism, the social division of labor by gender, and the construction of individual gender identity have affected the history and philosophy of science’ (p. 9). In short, she argues that a new kind of knowledge-seeking inquiry is not only a matter of scientific method but, equally, a matter of feminist struggles toward requiring a radical critical rethinking of both science and gender. But how could this urge be addressed? Already, Valerie Walkerdine’s work strives to sensitize us for the importance to counter the dominance of certain material and discursive figurations including the ways they translate for the life of ‘women’ and ‘girls’ calling for the need to embrace alternatives (Walkerdine, 1989, 1997) and this work could align with the speculative thinking of science fiction writers like Ursula Le Guin (Le Guin, wikipedia; Chronaki, 2024). Taking the above into account, the present paper focuses on how specific thinkers in SSST (social studies in science and technology) and new-materialism like Haraway and Barad or Deleuze and Guattari affirm mathematical concepts as material/discursive components to con/figure and co/imagine the generative life of science(s) and gender(s) in ways that support us queer identitarian dichotomies and hierarchical relations.

Chronaki, Anna. 2024. The Masters: Speculative Assemblages of Mathematics Education as Enclosures and Commons with Ursula K. Le Guin’s Feminist Utopian Anarchism. Invited Lectures Vol lI: Proceedings of the 14th International Congress on Mathematical Education. October 2024, 119-149

Harding, Sandra. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. New York. Cornell University.

Le Guin, Ursula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin_bibliography

Walkerdine, Valerie. 1989. Counting Girls Out: Girls and Mathematics. London. Falmer Press.

Walkerdine, Valerie. 1997. Daddy’s Girl: Young Girls and Popular Culture. Massachusetts. Harvard University Press.

Chronaki_Maths_Science_Gender_2025_NN_London.pdf

Afterthoughts

Chronaki’s talk was striking in the way it brought feminist theory, science studies, new materialism, and post-structuralist thought into productive conversation. She challenged the notion of mathematics as neutral or disembodied, arguing instead that it is deeply entangled with how we imagine and structure the world—including our understandings of gender, knowledge, and relationality.

Within the context of the Numbers and Narratives project, her contribution resonated powerfully. Just as the project rethinks the archive—not as a static repository but as a dynamic field of memory and imagination—Chronaki reframed mathematics as a site of feminist re-worlding. Her talk urged us not only to recover women from the margins of mathematical history, but also to question how the very matter of mathematics might be reconfigured through feminist thought.

Her emphasis on con/figuration and co/imagination—the ways in which science and gender are materially and discursively shaped—offered a generative lens for continuing the project’s work. Rather than simply inserting women into existing scientific narratives, Chronaki invited us to envision alternative modes of inquiry, other ways of relating, and perhaps even other kinds of mathematics altogether.