Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Gender Discrimination
Hypatia of Alexandria: circa 355AD to 415AD

Hypatia of Alexandria lived circa 355AD - 415AD, and was the wife of the philosopher Isidorus. Hypatia was one of the first female mathematicians, but also was interested in astronomy/astrology, and philosophy. Hypatia wrote a commentary on Diophantus, as well as a work called The Astronomical Canon and a commentary on The Conics of Apollonius.

Hypatia was a Neoplatonist philosopher and defended paganism against Christianity (she taught the views of Plato and Aristotle.). Hypatia was of the mathematics tradition of the Academy of Athens. Circa 400AD, Hypatia became headmistress of the Platonist school at Alexandria. She was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry.

Christians viewed Hypatia as a Hellenistic pagan, and she was viewed as "...devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through her Satanic wiles". (Ie: she was received well by the populace).

One day, as Hypatia was returning home, she ws dragged from her chariot by Christian monks, her hair pulled out, murdered and her flesh scraped from her bones with ostraca (pot shards), and her body burned. Educated women able to think for themselves were not lightly tolerated.

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