A historical perspective
I went out to dinner recently with a group of people after work — some I knew, others were friends of friends. We were in a pop-up bar in Sydney on a Friday night. The music was loud, the decor was eclectic enough to be deemed trendy and the margaritas were flowing. As we sat on wooden stools and nibbled on our tapas, I started a conversation with one of the girls at the table who I hadn't met before. She asked what I did and I told her that I'm a mathematician. Her reaction was something along the lines of I'm 'too pretty' to be a mathematician. Whilst it's a somewhat nice compliment, there's something a little irritating about this reaction (a reaction that's all too common); especially if you superimpose that comment to another profession such as, say, a doctor or lawyer. This response is the quintessential example of the general perspective of women in maths.
To understand this social attitude toward women and maths we need to travel back in time.