Abstract
This paper has its origin in a doctoral research, whith the objective of analyzing the struggle history of the articulating and founding teachers of the Institute of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Bahia (IMF-UFBA) – Arlete Cerqueira Lima and Martha Maria de Souza Dantas and the teachers who succeeded them, taking them away from historical invisibility. The achievement of this project, required the search and analysis of documentary sources at the archives of the Mathematics Institute (IM), the Physics Institute (IF) and the University of Education (FACED), among others, as well as semi-structured interviews with the pioneer teachers. Analyzing the Institute's foundation from a gender perspective, made it possible to visualize a surprising history involving women and mathematics, a field traditionally associated with masculinity. This revealed a history permeated by gender relations, power relations, social relations involving gender, class, race, in which the participants were building the space mentioned without realizing that they were inside a social plot that even nowadays maintains the masculine supremacy in the academic world, as well as in other sectors of the society. The study revealed that these women built and consolidated the IMF, as subjects of knowledge. They were the social agents who made Mathematics happen in the context of the Federal University of Bahia and provided the new generations the existence of an Mathematics Institute with its own life and ready to face the challenges of the new century.
Keywords:
Women; Mathematics; Gender; Power relations; IMF