“The human spirit requir[es] more resources inside when outside it has less.”
Many “empowering” books for girls are silly puff pieces. The aim seems to be to convince capable and ambitious girls that they are oppressed, which will do nothing to encourage their success and will run the risk of convincing them to sit around complaining—not a great posture for active engagement with the world and its challenges.
An exception among the children’s books aimed at empowering young women in recent years is Cheryl Bardoe’s engaging picture book biography of French mathematician Sophie Germain, “Nothing Stopped Sophie.”
The text without the beautiful pictures would be far less memorable. Barbara McClintock’s illustrations convey the beauty and excitement of mathematics. And also the tedium. On the one hand, her imaginative three-dimensional fancies of mathematics are exciting and delightful. On the other, the time-lapse sequences of Germain puzzling over her failed proofs page after page demonstrate the methodical work of translating concepts to mathematical formulas.
McClintock, a self-trained artist who has accompanied many children’s book heavyweights in addition to illustrating her own children’s books, once again shows her meticulous attention to detail that makes for a truly satisfying children’s book. Kids can fall into the page, examining the many facets of the page that successfully convey the key moments fleshed out in Bardoe’s concise text.
Women sometimes succeed because of the obstacles to their success, not despite them. This is not to suggest that we should attempt to oppress women in the hopes of sparking genius, but neither should individual women despair of their circumstances and assume that there exists some vast, unseen patriarchy seeking to oppress. Women have always been integral to society and the “workforce,” whether or not they won prizes like Germain.
How does a woman succeed in her chosen field? The same as anyone, it seems: excellence. Bardoe demonstrates the real and demonstrable disadvantages of being a woman in pursuit of advanced mathematics in the early nineteenth century. Women were not welcome in advanced classes or professional circles. At the same time, she could advance on the basis of her merit and successfully, after multiple failed attempts, wrote a mathematical proof for a phenomenon not yet understood.
Life has been difficult for most people in different ways and to different degrees—still is, as a matter of fact. In the background of Sophie’s childhood infused with math is the bloody French Revolution. Bardoe draws a striking contrast between the chaos of the revolution and the order and calm of mathematical study. Women, and people generally, have been oppressed by forces of discrimination and bigotry. To overcome these, we should not train girls to emulate the tactics of the revolutionaries but embrace the ordering principles of logic and civility.
“Nothing Stopped Sophie” is a visually delightful, textually sound introduction to a woman with whom you may not have been familiar. She is presented as a worthy role model, a rare find indeed.
