The Only Woman in the Room

Growing Up

Eileen Pollack wasn’t allowed to join her rural high school’s advanced curriculum in physics and math because, as her principal told her, “Girls never go on in science and math.” She grew up in Liberty, New York, a working-class resort area where her grandparents owned a hotel. Elementary school wasn’t challenging until third grade. A turning point came when a teacher told Pollack to sit still and not to read ahead while she waited for the class to catch up with her. She and two boys who also liked math convinced the teacher to let them work on multiplication and division while the rest of the class labored with addition and subtraction. Teasing her male classmates landed her in the office of the principal who tested Pollack to see if she was smart enough to skip a grade. Instead of asking straightforward addition and subtraction questions, he tested her on more difficult, abstract skills. School officials told her mother that Pollack wasn’t “mature” or “well socialized” enough to skip a grade. Though she was young, Pollack already realized that the principal held her and her male classmate to different standards. A boy who skipped a grade was “far less mature...