I have an interesting story about women and math.

My partial differential equation professor in college was the first person to recognize that my cognitive processes are a bit unusual. She then went on to explain how she recognized it because she had the same problem (or gift, depending how you look at it).

I'd figured the whole time that I was just more stubborn than smart. Among other things, I'd been told I had no mathematical aptitude, I was possibly dyslexic (sort of true), lazy or synesthetic (also sort of true).

One of the things she taught me was how to visualize an equation and translate that back into mathematics.

The woman was freaking brilliant. You have to be to do general relativity for a living. She could mentally handle 11-dimensional mathematics.