Ms. Eigenwerth had an enormous head and was brilliant even as a child.

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

The death of Adrienne Rich, in calling disproportionate attention to itself, has overshadowed the nearly simultaneous passing of another important figure in the evolution of modern feminism. That few people have heard or read the name Zera Selbstwerther-Eigenwerth is not surprising considering that Ms. Eigenwerth’s bold, transgressive style of thinking roused the hackles of her male colleagues in the elite world of meta-mathematical theory, causing her to be marginalized on the fringes of academic respectability. Ms. Eigenwerth, who suffered the indignity of never being promoted beyond full professor, was repeatedly fired from various mathematics departments during her early career until she switched subjects and became an expert in Women’s Studies, where she pioneered such areas of femino-numeric theory as Clitoriparabolistics, Gynosymptotics, Tribadometrics, and Sapphoconics. Ms. Eigenwerth’s 1989 study The Propriety of Improper Rational Expressions, eschewing numbers entirely and written in emotionally charged free verse using the first person, was hailed by Women’s Studies Quarterly, Women’s Studies International Forum, Hypatia, and other similar publications as representing a breakthrough in the formerly androcentric field of higher mathematics.

Responding to news of Eigenwerth’s death, Dr. Viprette Braun-Fischwasser, Professor of Interdisciplinary Feministics at California State Van Nuys Practical and Mechanical College, said that The Propriety “decisively exposed the pervasive ‘male privileging’ of mathematical terminology, beginning with the oppressive ‘hetero-normativity’ inherent in the concept of a ‘straight line.’” Braun-Fischwasser also said that the implications of Eigenwerth’s study went beyond mathematics into fundamental assumptions of logic. “The standard algebra of syllogistic conclusions,” Braun-Fischwasser explained, “is P – Q, or ‘if p then q.’” According to Braun-Fischwasser, “The p,with its penile or phallocentric connotation, clearly denotes the superstructure of the patriarchal-totalitarian order, based on the male ability to ‘aim and draw.’ Equality of gender-opportunity depends on de-peeing of logic and mathematics. Eigenwerth was the first to expose this age-old humiliation of women.”

Eigenwerth herself, in her second book, If P – Then Squat, proposed an entirely new, non-patriarchal science, which, she hoped, would eventually replace the “suffocating strictures of paterfamilias-type numeracy.” Squatonomics, as Eigenwerth called it, banned the straight line, substituting the LGBT (or “lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender”) or “squiggly” line. It also denounced ordinality as a “gender-exclusive”conspiracy, arguing that the sequence 1-2-3-4-5, etc., is “arbitrary and manipulative” while maintaining that “creative, free-style number-sequences” would “liberate not only science but also our bodies and ourselves.”

In the judgment of Women’s Studies doyenne Enola-Gay Chakra-Vortex Spishak (Emerita Professor of Polymisandria at Central Rhode Island University), Eigenwerth’s lasting contributions to gender-interdisciplinarity have opened up new possibilities for women. “Once the element of quantativity has been eliminated from the so-called quantitative sciences, male domination will almost certainly come to an end.” Eigenwerth predeceased Rich by only three days, or possibly four. The actual sequence of events remains uncertain.

                                   — Comments —

Buck writes:

Well done, Mr. Bertonneau. Happy April One.

Buck adds:

 I will find a way to plant at least one of these great new words into a conversation with a particular friend: “Clitoriparabolistics, Gynosymptotics, Tribadometrics, and Sapphoconics,” after I practice pronouncing them and have created reasonable sounding definitions.

Eric writes:

Wasn’t she divorced once from Alan Sokal?

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