The Obvious Suspect

 

Professors P and Q sat across from me in the mathematics common room at the University of Cambridge. They were American professors, visiting the UK from a large midwestern university. I was an American student, visiting Cambridge on a fellowship for the 1979-1980 academic year. I was reading a mathematics text, trying to mind my own business.

P and Q were deep in discussion, trying to answer the question "Why are there so few female mathematicians?" Since they were Americans, I could hear every word.

They examined the premise that it was due to prejudice and discrimination. They rapidly dismissed that, on the grounds that the people in power in mathematics were just like them, and they were obviously good people who couldn't possibly unfairly discriminate or succumb to prejudice. Much as I tried not to eavesdrop, from that point on I felt as if I were listening to two bumbling detectives trying to solve a murder mystery. They had ruled out the obvious suspect. Who were they going to declare to be the culprit, and how were they going to get there? I had heard such debates many times before, so I had my suspicions about where they were heading. Nonetheless, I ardently hoped for better.

They eliminated one premise after another. Could it be lack of opportunities? Surely not. Lack of interest? Well, maybe, but that wouldn't fully account for it. They considered everything they could think of, until they were left with only one option.

At that point, I just couldn't restrain myself. It was clear what they were about to say, and I didn't want them to say it. Too many times had I heard (always male) professors conclude that women weren't as good at mathematics because they were genetically inferior.

I introduced myself to P and Q, apologized for listening to their conversation, and told them that the answers to their question were prejudice and discrimination. (Actually, it's likely I told them there were three reasons: "discrimination, discrimination, and discrimination", alluding to the adage about real estate and location.) I pointed out that Ivy League universities had only recently begun to admit women, and were, even then, doing so in small numbers. I told them some recent stories about Harvard, from personal experience. And I pointed out some facts about the recent history of (and discrimination against) women at Cambridge.

I don't know whether any opinions changed. Their minds were probably made up before they started. But they listened politely, even though I disagreed with them. (I wish that happened more often nowadays!)

People choose people who remind them of themselves

Here's a game. Look at the list of invited speakers for a conference, and guess the demographics of the organizing committee.

I can often correctly guess a lot about the nationalities, ethnicities, or genders of the organizers from the speaker list. Sometimes I can even correctly guess names of organizers.

I recommend playing the game. How much about the conference organizers can you guess from the list of speakers?

There are times when I've asked an organizer why the list of invited speakers is all male, and his reply is that the women in the field aren't good enough, the men are just better. I've gotten similar responses when a speaker (and organizer) list is disproportionately Dutch, or French, or of a particular ethnicity. 

At a certain Ivy League university in the 1990s, the junior faculty attended a meeting where the (all-male) senior faculty decided which undergraduates would graduate summa cum laude in mathematics. Afterwards, some of the junior faculty told me they were upset and concerned because a female student with high grades in hard courses was passed over in favor of a male student with lower grades, after a senior faculty member said that the man reminded him of himself at that age.

People choose people who remind them of themselves. Then they rationalize it by saying that such people are better.

I like merit-based systems, and I'm not advocating for quotas. And if financial constraints mean that local speakers are preferred over those with more expensive travel costs, that's understandable. But sometimes it helps to be reminded to give full consideration to people different from oneself or one's friends. I hope that things have improved, and that the organizer-guessing game isn't as easy as it used to be.

The game has a second part. If the speaker and organizer lists are skewed in the same direction, ask yourself whether the argument that the over-represented group is just better feels right to you. If it does, do you belong to the favored group?

Isomorphic students

Miriam and I didn't think that we looked alike. But whenever Professor W handed back the homework in the course we took from him, there was a 50-50 chance that he'd hand me Miriam's homework, and hand her mine. We were the only female students in the class.

At first we exchanged homeworks discreetly so as not to embarrass W. Eventually we didn't bother, and would even walk across the room to trade papers. At some point W noticed and commented on it, but he never learned to tell the difference between us.

When I ran the above past Miriam, she replied "But there's more. That was back in the 70's. In the 80's I had a similar experience at work: there were just two female programmers, and we didn't look alike at all. Still, we were often addressed by each others' name. Things got better at my next two jobs, but only because I was the only woman programmer. I'd like to say things have improved since then, but then I saw this recent FaceBook post from [Harvard Computer Science Professor] Margo [Seltzer]."