I almost burst out laughing when I saw the painting of a naked woman reclining on a green and yellow striped comfy armchair, peeking over the shoulder of a former Harvard Dean in his video tribute during the "anecdotes" session at a conference at Harvard in 2025. The conference commemorated the 100th birthday of the late John Tate, a mathematician from whom I took many courses when I was an undergraduate.
During the conference coffee breaks the next day, I remarked to my friends how amusing it was that the naked woman was the only representation of women at the anecdotes session.
All the women I spoke to about it remembered seeing the naked woman. All of the men denied having seen a naked woman. I asked my female friends how that could be. They told me, "Of course they saw it. How could they not see it?" The painting indeed took up a non-trivial portion of the screen, near the center, and was at least partly visible for all of the former Dean's 8-minute video. There was no mistaking it for anything other than a naked woman.
I asked the conference organizers if they could add me to their list of people who would give reminiscences about John Tate after the conference banquet, and they graciously agreed. I told them I was asking to do it so that students who were influenced by John while they were undergrads would be represented. What I didn't mention was that one reason I asked to speak at the banquet was the lack of female mathematicians in the anecdotes session.
One of the stories I told in my after-dinner remarks was about how John couldn't tell the difference between the two women (me and my friend Miriam) in a class he taught. I had told that story, with Tate in the audience, at the dinner for the conference to celebrate his 90th birthday, and he found it funny. I knew from the "only one door" story that John had a good sense of humor.
Thinking about the invisible naked woman has led me to recall how invisible I feel when colleagues ignore what I say, or misunderstand me because they don't bother to pay attention.