7th HLF – Panel Discussion: The Gender Gap in Science
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:01
Everybody, I think we are ready to start. We are a little on overtime, but we will do it anyway.
00:29
So this is a panel discussion on the gender gap in the mathematical sciences and computer science. And part of it is going to be a report by Marie-François Sroy on a project which is an ICSU project.
00:49
And you will hear more about it, which is why the gender gap comes in in the title also in this project. Let me just briefly say who we are. So I'm Ragni Pienen from the University of Oslo.
01:02
I'm a mathematician. I'm at the HLF because of the involvement with the Abel Prize, so also the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The panelists are Marie-François Roy from the University of Rennes. She's a mathematician.
01:22
She is the coordinator of this gender project, the ICSU gender project that she will tell you about. The next panelist will be with us on Skype. She is Anna Wienhardt. She is a mathematician from the University of Heidelberg and she is on the scientific committee of the HLF.
01:44
Next is Jessica Carter. She is in the history of mathematics. That's her specialty. She is from the Southern University of Denmark. Then there is Margot Seltzer. She is in computer systems, professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in Canada.
02:06
And then we have two young researchers, Fernando Chirigati. He's a postdoc now at New York University in computer science. He's originally from Brazil. He has his PhD from New York also, NYU.
02:27
Sorry, this is weird. There must be some artificial intelligence going on here. And then the last one, not least, is Anna Masilchenko. She is also in computer science,
02:41
but with an interest in mathematical education also. And we will hear also from these two, but now I would like first to give the word to Marie-François. Please.
03:01
Hello. Okay, so I have to present to you very quickly our project, which is called the Global Approach to the Gender Gap in Mathematical Computing and Natural Sciences. How to measure it, how to reduce it. Okay, so that's the group leading the project, as we were at UNESCO in 2017 when the project began.
03:31
And in fact, it's a project which is funded by the International Science Council, and we have 11 partners. I'm not going to name all of them,
03:41
but I'm just insisting on the one related to mathematics or computer science, which is the International Mathematical Union, also ICIAM, which is the Union for Applied and Industrial Mathematics, and also ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, as well as other bodies like UNESCO, WSD, and so on.
04:06
So 11 groups. And again, I'm not going to really detail the objective of the project, but basically we had three tasks, and I'm going to present to you very quickly what we did in each of these three tasks.
04:25
So the first task was a survey which was an inquiry for scientists from our disciplines. And we were able to have 32,000 respondents, male and female,
04:43
and that's how they were distributed. This map is slightly misleading because, for example, you see it seems that China had a lot of answers, but in fact it was not really the case just because China is such a huge country. In fact, places where we had really a good number of answers were Western Europe,
05:03
Latino America, and India and Japan. But in any case, it was really kind of, I think it's the first time that we had an inquiry with so many respondents on this topic. So there were many, many questions. I cannot present you the results of all the questions.
05:23
I just present one. So what we noticed from the survey that really the gender gap is everywhere, and one aspect we wanted to document the difference between more developed and less developed countries.
05:40
So we just used the International Development Index, IDH, in order to make the distinction between these two kinds of countries. And here you see the question was about people who personally encountered sexual harassment at school of work,
06:04
and you can see that the proportion of the population which is meeting sexual harassment is female, and female for more developed countries, 30%, while corresponding males is only 3%.
06:21
And in less developed countries, it's also more than 20%, 22%. And then there was another question, did you personally, I mean, so that was for personal experience, but there was another question which was about did you see it happen in your environment?
06:40
And again, there are much more women who see it happen than men. It happens, but they don't see it. Okay, now the second part of our project was to study the publication patterns. So in this case, rather than looking for individual inquiries where people answer
07:01
and it's difficult to have some very, say, exact picture of the situation, this publication patterns was about extracting information for existing bibliographical databases. So for mathematics, it was a database called Zentralblatt, and also archive for other disciplines,
07:26
and there was a gender inference algorithm for names. So from the name of the person, you deduce if it's male, female, or we had also a third category of people who don't want to answer the question.
07:44
So in particular, this doesn't work for China, and this is very unfortunate because there are many, many publications from China. And you see that if you look at the number of authors through time, so starting from 1970 to now, you see that the total number of authors grew enormously,
08:09
I mean, from 4,000 to 14,000, number of authors, not number of publications, over the period, and the proportion of women did grow rather linearly, I would say,
08:24
from 10 percent to 25 percent. But if we look now at the proportion of women who are publishing in very high level journals in mathematics, this is the situation. So you see the autographs are from 1 to 20 percent,
08:44
and you can see that basically except in some more numerical area, like SIAM journal or numerical mathematics, basically there are very few, also in probability,
09:01
there is basically absolutely no move in the proportion of women who are publishing in these journals. Even though the proportion of women came from 10 to 25 percent over the period, it's always less than 10 percent for these very highly ranked journals and with, in many cases, absolutely flat slope.
09:23
So this may be related also to the fact that there are very few laureates who are female. This is also the reason why we are having this gender gap discussion today. It's not the case in all disciplines. For example, in astronomy, the tendency is quite different.
09:41
It's over the period, the same period, it's going from like 3 percent to 20 percent, with also progress for all the main journals in the discipline. So there is really something specific for the gender gap in mathematics.
10:02
Okay, then we add also what we call the database of good practices. So the idea is whenever there is an initiative in a given country, we want to make it public so that maybe other people get inspired by the initiative. So we are using some UNESCO classification, what they call STI goal,
10:26
and basically we have a few information about the initiative and also we ask if people who launch the initiative have some evidence of effectiveness and impact
10:41
because, in fact, you can have the best intentions in the world and start an initiative, but it's not necessarily followed by success. And this database is going to be hosted permanently by IMU at the end of the project and the new initiatives will be added in the future.
11:05
Okay, so we hope to have recommendations from this project, but we don't have them yet because they are going to be drawn during the three last months of the project, which are from now to the end of 2019, and in particular we are organizing a final conference at ICTP
11:23
from 4 to 8 November where we are going to have 110 participants from 60 countries and only 10% of them are male, and one reason is that we wanted to maximize how many countries are going to be attending, so we picked up one person per country.
11:45
And, of course, in many cases it was not a man because most people who are active in this area are currently women. So we are working on the possible continuation of this project after three years because it was just a start, and there is a future program from the International Science Council
12:05
which is called What Works for Women, and we hope to be able to coordinate the conclusions of our project with this new program. So, thank you.
12:20
Thank you very much. The next we will hear from is, she is in Berkeley, so we will have her on Skype, I hope. Anna Veenhart. And I think I forgot to say that we will have questions and discussions and comments after everybody has talked, okay? There she is. Please.
12:41
Hello, so I don't see anything, so I don't even see my own video, so perhaps if I could see a view of the lecture hall or something would be helpful. Or not.
13:00
Okay, so I hope you see me. So I want to add something on a much more personal level, in a sense, than what Maricose did, and I want to give you a bit of background on who I am. So, Rodney already said I'm a professor of mathematics at Heidelberg University
13:22
and research group leader at the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies. Before coming back to Heidelberg, I spent seven years in the U.S., five of them being assistant professor at Princeton, and currently I'm at the Mathematical Science Research Institute, Berkeley, organizing a research seminar semester, and that's also a reason I can only be there remotely.
13:46
So, but it's a pleasure to now also see at least the panel, so nice to be here. So I personally must say I never felt any disadvantage in being a woman in mathematics, throughout my career, but at the same time I always try to implement best practice examples
14:07
to encourage more women in mathematics and sciences. I set up a math summer school for high school students at Princeton, I built up an entry network for women in mathematics at Heidelberg University,
14:23
and I also tried to run my Google research group, which is fairly large, in a very inclusive and supportive way, and I'm very happy that 50% of the 12 people in my research group are actually women. So I'm happy to tell you more about this if you want to know, but for preparing for this panel, what I did, I reflected a bit on my own experiences,
14:47
what was important for me on my career path in becoming a professor of mathematics, and I want to share some of these perspectives with you. So the first topic I want to mention are role models.
15:02
So role models, we always think of them as very important, and I'd say for me personally they were not so important, partly because there were not that many role models I wanted to follow, so I wanted to do things my own way, but what was very important to me was mentors.
15:21
So mentors were key at several stages of my career, and if I look back, actually most of my mentors were not women but men, and often they were not mentors I had, but senior scientists who took an interest in my work and supported me. Another very important thing for me was that I was lucky to always have a very stimulating research environment.
15:45
So this was not just senior people, but also always a nice group of peers, postdocs, graduate students, and junior faculty, which created a very supportive environment. And the third thing which I think helped in pursuing my career path
16:04
and dealing with things as they went along was a certain daringness and also a positive attitude towards the future. So in some sense I always believed that things will work out, even if sometimes they didn't, but then other things worked out, and keeping a positive attitude made things much nicer in the present
16:25
and also more open in the future. So if you want, you can take some of these reflections as a piece of advice, which would be look out for mentors, try to find a stimulating research environment,
16:41
and always try to keep a positive attitude towards the present and the future. Thank you, Anna. Now the next we will hear from is Jessica Carter.
17:03
Hello, and thank you. I will address the question why is there a gender gap in science and look at three different responses to this question. And for each of these responses I will formulate a question
17:21
that we can discuss after our presentations. So two often mentioned problems are culture and bias. In relation to culture, I would like to mention a study made by a Danish anthropologist as an example.
17:41
So by enrolling as a physics student in Copenhagen University and interviewing other female students, she found that even talented women did not want to apply for a Ph.D. stipend because they did not feel welcome in the academic setting.
18:04
She detected many by themselves small incidents of sarcastic comments, hints, hurtful remarks, and jokes that together formed the culture of the department.
18:20
Another story is the recent success of the IT University of Copenhagen to attract many more female students to the computer science degrees. They have been able to do this by changing their communication and how they advertise their degrees. But when these students graduate, they will be snapped away by the local companies
18:45
who have since long found out their value and the advantage of diversity. They will be offered high salaries and good working conditions, and so the question is how can we compete with that.
19:01
So the first question I'd like to pose is how can we change the culture so that everybody feel included and wish to stay in academia. And so the second one, unconscious bias, is present everywhere, and you will hear more about that in a minute. In academia, an often cited paper claimed that bias in grant and manuscript reviewing
19:27
and hiring is to blame for the low number of female researchers or what is referred to as the leaky pipeline. An article written by Steven Sisi and Wendy Williams, however, challenge this.
19:45
And they say that large-scale analysis have shown that the large-scale analysis failed to support assertions of discrimination in these domains.
20:00
Even though their paper may be considered a bit provocative and the validity of these large-scale analysis may be discussed, and also it is the case that many reports contradict what they say here, but I would like to focus on two other points they make.
20:21
One, which may be a good point, is that given the same bad resources, men and women are equally productive, perhaps not in higher levels, as Marie Poinsois just told you. But the problem is that women more often get stuck in positions,
20:43
or teaching positions, and positions with high admin load. So the problem we could address is how to make sure that women end up in position with equal resources for doing research. Another thing they point to is that the lack of female researchers
21:00
reflect their own preferences and choices, whether freely made or constrained by structural reasons. So there are many questions to formulate here. One is that what can be done concerning the factors that influence women's choices,
21:22
that is their interests, lifestyle choices, family formation, gendered expectations, our stereotypes, and career preferences. The third challenge, which is a challenge to all talented young people
21:40
who wish to pursue a career in academia, and so for us, if we wish to keep them, is referred to as the rocky road to tenure in a recent book from 2015. So in this book, a number of young researchers from various EU countries are interviewed, and the words they use to characterize traits needed in order to pursue an academic career
22:05
is a bit discomforting. They use words like persistence, obstinacy, that you have to endure uncertainty, and things like that. And different reports, including this book, document the recent changes
22:22
to the universities have made it even more difficult to succeed. We need more demands on doctoral students, more competitions to get post-doc positions, and permanent positions. The result is longer periods of fixed-term positions, traveling, and no guarantee of a success in the end.
22:43
A recent Danish report has shown that the percentage of scholars obtaining a permanent position after six years of finishing PhD studies has dropped since 2002, and this has become even worse for women who have children.
23:01
Finally, I'd like to mention that besides the gender gap project, there are and has been many other projects and institutions focusing on this problem. These projects have collected statistics, good practices, and developed course packages, for example, with information that would be useful for all young researchers
23:25
on, for example, career planning and university politics and such like. There is also a report on various forms of resistance to gender projects, including proposals on how to deal with it.
23:42
They document that it is not only hostility towards women that is to blame. There are many other reasons to mention just one lack of resources, for example, and other important problems that we have to deal with, such as climate changes. But given all this, my last question is, or hope maybe I could formulate it,
24:06
as given all this knowledge that we can actually put it to some use and have some actual change. Thank you.
24:21
Thank you, Jessica. Now we're here to listen to Margot. Now we're ready for the audience participation part of this program. So get your noses out of your laptops, forget reading email. How many of you have ever been asked in a somewhat incredulous tone, you're a mathematician, or you're a computer scientist? Anyone?
24:46
I want you to look around the room at most of the hands. They're female, they're also minority. We're talking about gender, but underrepresentation is an enormous problem. To go back to yesterday's talk from Martin, this is a moral imperative.
25:05
We are losing a huge fraction of our talent because of what's happening in our field to people who are in underrepresented groups. And let me be clear, solving this problem is not going to be done by the underrepresented. It is our collective responsibility.
25:21
So if you are in the room today, you have a role to play in helping to fix this problem. So more audience participation. How many of you in a professional setting have ever been asked if you planned to have children? Okay, look around the room again.
25:41
What you're seeing is what we call implicit bias. Now implicit bias is what Nobel laureate Kahneman refers to as system one thinking. It's that knee-jerk reaction that you can't consciously control. Implicit bias doesn't make us bad people. Implicit bias makes us human.
26:01
It's an evolutionary trait that helped us avoid large hungry animals on the savannah. It's what allowed us to form tribes and cultures. So in and of itself, it's not that implicit bias is bad, it's what we do with it. So how many of you have ever heard of an implicit association test?
26:21
Again, look around the room. It's mostly the underrepresented people. So this is an online test that you can all take, and this is your homework assignment. Go to implicit.harvard.edu and take two implicit bias tests. I don't care what category you do. You can do gender, you can do race, you can do age, you can do disability, whatever.
26:43
Take two of them. It will take you about ten minutes. And I will warn you, you will feel uncomfortable. You will learn things about yourself you wish were not true. And while you are taking the test, you will feel yourself responding in a way that makes you uncomfortable.
27:03
And yet, I'm asking you all to do that. Every good meeting, you leave with action items. This is your action item. Go take two IATs. So what do you do if you have biases? I just said that doesn't make you a bad person. What does make you a bad person is if A, you refuse to acknowledge your biases,
27:26
and B, you do nothing to mitigate them. So let me reveal. I test bias against women in science. I am a woman in science. How can this be?
27:41
Well, I grew up in a culture where girls didn't do science. You know, it wasn't cool to do math and science by the time I was in middle school. Even though I liked to do those things, I am a product of my culture. So what do I do to make sure that I don't then instill these biases against my students? I grade blindly.
28:02
I hash all the names of the exams, I grade them as random numbers, and then I unhash them after. So let me share a story with you. I teach operating systems, which is the bastion of testosterone. If we have 20% women in the class, it's shocking. It's usually closer to 10%.
28:20
So one year, using my best practices, I blinded all the exams, I graded them, I had three women in the class, and when I unblinded them, guess who had the top three grades? My three women. And I was surprised. But that is why I grade blindly.
28:43
And I sat there and I had a long conversation with myself, which I'm sure looked odd to people around me, you know, why was it that I didn't realize, I knew all these women, I talked to them regularly, but even me, I had not realized that they were my top students.
29:02
Now, I could feel bad about this, but instead, I just redoubled my efforts to make sure that no matter what my knee-jerk reactions were, I wasn't treating them differently. Every time I meet a new student, I kind of have this mental dialogue in my head, which is, you don't know anything about them, you have to assume they're really talented because they're here.
29:23
So I urge you all to A, learn what some of your biases are, even if it's uncomfortable, and then B, start to develop techniques to avoid this. How many of you are familiar with the orchestra experiment? Oh, good, I can share it with you. It used to be that orchestras were predominantly male.
29:42
And there were all these explanations, well men have bigger lungs so they can play the wind instruments, and they're stronger so they can play longer, and there were gazillions of explanations of why orchestras were predominantly male. And then they started doing auditions with a screen separating the judges from the players.
30:01
Guess what happened? Orchestras are no longer predominantly male. They are starting to achieve gender parity since they've been doing this. So I don't know how else to convince you that this is a real problem. And so what you can do, again, A, learn your biases, 2, make this your problem.
30:23
If you look at the literature, it takes women on average 10 years longer to be nominated for awards than their male counterparts. They have to have more publications, more grants, bigger results, and 10 more years in the field before they get nominated for the same awards that the men do.
30:45
So if you are in a position to nominate people, ask yourself, the first people I think of maybe are the guys. But if I think about it, are there women or other underrepresented groups that I'm missing? I'll close with one last story. A friend of mine was a department chair.
31:02
Whenever they're doing a search, they will call many of their friends and say, hey, we're looking to hire faculty, anyone you can recommend. Every single time they have that conversation, the first three people who are mentioned are men. And then they say, well, you know, we're interested in enhancing our department's diversity. Is there anyone else you can recommend?
31:22
And it usually takes a minute, but then they get three more names. And then what they do is say, terrific, you've given me six people. Could you sort them for me? And never in the entire time they have done this experiment has the ordering been first three, second three.
31:42
So what this tells you is that when forced to think about it, there are in fact really talented, highly ranked people who are in these underrepresented groups. But because of our humanity and the cultures in which we've grown up, they don't necessarily come to the front of our minds.
32:00
So is there a problem? You bet. Are there ways to solve it? You bet. Who's going to solve it? We are.
32:21
Thank you, Margot. Now we will hear from Fernando. Hello. Is it down? Yeah. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. All right. I'll start by saying that given this existing gender gap,
32:42
I consider myself very lucky because I had two extraordinary female advisors throughout my research career. So the first one was during my undergrad when I actually got interested in research. And it was Professor Marta Matoso from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro back in Brazil.
33:01
And then the second one was my Ph.D. advisor, Professor Juliana Frady at NYU, who is still my boss for my post-doc. And they are like brilliant researchers. And I had an amazing opportunity to work with them. And I don't think I could have asked for better advisors. And the first time I got to NYU, to the lab, she was very new at NYU.
33:25
And I was actually her first Ph.D. student at that lab. And there were very few women. Actually, if you don't consider faculty and visiting scholars, there were zero women. And seven years later, we have like perhaps like 30%, 40% of women.
33:47
And I find this amazing because I still don't see that very common in many labs that I visit. And in terms of faculty, there are actually six faculty members and half of them are women.
34:00
And it's just an amazing environment. It makes everything better because the sharing of experiences, sharing of ideas, it's very much improved. And I've heard in the past like people saying, oh, there's no gender gap in science. It's just that women are just not interested in science.
34:20
And I always thought that was weird because I have many female friends and most of them are in science. So maybe I have like a biased sampling. But then I have a very good friend of mine and she is a librarian. And she tells me that perhaps like 80%, 90% of librarianship is women.
34:44
And yet, more than half of the leadership positions are given to men. So clearly, there's still a gap even in areas that are dominated by women. And this doesn't even count the wage gap which is much bigger.
35:03
I think like women are paid like 70% to 80% as compared to the men in librarianship. And I think the problem is it's not that women are not interested in science, but they are not given the opportunity to actually be interested in science.
35:20
And I think this goes back a little bit to what Jessica and Margot mentioned, which is the unconscious bias in the culture. So I'm originally from Brazil and when I was growing up, I used to get, as toys, building blocks, puzzles. And when I was 11, I had my hands in the first computer, which is how I got interested in computer science.
35:43
And my female friends, they got Barbie dolls, miniature of kitchens. And they were expected by their moms to help them in the kitchen and to cook. Which it's not a big problem, but it becomes a problem when you have different expectations for different genders. And I love cooking, I love baking, and no one ever expects me to know these things,
36:05
because I was supposed to be studying. So I think we, as young researchers, I think we have the responsibility, because we are going to be raising the next generation to be aware of this unconscious bias and improve things for the next generation.
36:23
And I just want to finalize, I don't want to spend too much time, also saying that although this is a gender gap, I don't think we can talk about gender without also talking about race, because these things are very related. And I have a very good friend of mine, she's Afro-Brazilian,
36:41
and she is a professor now at a mathematics institute back in Brazil. And when she first got there, it was four women among 23 professors, and she still is the only Afro-Brazilian. So things are hard, like if you consider gender, and they are even harder if you take race into account.
37:04
So I think when we talk about actions, we also need to consider and think about that. And now I'm going to pass the torch to my colleague, Anna. Thank you. Thank you. Please, Anna. Hello. Do you hear me?
37:25
I'm not going to tell anything more scientifically about gender gap. I'm here to tell my personal story. It is a story about, as an example of a good outreach, which could be a solution to gender gap problem.
37:42
So this is my second HLF. I came here five years ago as a journalist. My first degree is in journalism and mass communications, and I had a master in education. And although I was always interested and fascinated by technology and science, I never really seriously considered doing something as a job in science.
38:05
But then I came here, and I had an opportunity to talk to many, many great people, like the first row here, and then many young researchers. The most memorable moment from that HLF was sitting on a boat talking to Manjul Brahaba
38:23
about beauty of mathematics, about application of mathematics, about what mathematics and science in general is. And that kind of opened my mind, and I started to understand science in a different way. About the same time, I learned what human-computer interaction is as a field.
38:45
And I said, oh, I actually think my expertise could be useful in that field. So soon after returning from HLF in 2014, I started to work on a project proposal, which soon after allowed me to run a scholarship to do a PhD in one of the leading HCI labs in the United Kingdom.
39:06
So today I'm here as a young researcher doing my PhD in educational technology. And I think it's just an example of how one person could persevere and then convince another person thinking about science in a different way.
39:25
So if someone here would do the same as Manjul did to me, we could have a bit more women, a bit more different races and different backgrounds in science. We could invite them more in science, and maybe it could help the gender gap problem.
39:42
Thank you. So we'll now open for the main part of this event, which is you guys participating. So we will ask for questions, comments, things you want to say from the audience.
40:03
And you can ask the panelists specifically, or you can just ask or comment in general. And there will be microphones that should be thrown around. I think there is one already on the first row.
40:20
Thank you for not throwing the microphone at me. It's Vint Cerf. And this is a question for all the members of the panel. I'm very interested to hear more about what has worked, if anything has worked, about dealing with the reversal of this gap. So perhaps you could explore a little bit more about what works and what doesn't work,
40:44
and that might help the rest of us. Anybody? So I'll share a couple of things. One, I recently moved to Canada about a year ago, and I was recruited to Canada in a program called the C150 program.
41:01
And as part of the materials that universities needed to prepare, they had to put a statement, not about how they hired a diverse pool, but how did they conduct their search to ensure that they had a diverse pool. So that was the requirement.
41:20
Of the 24 scientists from around the world recruited to Canada, 50% of them were women. So it starts with how you define your pool. It's why you tell people, we are particularly interested in candidates from underrepresented groups, because if you don't ask, they won't think about it.
41:44
And also to build on what Anna said, it's also about encouraging the people who don't think they apply or they're qualified, it's encouraging them to say, yes, actually, you are qualified and you should apply. So I think those are the two direct things that people who have ability to structure searches
42:04
and also people who have the ability to encourage people can start to move the needle. I mentioned one example of a thing that worked in my presentation on the IT university. The first day had almost no women, female student.
42:23
And after changing the communication and advertising the degrees, they managed to get many more. And they started by interviewing women to figure out what is the problem. So one thing is how you communicate these computer science degrees.
42:42
So they found out that they should not use such technical language as they used to, but different type of language. And also telling them that there are no prerequisites needed. You don't have to know how to program in order to enter the programs and role models.
43:01
And they managed to double the intake in two years. And also they have figured out that when you have a number of female students, they have a less dropout rate than the men. Maybe it's because of the change of the culture, it's much more pleasant being there.
43:21
So just also one thing. Okay, so I would like to mention something that does not necessarily work, which is the idea that more you have women in committees, and more there will be women who are hired. This does not work. And in fact, sometimes even when they are all saying that there should be 40% of women in committees,
43:46
and it's only 20% in the community, then women get overloaded by being in committees. So I think it's much more a question of changing the global culture, including men, than insisting on having women in committees.
44:04
I can also mention about this example that it has only also worked because the vice chancellor of the university has made this one of the priorities, to make it where you need people higher up also supporting you.
44:21
I just want to reinforce what Marie-Francois said. I brought up to a certain federal US funding agency that perhaps diversity was a problem, and the immediate reaction was, well, why don't you lead a study about it? And my answer was, I work on this problem every single day. Until the people who are not underrepresented make it their problem, we won't solve it.
44:46
And so this is why I say collectively, it is our problem. And if you're feeling like, oh, this panel isn't about me, because you're one of the people who needs to help fix the problem. So thank you for asking the question.
45:02
I see two in the middle there. Can you throw the... throw. Okay, thank you, the panel, for this wonderful discussion.
45:28
My question is, okay, first of all, I would like to say that I think most of these problems started from why we are growing up as children. Back in Africa, especially, although it happens in other places,
45:43
we have this notion that women are supposed to... the ladies are supposed to be trained on how to take care of their homes, love their husbands, know how to cook and all of that. They don't actually focus their mindsets on science or other things.
46:05
But while the male children are sent on how to use the computer systems and other devices that could help them in the future, the ladies are actually helping their mom, going to the market and all of that,
46:23
to prepare. Also, most of the things they teach them is on how to keep their home and be a housewife, if I may put it that way. So my question is, how do we reach out to these remote areas,
46:41
or even most of the African countries in general, so how do we reach out to them to have an alternative mindset about this whole gender gap thing? Thank you. Sure, I'll take the mic.
47:00
So first of all, I hesitate to even suggest that I might have an answer, because I think there's a certain arrogance in my privileged position being able to say that I have an answer. So with that as context, it's impossible for us to change our ancestors, and so I think our hope lies in the next generation.
47:24
So I've only traveled to Africa once, but what I saw are the after-school programs that try to encourage children of both genders to stay in school, study hard, and do that. And so I have to believe that those are the structures
47:42
where we as individuals can have impact, whether it's volunteering our time, providing resources, and making sure that the opportunities are equal. We won't change the prior culture. We can change the culture for our children, for your children,
48:02
and we can try to get the message out. But I think it's really a grassroots thing. I think it's getting into the after-school programs and the communities and exposing. So one of my former colleagues runs a programming camp called Addis Coder,
48:20
and I believe, I don't think I'm exaggerating, that he gets equal numbers of boys and girls in these programs, and these kids often go on to elite universities and become scientists. So I think we can start to move the needle, but it's a real personal investment of time and energy and resources, and I don't know what else to say.
48:44
Marie-François, do you want to comment on this, since you have experienced many years in Africa? Yeah, I mean, of course, things are changing also very rapidly in African countries with more and more girls going to school, as was just mentioned, and there is also an association for women in mathematics in Africa
49:03
that gets very active. And also, I think one aspect of culture in Africa is that very often women, when they have a child, for example, they are maybe less isolated than we are in Western countries, in the sense that there is always the mother, the elder sister,
49:25
and every whole group of women who can help. And I think we can give opportunities for women in science, for example, to travel by giving them special grants that they can use to have their child supported by other women
49:43
from the family, for example, during their visits. So we can also base some aspects of what we do on the local culture, which is maybe much more collective towards children's education than we have with our nuclear families.
50:01
So I think that's also a possibility, that to have these women who want to do science supported, well, of course, also by men from their family, but by the collectivity of women, I think that helps also. Fernando, you wanted to comment maybe? Brazil is a huge country and it's not only Rio.
50:24
Yeah, I mean, actually I thought of the same thing as Margot said, because I don't think I have an exact solution, but I think it's really hard to change the past culture. I cannot even convince my parents about politics, so I don't have any hopes.
50:41
I already lost my hope to try to talk politics. But we have a chance with the next generation, right? We are the ones who are going to be raising the next generation, so it might be a slow process. We probably won't be able to change everything in a year, but I think throughout the years,
51:01
I think we have the opportunity to change the next generation, to be aware of their unconscious bias so that this doesn't happen. There is one here, but there is no mic. Okay, you'll get it afterwards.
51:23
Hello, thank you for the lecture. My question is, we are a school, it's a local community in Honduras State, Nigeria, and my question goes to the Chair Executive Committee of Gender Gap Project.
51:42
I don't know if, like in my school, Google has a platform called Women in Tech. What I notice in my department is, we are up to 150 in one department, one level, and none of the women can code.
52:04
Through this platform, we are able to encourage women to code, but I don't know if Gender Gap Project can be extended to my university, because we are only within the university community.
52:23
We did not extend to the district of the local area. I don't know how this platform can help people in my community. That's my question.
52:43
Okay, so as you have seen, this Gender Gap Project was really a little group of people, about 40 people, representative of their various scientific unions, and what we hope now, that after we conclude and we have a report,
53:01
then we are going to distribute all the conclusions and recommendations, and people can take them locally and see what they can do locally. I mean, we want to have ideas just spreading out and being distributed every year. By the way, I wanted to ask you,
53:22
who had heard already about this survey of scientists? I mean, I told you we had 32,000 answers, so who? Okay, very few people, okay. And we've been really doing huge efforts during several months through our unions in order to reach scientists.
53:41
So it's not easy. It will take a long time. But if you have an initiative that you like, a local initiative that you like, and you've seen that it is effective, please communicate about it by writing. I mean, there will be a platform for this database of good initiatives
54:03
to reduce the gender gap. Then you can also use your own experience in order to distribute your ideas through this platform. So I believe it will be a long process. So let's start. Hello.
54:27
So it's more of a comment regarding the questions that Mrs. Carter posed. So regarding the first question, it was how could we change the culture so that underrepresented groups feel that they belong?
54:43
And I mean, I have a comment on that. I wanted to see obviously the panel's opinion and also hear different opinions. So it's very common, at least in computer science, and I've heard it from many women around the underrepresented groups that initially you feel you don't belong. And you feel you're a fake. You feel you're an imposter.
55:02
So it happened to me as well for three years. I thought I didn't belong in computer science, even though I had really good grades in my class. So I think what is very, very important, and there is a huge role of the media when it comes to that, is to show diverse pictures of computer scientists.
55:21
It's not just one type of computer scientist, as there is not just one type of humans. There is the outdoorsy computer scientists, the social computer scientists, the women computer scientists, the minorities. You can be a computer scientist and at the same time like partying
55:40
or like hiking or like other things, but this is not shown at all in media. There is only one type, the person who stays in the basement and programs. And at the same time, computer science, obviously it's not just about programming. There are soft skills included. There is creativity. There is teamwork. There is communication of ideas.
56:00
And these soft skills, even in university programs, they tend to be ignored. And then people who have these soft skills, and that applies many times in women, feel that these soft skills are absolutely unnecessary in their careers. And until they recognize that these are equally important, I don't think we can move forward.
56:21
Jessica? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think it's also very important that you have role models and that it's communicated, and also not just one woman, but that you have several women doing different things in order for people to identify themselves. But that is a different problem maybe from the culture problem,
56:44
what goes on in the departments, the way they talk about women and stuff. And I don't have any good proposals how to change that, other than, as Margo said, that it's a problem we all should address.
57:03
So I think changing culture is always hard, right? There's the obvious one. Part of it is pushing back on the negative culture. So we actually started joking, it was over a decade ago, that we need the cool, hip sitcom where they're all computer scientists
57:22
and they're all genders and colors and races and doing different jobs. And we've never had that. So media has never done us the favor of trying to make computer science or math look cool. I guess maybe numbers is a show that tried to make math look cool, but it didn't last very long.
57:43
So one of the things is holding our institutions up to the highest possible standards. So at least one of my colleagues might be in the room and might think that I did this too much, but we can all play a role in pushing back. If you go to your institution's website
58:00
for your department and you look at the photographs, do they show a diverse workforce or not? If they don't, send email to your communications department and tell them that, right? What kind of language do we talk about when we post jobs? It turns out that if you post jobs and you list 15 things people need,
58:20
the women will read those as ands and the men will read them as, oh, I've got three, no problem. So maybe we shouldn't list 15. Maybe we should list three. What are the real requirements for the job? I was recently asked to serve on a panel for a company and so I did about 15 minutes of research. I looked at the program. There was no diversity statement in the program
58:42
saying that they valued it and then I went to the corporate website and there was absolutely nothing on the corporate website that told me they cared about diversity and I responded that I had my values and I chose to work with organizations that espoused those values and this organization didn't and so I said no.
59:00
So I think, again, individually we can all push back and the more the cacophony of voices represents the diversity of this community, the more our institutions will be forced to reckon with the fact that, oh, people think this is important.
59:21
I saw some hands up there. There's one. You have to throw. Take a short one next and then we'll give it there. Thank you very much for everything you said. It's really important. So I am the co-founder of the Association of Women in Mathematics in Madrid and this association is for every minority as well
59:41
and we have some meetings. It's only for the members, but all the events are open for everybody and several male colleagues of mine, they felt excluded and they couldn't understand the meaning of what we are doing. So what do you have to comment? Can you comment on that?
01:00:03
Okay, so did you say the men were invited or they were not invited to attend? In the events, everybody can be there. It's open for everybody, but not in the meetings. So I think for the public events, you tell your members, all the women, bring a friend who doesn't look like you. And that can be a man, it can be somebody of a different race.
01:00:23
But I think the action item to all of us is to reach out to people who look different from us and encourage them. So many of my male colleagues who attended Grace Hopper came back changed people. Because they had never been in an environment where they were the underrepresented.
01:00:45
And you go to Grace Hopper as a man and you are surrounded by women. And for a moment, you understand what it feels like. The first time we ever held a women event for computer science at Harvard, our then dean, this was almost 25 years ago,
01:01:04
our then dean went up to the other female in the department and said, wow, that felt really odd. Do you ever feel that way? And she looked him in the eye and said, every day.
01:01:21
So I encourage you, find an environment that is really different and go see what it feels like. So more directly to your question, explicitly reach out and invite the men to come. Tell them you want them there, you want their voices. And then make it worth their time. Tell them what they can do to help solve the problem.
01:01:42
Maybe? I don't know. Good luck. Let us know how it works. Can you move this all the way up there? Can you help move the thing? Somebody throw it.
01:02:01
My home is more of a concern. How do we ensure that these interventions result into an intervention that is sustainable? For instance, I have a friend that started like a club trying to bridge gap in science amongst women in our country.
01:02:21
The last time I spoke with her, she said she had to step down because there was a conflict amongst the executive of that particular club. Back in Nigeria, I also know of a woman that started her own club too. But when she had to leave Nigeria, every of the activity had to stop.
01:02:42
So to me, I feel some of this intervention is too individualistic, that is centered around an individual. So once the individual is no longer available, then the intervention cannot be sustained. So how can we ensure that this intervention is sustained in the long term?
01:03:12
I can only tell one story. When I was at Harvard about 8-10 years ago, a bunch of women came and said,
01:03:21
we want to start a women in CS group. And my one word of advice to them was, build a sustainable organization. Because we had many of these organizations before, and as soon as the leaders graduated, the organizations went away. And I said, it doesn't matter what else you do, you must build a sustainable organization. And then I turned it over to them. And oh my God, did they build a sustainable organization.
01:03:46
The way they did it is that they had the leadership that was starting it, but they then created important positions. And they called it the board. And you had to apply to be on the board. And if you were on the board, you got to go to board meetings.
01:04:01
And then they gave members on the board specific responsibilities. And so this did two things. One, it meant that they had a continuous inflow of leaders who wanted to run the organization. And two, they kept inventing new programs that the organization could do so that each person on the board had a real responsibility.
01:04:24
So the lesson I took from that was empowerment. Recruit the next group around the leadership and empower them to make a difference and start things. And ideally then they can step into leadership and continue that process.
01:04:40
There may be other ways. I would love to hear from people in the audience who have experience of how to build sustainable leadership in organizations. Because I think you have hit one of the most crucial problems right in the head. I think it's a huge issue. I have a question for Margot. I'm here.
01:05:07
You just said, I think as a reply to the first question, that one of the things that is being done nowadays is that when you open a call, you usually say we are interested in minorities.
01:05:22
And even more extreme than that, there are cases where there are calls that are open only for women. Don't you think this can have the reverse effect than the one desired? Because women with minorities in general will feel that they are there not because of the value of their work, but because they belong to a minority.
01:05:49
So the question was, what about positions that are women only? So in many places it is illegal to advertise a position that is only open to women. So in Canada you couldn't do that. In the U.S. you couldn't do that.
01:06:05
So I actually agree completely that if you advertise and say this is for an underrepresented group of whatever, you are setting yourselves up for failure in a number of dimensions. A, that person feels bad. B, it gives everybody else the right to say you only got the job because you have green skin.
01:06:23
So I actually agree with you. The goal is to make sure that the process creates a diverse pool that is representative of the greater community. Because the problem is, I've served on recruiting committees. If all I have are white men in my pool, I'm not going to hire any women.
01:06:42
Like it really is hard. And so if you don't get those applications in, then you don't have a pool to select from. There's a whole second part of the problem, which is that these days those underrepresented candidates often have lots and lots of opportunities.
01:07:00
And recruiting them becomes very challenging. But if you don't have them in your pool, you lose. You can't win. I was just going to make a comment because many of my female friends, they told me that some people usually come to them and say, oh, that person has that position because she's a woman.
01:07:26
And I find it so unsettling because they're all so brilliant. It's not because they're women. Because they're brilliant and they don't have the opportunity to be there because they are women. So I think we need to also stress that we're not just choosing them just because
01:07:45
they're women. It's because they were not given the opportunity to be there because they are women. In many cases, in particular to these positions that advertise that they're interested in minorities, minorities will not
01:08:03
apply just from the fact that they will think they are not being selected for the right reasons. You don't agree? I felt that personally.
01:08:20
I'd also like to say that it's illegal also in Denmark. I just opened a call not long ago in the Netherlands only for women. Yeah, I noticed that. So another thing, I mentioned these course packages with useful information for young people. So one thing that is important to learn as a young researcher is how things function, how jobs get posted and how you hire at departments.
01:08:53
So learning about the sociology or politics of a department. At least in my experience, the way jobs get posted is that the people already at the department
01:09:07
have some people they know, work together with or things like that, that they would like to be hired. If the most people at the department are men, then the people they will know are most likely to be men.
01:09:22
So there's a lot of things going on, positions are not just put up for anybody to apply for. It's often a lot of things going on before a position gets up. So I think it's very useful to know about these things.
01:09:43
So let me follow up on two points. So one of the beautiful things about this event is the network that you've all created. And so finding out from each other who's hiring, what positions are open, spread the word. Because a lot does happen in the back room behind closed doors and you want to be part of that network.
01:10:04
I just want to distinguish between two different things. One is advertising a position that is only available for women and minorities. As I said before, I think that is a negative message. However, the diversity statement which says we are committed to a diverse workforce,
01:10:24
that I think sends a message which says we actually care about these things. That I think is a positive thing and I would hope that that wouldn't deter anyone from applying for a position. Hello. So recently I read a kind of historical article on numbers of computer science students.
01:10:48
And it was the case that on the first computer science classes it was not so big gender gap there. And the larger inversion point was with the popularization of the personal computer
01:11:02
and also video game consoles like home systems. And the hypothesis was that since these machines were being heavily marketed and advertised for young boys, it actually changed the landscape of the people who are going to attend the computer science course.
01:11:20
Actually in the case of some Brazilian universities, the first computer science classes had more women than men and then it totally inverted. So I want to ask what do you think is the whole of advertisement and also marketing the gender gap?
01:11:41
I think it's huge. So I feel like we have a bias in the questions that they're all from the front of the room. So I would like to encourage us that we no longer have a front of room bias and we also include the back of the room. But I actually think what you say is exactly true. If we market computers to boys, then we'll get boys.
01:12:00
And people have started acknowledging this. I don't know that we've made things much better. A lot of early exposure to computers happens through gaming and I think we're all aware of challenges that women can have in gaming environments. On the other hand, I was somewhat encouraged when my 12-year-old boy was playing computer games
01:12:24
and he was a raid leader and he would be leading all these adults and doing things that I don't understand. And at one point I said, doesn't it bother them that you're 12? And he said, oh no, I use a voice synthesizer. I said, tell me more. And he said, I play as a 28-year-old woman.
01:12:45
And I said, really? And why is that? And he said, because if you're a guy and you tell people what to do, they tell you to F off. But if you're a girl, they listen to you. And I thought, I want to live in that world.
01:13:05
Do we have other questions here? Yes, I now have the microphone that's here. Still way back there, can you pass the mic? The microphone now is here. Actually, I have a short remark. I'm from the Netherlands, I'm from Delft University of Technology,
01:13:20
where we have a fellowship especially for women candidates for faculty. I was not hired through that program, but I must say it greatly increased the diversity and the interdisciplinarity in my department. It's a competitive program. They took care that not everyone just takes it for granted. Actually, we had good experiences with that.
01:13:40
And also with the Eindhoven situation, that's the university that now takes only the first six months when a vacancy is out only women candidates. If they cannot fill after that, they will take also male candidates. Formally, it's illegal, but if you can make a good case that it's actually really harming the balance, there are exceptions to be made.
01:14:02
They are being sued at this moment by males. Kind of that's clearly. But we're interested in seeing what happens, because actually the good argument about that was if in the first six months there really cannot be any candidate found, then the women apparently weren't strong enough, otherwise there was a strong woman. So I just wanted to mention that to me, I think it does work.
01:14:24
And thank you. And I think also one of the points my wife, Francois, made was that you should always take into account the culture. So what works or do not work, one place may work very well other places. So that's a good example.
01:14:42
Thank you so much for this panel discussion on the gender gap in science. I just have a brief comment. Basically, I just want to appreciate the Ida Bogglerat Forum Foundation and its selection committee for the gender balance in the selection of the young researchers.
01:15:02
It's something that was profound for me, and I observed it right from the very first day. And I think this forum is one of the few scientific grads I've been in with a very good gender balance. So I just want to appreciate the selection committee and Ida Bogglerat Forum Foundation as a whole for the diversity in gender
01:15:21
in the selection of the young researchers. Thank you. As far as I know, the ratio of female and male among the young researchers has gone up from 20% in the beginning in first years to 40% this year.
01:15:43
So there is an improvement. Anna is with us. Of course, among the young researchers, yes. And as you've seen, among the Laureates, not at all.
01:16:03
I think also, for example, we had Phil Medel, which was Maryam Mirzakhani, and she had never the opportunity to present her work as a Laureate because unfortunately, she died under the age of 40.
01:16:21
So something that we are discussing is maybe the opportunity to have a presentation of her work in the next forum and maybe to have her work presented by someone else because she's no more there with us. But the fact that there are so few Laureates is really a very big problem.
01:16:42
I mean, it's related also to the fact that we've seen in these top journals so few females, so it's good to have young researchers, but it would be really very good, but I don't know how, to have also more senior lecturers in the forum.
01:17:02
More questions? There is one way back. I have one question, short question. Okay, so what I've experienced is that with my close friends and family also, women tend to feel a lot more discouraged by the chance of failure, so they don't apply for positions for which a man might apply,
01:17:21
even though he might not meet the entire criteria, and the women tend to feel discouraged. You have to really push them, I think you're good enough for this, but even then they feel like they don't want to get rejected, so they don't approach that. How do you exactly tackle that? And I think that is something that all of us can encourage people in our lives to go ahead with.
01:17:44
He wants to respond? Small response, I guess it has to do with upbringing and the way you bring them up, as has been mentioned before, so that we feel more equal, but it's difficult.
01:18:03
I also think assuring them that they are not alone, right? So the empathy which is, I get it, and being vulnerable to yourself, and saying sometimes I think I may not be good enough too, but all the research suggests that you're more prone to feel like you're not good enough,
01:18:22
but you are, right? And there are lots of either papers or books. One of my favorite books is called Whistling Vivaldi, it's about stereotype threat, and it's all social science experiments they've done demonstrating the effects and how damaging it is to people. And so I think the feeling like you're not alone in feeling this way,
01:18:43
but you really are good enough, and just repeating that message until you get through. Could you move the mic up in the far corner and behind? Way over there. I have a question. Okay. Okay.
01:19:02
So it is something related to what we were discussing a little previously. So this is something that I observed back in India, which is where I'm from. The more and more you, I think this is important to talk about, because as a woman even I face the bias, but the more and more we push it, there are certain institutes which are pushed to show that they do have diversity in the way they recruit.
01:19:25
So what happens is many a times the standard is brought down, and this is what people who observe say, maybe not, maybe that's the case, but I had a friend of mine who felt a particular professor who was recruited was basically recruited not because she had amazing work,
01:19:40
but because that particular institute had very little diversity previously. So personally he knew someone who was probably better at the job than the actual professor who was recruited, but then she was recruited because they wanted to show diversity. And it's not something that happened only in India, but I'm pretty sure it happens elsewhere too because I noticed that in the UK as well.
01:20:02
So how do you think you can strike that balance, because I don't want to take up a position just because I'm a woman, also because I have good opportunity there, I'm doing it because my job is really good, I'm good at the job, but I don't want it to be at the cost of reducing the standards of that particular institute.
01:20:20
So any comments on that? So one of the ways to make me very angry at recruiting meetings is when somebody suggests that by doing a diverse search and looking at all the candidates we are somehow lowering the bar. I have never, ever, ever seen an institution hire someone
01:20:42
who was not qualified for the job because they filled some other box. There's a myth that we tell ourselves that you can take researchers and sort them in a linear order. That is a myth. So whenever you talk to people who claim there's a lowering of the bar,
01:21:04
it's really, you know, the bar is a myth, this is a multi-dimensional optimization problem, and we know that those are hard problems to solve. And so the space in which someone occupies, you know, the space in which the candidate who gets hired occupies
01:21:21
is in fact a maxima on some dimensions, and the problem is that we get in this model of thinking there really is this linear ordering, and there isn't. So I can assure you, if you get hired, it's because you are an outstanding scientist. Could you move the mic over still up in the corner?
01:21:50
So first of all, thank you for all the wonderful ideas that have been presented. My question is regarding how do women get to being scientists,
01:22:01
because I think once you get to the scientific community, there's a lot of effort that's being put into removing that gender gap. But the problem that I faced is, before I came to university, I think that many women as young children, they want to become scientists, and then they face this gender gap, but not necessarily in university, but like in primary school, in secondary school.
01:22:22
And having the professors encourage women to, well, do their best and to be good in what they're doing is not working, because I felt it, and people think that, oh, she's the favorite of the teacher. And that discrimination becomes even more than it was before. So what do you think is the solution for that?
01:22:46
Anybody? Anna from Berkeley, you want to say something? Can you hear me? Yes, I mean, I can. So I think it's partly what discusses the cultural upbringing,
01:23:01
which is important to do, and so we need at every stage, and I agree, we need that in kindergarten, in preschool, and in elementary school and afterwards. We need people who make an effort that you don't feel that way. I think sometimes, on the other hand, you have to also encourage people
01:23:24
that even if you feel that way, you have to continue, and you have to somehow push away certain feelings and also certain comments other people might make that this is not for you, or that you are the favorite of the teacher,
01:23:40
or if you get a position in the topic we discussed before, this is just because you're a woman. I mean, you have to assure yourself that this is not the case and that this is the route which you can follow, and you belong where you are. I have perhaps a similar message.
01:24:02
If you really want to do science, you should do science, and of course it's tough being this strange person, but also for me, when I grew up, I was interested in mathematics, but I already moved from one country to another country, so I was already strange, so why not be strange in mathematics too?
01:24:23
So, I continued. Actually, being strange can be a feature. So, when I go to a conference, there are ten or fifteen, everybody knows who I am. Now, if you aren't really great at remembering names,
01:24:40
this can sometimes be a problem, but in some sense, turn the strangeness or otherness into a feature, right? People will remember you. If you ask a question at the microphone at a conference, people will go like, oh, there's that smart woman from wherever, right? So, if you can try to turn these negative things into positive things,
01:25:01
when I was in graduate school, we used to have these corporate retreats, and at some point, I saw that someone had sent a trip report to their boss, and all the graduate students were listed by first name, last name, except me. I was just, Margot. And I was very excited about that, because there's, you know,
01:25:20
Satya is always Satya, and he doesn't have two names, and so I thought that was great, and then somebody else pointed out that, well, Madonna only has one name too. Okay, let's have, the one in the back is trying with the blue scarf. No, I had a question. So, again, thank you for all the discussion.
01:25:42
I also think that the previous question leads to what I'm going to ask. So, I do think that when we make others uncomfortable, then we're going in the right direction, and when that is not happening, I think that we're not doing enough. But I think that there's a certain line between making someone uncomfortable,
01:26:02
or making people uncomfortable for the right reasons, and being invasive. So, when we say that we have to make changes in culture, like, where do we draw the line between making others see new perspectives, or being invasive in their culture?
01:26:25
So, I don't know that I have a great answer, but I'm going to use that to tell a story, because it actually recognizes one of our laureates who's not here today. So, I had the good fortune of having Michael Rabin as a colleague when I was a young faculty member.
01:26:41
And I was the first faculty member in my entire school to ever give birth while a faculty member, I believe. So, I decided that I was going to come in for faculty lunch one day with the baby. The baby was about a month old, because I was coming back the next semester to work. And so, it's like the,
01:27:01
oh my God, to the breastfeed or not to breastfeed, what am I going to do? And I thought, I'll feed the baby before lunch, and then it won't be a problem. So, we show up to lunch, and it's like all the safe people, the one woman faculty member and my junior colleagues. And then, like, Michael Rabin walks in. And of course, 30 seconds later, my son is starving.
01:27:23
And I'm sitting there like, you know, do I wrap the blanket around my head? Do I leave the room? And I thought, you know, if I'm bringing the baby to work, I better just get used to this, though. I ate my lunch, my son ate his lunch, and I didn't say anything. And afterward, Michael came up to me, and I thought, oh my God, here it goes. And this is my implicit bias kicking in, right?
01:27:41
Here is an incredibly wonderful, famous, you know, esteemed colleague, and he's about to give me grief for bringing, you know. And I was in a really negative space, and Michael said to me, he said, so, what are you doing next semester? And I thought, oh, here it goes. You know, well, I'm coming back, and I'm bringing the baby. And I will never forget, Michael clapped his hands,
01:28:02
smiled with delight, and said, oh, that's wonderful. We'll have you back, and he'll have you, too. That happened 21 years ago. I remember like it was yesterday. So there were colleagues that I made feel uncomfortable
01:28:22
by bringing my baby to work. But I also had colleagues who let me know that it was okay, and it was the most natural thing in the world. So I think when we talk about changing culture, it's getting the temperature of, you know, the trusted colleagues who you believe are allies, and they will help you figure out if you're pushing it hard,
01:28:42
you know, if you're pushing too hard. And so I think the fact that you're cognizant of that and thinking about it means that you are unlikely to push too hard. And yes, there will be some people who are uncomfortable, but as long as there are others who get it, then I think you can be assured that you're not pushing too hard.
01:29:02
Seems now they changed the timing, so we have to wrap it up. Sorry for the question you never got to ask, but people will be here for lunch, and we can continue the discussion. There will be panels after lunch with career things, so I think you should just come back and continue to ask the questions.
01:29:22
I can ask you very briefly if anybody wanted to say something before we quit. Anna? Okay. Anybody else wants to say something? Maybe just a quick comment. Is it on?
01:29:42
So it's been a lot of discussion about hiring women, but I think it's also important to pay a bit more attention to the education and how we advertise education, science education, for young girls. I know in Sweden, for example, they have to rename their faculty programs
01:30:01
from building roads to building society to include a bit more female applicants to their programs. So I guess paying a lot more attention to education and how we are bringing young generation, this would help in the future to do the gender balance. Thank you.
01:30:22
Okay. Thanks to you all. Thanks to the audience.