Mathematicians, computer scientists hold Heidelberg meeting on gender equity
On the long flight to Germany from Australia for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum I watched the inspiring film Hidden Figures. That movie celebrates the unsung early heroes of the US space program — the African-American women who did the computations that propelled men into space.
The early days of computational grunt was mostly done by women as it was seen as low status. Soon it was realised that programming and software was where the money and glory was and men soon took the reins. The moves to seek rebalance in computing science — and maths — has been slow.
Of the 220 young researchers in mathematics and computer science gathered along the Neckar valley for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, 77 are women.
This gathering brings together the winners of the great prizes in maths and computing — Fields medal, Turing and Abel prizes — with the next generation of young minds aiming to excel the achievements of the last generation.
Given how historically dominated by men these fields are, the gender balance here is not suprising and — at 35 per cent — perhaps even slightly encouraging. Jennifer Tours Chayes, who chairs the selection committee for the computer science participants at HLF, told me there has been a growing number of applications to attend from young women.
However, of the 25 Laureates in Heidelberg, there were no women. And there was not a single woman on the speaking program for the whole week.
Disturbingly, during a side conversation, the head of a national mathematics association told me that while he thought there was ‘general’ equality of capacity between men and women in mathematics, he thought that at the ‘top levels’ there was probably a gender difference.
“It was horrible to see there were no women among the laureates in attendance this year,” said Dr Chayes. “It is important for the female researchers to see success in their fields.”
Professor Barbara Liskov was expected to arrive but could not come at the last minute. Dr Chayes said Professor Liskov was devastated that she couldn’t attend.
Speaking last year, Professor Liskov said: “Think about what’s going on in movies and television — this kind of ‘nerd culture’ and the glorification of ill-mannered young men. This is not an image that women and girls pick up on as being desirable.
“So there are things in our society that push women away from computer science,” Professor Liskov said.
Dr Chayes is managing director of Microsoft Research in New York. She told me she used to worry about being a banner holder for gender equity issues in this field, “but now I don’t care, there is no risk to my career and I’m happy to do what I can”.
There isn’t much we can do about the past, she said, but we can look to change the future. Dr Chayes said there is definitely blindness to gender equality issues in parts of the maths and computer science community.
Despite this, she said, there is progress. “Now 48.9% of undergraduates in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University are women,” she said.
“And yes, we need to acknowledge male allies in this, but women do need space to discuss these matters.”
However, there was no space in the formal program of the Heidelberg Laureate Forum for women to gather, discuss and draw inspiration from one another. A chance discussion on Monday night between one of the young researchers and Dr Chayes inspired a remedy.
“We acted quickly and gathered some of the senior women here together for a Tuesday morning get-together,” Dr Chayes said.
With just a few hours notice almost all the women in attendance gathered during the Tuesday morning coffee break to hear from Dr Chayes and others, including Professor Lenore Blum from Carnegie Mellon University and Professor Vicki Hanson, president of the Association for Computing Machinery.
“There was a wonderful mood in the room,” Dr Chayes said.
I spoke to some of the participants afterwards.
Dr Tapasya Patki is a post-doctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California, USA.
She said: “It was strange that this sort of meeting wasn’t part of the formal program. However, what was even stranger, we didn’t have any senior women or laureates speaking. I know Barbara Kiskov was supposed to be here but she couldn’t make it.”
The three researchers I chatted to wondered whether men should be in the meetings to discuss gender equality or if there should be female-only space.
Dr Shaila Pervin is a computer scientist at IBM Research in Melbourne, Australia. She said: “I want it to include men as well. Whenever we talk about [gender issues], we talk about it only between women but it should be an issue for everybody. Alone we cannot solve the issue, it needs the participation of all.”
Dr Francisca Onaolapa Oladipo, teaches computer science at the Federal University Lokoja in Nigeria
She said: “I think the step of having a women-only meeting should be encouraged, too. There are somethings I might not be able to discuss with male faculty present. I feel [women-only] meetings will have people who can walk in my shoes mentally.
“When you are working in a male-dominated field, it is important to hear from women who have broken barriers and are in their position not because they are token but because they are qualified.
“When you hear from people like that speaking there is a kind of bonding that happens when there are only girls together.
“So yes, we should have our own session like this.”
Dr Patki said there should be forums for women-only discussions and those that included men, who were often unaware of the issues.
“We should have both. One for women and one including men where they are made aware of several issues. I think a lot of problems arise because people don’t understand the issues like diversity, bullying, tenure track, faculty membership — that kind of things.”
Nalini Joshi is professor of mathematics at the University of Sydney and is an strong advocate for gender equity in the STEM field. She did not attend the forum in Germany but told me: “It is disturbing to see so few women in the top echelon of Laureates. It suggests that the selection process is skewed, because IQ is not distributed by gender.
“So, the absence of women in any venture necessarily means that half the talent available in the world is missing.
Professor Joshi said: “I would like to see every Laureate commit to changing this situation by encouraging and supporting talented women to enter and be part of the top rank of research efforts to solve major problems.”
So will next year include sessions on gender equality and a forum for women to discuss matters?
A spokesman for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum said planning was yet to begin for the 2018 meeting.
However, he said “we will do all we can to facilitate the materialisation” of a meeting after report backs to the organising committee from Dr Chayes.
For her part Dr Chayes said: “I don’t know if this will become a part of the formal program next year but if I am here in 2018 it will certainly be part of the informal program.”
Marcus Strom’s flight and accommodation in Germany was paid for by the Heidelberg Laureate Forum.
