Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and I attended the Virtual Maths Tea organised by the IMA, of which I am a member, centred on Celebrating Women in Maths and Embracing Equity.

Waiting for the Zoom call to start, I wondered how this topic would be approached. The percentage of women graduating from mathematical sciences in the UK was 38% in 2018/2019 (stats taken from https://www.stemwomen.com/ based on UCAS data) and from my personal experience, representation at mathematical conferences is far lower: sometimes with just one or two women attending. But it’s all too easy to complain about intangible feelings of discrimination (no matter how valid they may be) and far less easy to engage with nuanced issues of equality, intersectionality, and concrete actions that can be taken.

Jenny (Dr Jennifer Macey), Martine (Dr Martine Barons) and Emma (Goldstein) welcomed us warmly: this was a discussion and we were all invited to contribute. Jenny began by introducing us to the concept of equity. She described to us the following image: several people are watching a football game over a fence, although it is too high for most of them to see over. Equality of opportunity would be giving everyone a box of the same size to stand on, even though some people don’t need it, and it wouldn’t be high enough for others. Equity, on the other hand, would give everyone what they need in order to watch the game. Jenny relates especially to this image since she herself is 4”6’. Jenny then encouraged us to share our own thoughts.

Emma brought up the inclusion of other minority genders, introduced her pronouns (her/she) and gave an encouraging example where she had asked for more inclusive language to be used at a conference and that change was made by the next day. This shows that people are often willing to listen, even if they have not originally considered the impact of what they are saying. You can also be the one to stand up for a minority if you are not part of that group. For example, if you are cisgender, it is more important to introduce your pronouns so that it becomes normalised. Ideally, workshop and conference organisers will keep language and accessibility in mind from the outset.

Karrie (Liu) shared her experiences. Firstly, that as a female data scientist with a male project manager, the assumption was often made that she was the project manager. She also mentioned that on some occasions people had denied she could be a mathematician, since she has no doctorate, despite her expertise. Ironically, some people had also told her that ‘of course’ she was good at maths, since she was Chinese. This not only undermines her personal achievements but imposes a racial stereotype. She said, apologetically, that these points were not all directly to do with being a woman. However, by bringing them up, she had reached into one of the core difficulties to achieving equity: not all women are going to experience the same challenges and many will experience additional discrimination or adversity due to race, language barriers, health issues, poverty etc. which can lead to complex interrelated issues.

One part of the discussion impressed me particularly by how rounded it was towards inclusivity in general. Celia spoke about how often she would bring up a point in a meeting that would be ignored at the time, but later on, it would be brought up by a man and taken seriously. Celia’s suggestion for dealing with this is to say ‘Thank you for elaborating on my earlier point!’. Ralph, speaking from his own experience, observed that this not something exclusively directed at women, since it had also happened to him on occasion. We had already heard from Karrie that it is far more difficult to be taken seriously if you look young or English is not your first language. Also, if you are not in a defined minority, it is still possible to experience discrimination, and it may be harder to call it out.

Claire brought up an encounter that was at first surprising to me. As a maths teacher, she had to divide classes with a male colleague. He insisted that she should teach statistics and he would take the mechanics course. Claire, confident in both topics, asked if he felt unsure teaching statistics and offered to help him. It turned out that he considered statistics to be the more ‘girly’ topic. This experience resonated with many of us present: one person had to fight to be allowed to take the mechanics course at school and Jenny had not been allowed to even touch experimental equipment in the past. It was the experience of those present that women in mathematics are more likely to have multidisciplinary backgrounds, perhaps because of situations where women have been diverted away from studying mathematics directly. This makes it even more important that we encourage the multidisciplinary study of mathematics. My mother studied art at Edinburgh University in the 90s and since she also loved maths, she wanted to take mathematics as an outside course, but she was told that because she was studying art, this was not possible, despite having good grades in her maths and physics highers. Happily, her daughter (me) still became a mathematician, but we could possibly have had a second Escher.

One of the central but most controversial actions taken towards achieving equity is ‘positive discrimination’ in favour of women and nonbinary people. Celia looked forward to an end to ‘Women specific awards’. They can feel patronising, and women want to be recognised for their achievements themselves, not their gender. However, Martine brought up the concern that removing these awards would also strip away all female representation, as it did when the Brit Awards took away their best female artist category. An analogy can be given with food banks. In the best possible outcome, we can abolish food banks, because they won’t be needed. However, to remove food banks when people are still in need leaves people starving. The difficulty is in determining when the transition can take place.

As the hour was ending, Martine prompted us to consider one small positive action that we each could make towards achieving equity. Martine herself is taking the first action:

• Give a work-placement to a young female or nonbinary person
• As a reviewer, query citations lists that are only from male or Western researchers
• Proactively ask for more gender-inclusive language where you find it lacking
• Jenny suggested that employers and organisers can ask their disabled (and even non-disabled) employees ‘‘what would make you more comfortable?’ rather than ‘what reasonable adjustments do you require?’. This makes it easier for people to ask for accommodations.
• If you work in recruitment, give equal value to people with broad expertise or nonstandard backgrounds.
• Allowing flexible working brings equity to those who have disabilities, struggle with mental health or even simply have periods, and benefits everyone.
• If you are female or nonbinary, you might want to put yourself forward as a speaker at workshops and conferences. The organisers of conferences should also make sure they have a range of representation of speakers. I am going to consider writing this article as my small action. If you are reading this, why not choose one small action to take yourself, especially if you can make it a continuous action. International Women’s Day is only one day a year, but women and nonbinary people participate in mathematics every day of the year.