joint letter to the AWM Newsletter continued
sorm...@member.ams.org
written by Alexander-Taylor-Uhlenbeck is being continued here. The
first discussion covered issues like promoting women, childcare at
meetings, prizes for work completed by senior mathematicians,
prizes for papers, AAUP policies, IMU and ICM Speaker nomination, and
qualifications needed to be hired at a top ten institution. Please go
back and read those posts and rate them, and post your comments here
in this discussion as that one is full. Remember that members may
also start new discussions. We begin with a reposting of the original
letter:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephanie Alexander, Karen Uhlenbeck, and I sent the following letter
to the AWM Newsletter in September 2006:
In the July-August AWM Newsletter, President Keyfitz outlines the
difficulties involved in obtaining appointments for women on key
prize-awarding committees. We would like to add that even when women
are appointed to important decision-making bodies, they may not
be able to advance the careers of highly deserving women. As women
who
have served on committees, we have observed that it is quite easy
for other members of the committee to deny the quality of a woman
mathematician and quickly dismiss her from the discussion. A single
outspoken committee member bent against women can seriously
hinder the possibilities of awarding a woman an honor which isn't
shared by 5 or 6 men as well. Even well-intentioned
colleagues often don't realize how their unconscious small assumptions
accumulate to become heavy drags on women mathematicians. This
can affect both the writing and the interpretation of letters of
nomination, as well as committee discussions. Even women
mathematicians may fall within this group.
It is imperative that the AWM address these concerns or women will
lose
the gains we've made over the past 30 years. We need to demand that
men and women condemn openly sexist statements without waiting for
someone to be bold enough to file a lawsuit. We need everyone to
watch
themselves for their own subtle biases. We need to educate people
about writing strong letters that will survive reading by even the
most
biased committee members. If committees are more likely to choose a
woman when they are also choosing five men, then we need more prizes
awarded to multiple recipients. We need to stop the downward spiral
caused by judging mathematicians based on a lack of prestigious
positions, plenary addresses, top notch publications and awards,
without ever pausing to examine their research directly.
This does not even address the issues that may uniquely affect women
who are parents: the publication gaps and the temporary inability to
travel. There is almost no funding to help such women recover their
research programs. Certainly there is no funding available from the
NSF that will allow them to work part-time in research-only positions
at their home institutions like many top women mathematicians did in
the past. Given the societal pressure to work even with a young
child,
few women mathematicians today even take unpaid leaves for childcare.
Instead they work fulltime jobs often keeping up their teaching and
service while their research is forced to the backburner. It is time
to provide grants, even small ones, which will allow women to recover
their research after children or to keep their research going while
having young children around. It is time for universities to offer
50% pay for 50% work. It is time that committees realize that many
parents with doctorates a decade ago may have only been doing research
for eight of those years if not fewer.
There are also the solved two body problems which often place women
at second tier jobs with higher teaching. Rather than holding the
lack
of prestige against the women, it should be noted that her important
results have more weight for having been completed in what may have
been a less than supportive environment. What would she have done at
a top notch department with time granted to complete research?
What could she do now if offered funding or a top notch position?
Finally the AWM might attempt to spread the word as to which top notch
jobs are truly top notch for women and which have such incipient
sexism
as to prevent the women there from succeeding. Sexism at times can be
so pervasive that it is more of a distraction from mathematics than
teaching, service and childcare combined. When the only recourse is
to
file a lawsuit, there is really no recourse at all.
Anyone with ideas for effective action is encouraged to post them at
the "Effective Action for Women in Math Webforum" at
http://groups.google.com/group/WomeninMath
Sincerely,
Stephanie Alexander
Jean Taylor
Karen Uhlenbeck