A friend recently attended a big conference of American mathematicians. Out of 15 plenary speakers, roughly half were female. “There are women getting tenure-track jobs at Ivy League schools who, if they were men, would be stuck in a series of post-docs, each one at progressively lower quality institutions.”
theliberatedmathematician.com is a blog by Piper Harron, smart enough to be a professor in Hawaii (our happiest state), who says that she spends most her time “dealing with childcare, worrying about politics, or researching the history of social injustice.”
In this June 2017 post, Professor Harron notes that she “suggested we stop hiring white cis men.” There are three commenters (math is a small community!), two of whom are approving. Katrin Wehrheim, a Berkeley professor whose home page offers readers the opportunity to “chat about queer life in academia” and links to “LGBT resources,” says the following:
Practically, I hope that more of us can take a stand in their departments and voice the simple fact that any cis-white-male hire is a missed opportunity. (Yes, that’s a fact). The follow-up view that has coalesced for me thanks to Piper’s writing is the deduction from that fact that cis-white-male hires are thus never “the best” choice. More follow-up thoughts: * Yes, if we don’t have other ‘qualified’ candidates then that’s our recruitment and evaluation criteria failing.
Striving for tenure at a top school in the mathematics world is crazy hard (also irrational, as I discuss in “Women in Science”). For cis-white-males who’ve invested 10+ years in education in hopes of winning one of the handful of good jobs in this field, why not identify as women, at least while at work? The title of this post says “put on a dress,” but Professors Harron and Wehrheim, who seem to identify as women, are pictured wearing gender-neutral clothing. Maybe being transgender will keep a person out of the Trumpenfuhrer’s armed forces, but it would appear to be the ideal gateway to an academic sinecure.
Related:
It seems like those politically disfavored mathematicians would actually do better by emigrating to a country where mathematicians spend most of their time doing math.
Most men and women in mathematics Phd programs shouldn’t be there. It’s a waste of time and money. I spent a year taking grad classes at one of the mid-tier UC’s. Out of the 40-50 students maybe 5 weren’t wasting their time (I wasn’t one of the 5). Ulam talked about this in his autobiography almost 30 years ago.
Now, now, read through her Princeton PhD thesis and see if you don’t think non-straight-white-male math is moving forward at a rapid clip.
http://www.theliberatedmathematician.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PiperThesisPostPrint.pdf
Perhaps tangential, but as a “millenial” feminist, I’m baffled by the current promotion of fashionable transgender politics by other self-styled feminists. Aren’t these two ideologies completely incompatible? Feminism was (I thought, anyways) about eliminating harmful gender norms while recognizing the biological reality of male and female. Thus, feminism teaches that women need not be stereotypically feminine (dresses and makeup); that women can excel in traditionally male dominated activities like math and engineering; that men can be nurturing caretakers instead of aggressive dominators, etc. Old school feminists (where are those last 3 hiding??) also fought for sex-segregated spaces for women, such as women’s bathrooms and women’s sports, because they understood the obvious physical reality that women are physically weaker than men and vulnerable in ways men are not. If men were allowed to compete in women’s track and field, for instance, we’d never see another female champion.
Transgender ideology stands in opposition to all of these things. As far as I can tell, transgender “philosophy” (?) states that the categories of men and women are not physical characteristics assigned at birth but are determined by one’s personality and preferences. A natal male who likes wearing dresses and “girly things” asserts that his fondness for dresses “makes” him a woman; does that mean women as a whole are naturally inclined to like dresses and “girly things”? Isn’t this thinking a step backwards? And as Phil points out, sex protections for women are ruined if any natal male can simply assert that he “feels like a woman today” and wants to therefore compete in women’s sports, enter women’s shelters and bathrooms, etc.
Sadly, it’s impossible to bring up these fairly obvious contradictions with other feminists without being labeled violent, a hater, etc. The lack of acceptance of critical thinking is depressing.
Another quote from Professor Harron, these are the first and final two paragraphs of a longer blog post:
Not to alarm you, but I probably want you to quit your job, or at least take a demotion. Statistically speaking, you are probably taking up room that should go to someone else. If you are a white cis man (meaning you identify as male and you were assigned male at birth) you almost certainly should resign from your position of power. That’s right, please quit. Too difficult? Well, as a first step, at least get off your hiring committee, your curriculum committee, and make sure you’re replaced by a woman of color or trans person. Don’t have any in your department? HOW SHOCKING.
…
This is not about shame or guilt. Those things are useless. This is about shifting perspective. I know you’re not going to quit your job, but I want you to understand that you should. And to understand that by keeping your job and your other unearned privileges, you are running a continued debt to marginalized people and you should always be seeking ways to pay us back.
Not to alarm you, but statistically speaking you are the problem. Your very presence. I can’t tell you what is the best strategy for you to stop blocking my path. I can just ask that you please get out of my way.
http://blogs.ams.org/inclusionexclusion/2017/05/11/get-out-the-way/
@Patrick
I don’t know why I’m still surprised by stuff like this in this day and age….but I still am. Holy crap, I can’t believe a professor at a public university can openly say this stuff and not be fired. Hell, she probably gets celebrated for how brave she’s being! Up next: prime numbers are heteronormative extensions of the Kyriarchy!