What’s the Extent of the Problem?

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Athene Donald

I don’t usually recycle my posts, but the time seems ripe to repost this particular one appended below. I wrote it just over three years ago. It asks ‘Just how bad is it?’ referring to the issue of sexual harassment. The stories in Astronomy coming from the US currently make for sober reading. There is the case of Geoff Marcy, now no longer at UCB. This was a man whom the university initially did little more than tell off after various allegations were upheld, but who ultimately had to resign in the face of the barrage of criticism. Then further reports came out, from Caltech and (more historically dating back to 2004 and revealed on the floor of Congress by a Republican congresswoman) a third case of an astronomer who was allowed to leave the University of Arizona and take up a new faculty position at Wyoming without his track record following him (both stories reported here; I have to assume they are accurate in the absence of evidence to the contrary). These three stories all emanate from the field of Astronomy. Is this chance? Is this because, as I have seen posited, that Astronomy is ahead of other disciplines in rooting out and cleaning up its act, or is it in fact genuinely worse than other subjects? And, a question close to my heart, is it equally bad in the UK or is there something significantly different going on in the US?

I can’t answer these questions. For sure there is plenty of sexism out there: a generous helping of unconscious bias, unwelcoming climates and dollops of patronising comments are the lot of too many women in science as elsewhere. On university campuses the laddish culture is undoubtedly a major concern, fuelled by excessive alcohol. But how bad is actual sexual harassment, perpetrated by senior (and otherwise respected) academics?

Last time, when I brought these questions up I had been challenged by a philosopher as to what the situation was like in science because she knew how bad her own discipline was (again this may largely have been in the US, although she herself was UK based). So, let me try again to discover – through (anonymous if you like) comments below, or through private email to [email protected] – what is the UK science situation like today. Last time very little came to light via either route.

What follows is the full text of my earlier post, to put this updated introduction into context.

How Bad is It?

Published December 4 2012

It is easy to think that science is uniquely bad amongst the academic disciplines in the problems that some women may face. In the past few weeks I have visited various Universities to discuss some of the relevant issues and give their management a nudge about what needs to be done regarding Athena Swan submissions. During one of these, to the University of Sheffield, I was delighted to meet Jenny Saul, whose research includes the study of stereotype threat and unconscious bias, issues that undoubtedly feed into the problems that many women in STEM may face. But Jenny is a Philosopher (indeed she is Head of the Sheffield Philosophy Department) and she has drawn my attention to the difficulties in her own subject, which is also male-dominated at senior levels (although not amongst undergraduates). It seems that this is another discipline in which there are endemic issues making things difficult for women, with some close parallels to the sciences but also other significant differences.

Since that first meeting a few weeks back, I have followed up with Jenny to learn more about the experiences for women in philosophy and how they compare with women in STEM. I will also be exploring any particular issues affecting Cambridge female philosophers with the local Women in Philosophy Group since, as Gender Equality Champion in Cambridge, my brief extends far beyond science: I need to appreciate what the stumbling blocks are in the Humanities disciplines just as much as in my own. (It is worth pointing out that my university is split into six Schools, four of which relate to the STEM disciplines including medicine, plus the Schools of Arts and Humanities and of Humanities and Social Sciences.)

Before I get into what seems to be the same and what different for Philosophy, let me start with a stark question. One of the first things Jenny asked me completely stopped me in my tracks.

‘Is sexual harassment rife within the sciences? It is in Philosophy.’

My immediate answer was: no, it isn’t widespread. My more considered answer is: perhaps I don’t know. Is it? If you are a young female researcher, are there senior researchers and faculty who prey on you in lecture theatres, laboratories or at conferences? Just how bad is it? I have asked other women in the intervening weeks and they have also said no it isn’t bad. But then they’ve gone on to qualify their responses with some anecdote which would seem to say the opposite.

That qualification I suppose ties in with my own experiences. On this blog I have previously posted stories about situations in the not too distant past which have made me very uncomfortable (e.g. here  and here, although in both cases they should probably be called ‘mere’ sexism rather than sexual harassment). I have tended to shrug these off as unpleasant but not really representing a fundamental problem in my discipline. But maybe I am being naïve, because I am to a large extent protected by my age and standing. Nevertheless, I do not hear more than the occasional horror story, and those usually occurring at conferences rather than in day to day workplace experience. Alcohol excuses nothing, but I am sure reduces barriers so that offensive behaviour is more common at the end of a heavy day of conference talks rather than when just going about one’s daily business in the lab or office.

So, my blunt question is – how bad is sexual harassment (as opposed to sexism of which there is plenty) in the sciences? I’d be interested to receive comments so that we can build up a snapshot of how people perceive things, in case I am just missing the hell that some people are being put through. I am particularly interested in the UK experience, since that is where I am based and where the schemes I am familiar with  – Athena Swan and the IOP’s Project Juno – offer scope to improve the climate at least at work (though conferences may be another story). For Women in Philosophy there is a website where individuals can post their stories anonymously – it makes for grim reading. For anyone who doesn’t want to add a comment on my blog because of concern around confidentiality issues, please feel free to email me ([email protected]) your experiences so that I can add them as comments to this post without disclosing names or institutions.  If harassment is still rampant, it should be possible to discuss it collectively. Zero tolerance should be the policy everywhere, but it is hard for individuals on their own to achieve or enforce for all the obvious reasons. However harassment will thrive on secrecy and fear.

So that’s the heavy, depressing part out of the way! Moving on to consider the similarities and differences between the sciences and Philosophy, there is a useful status report prepared jointly by the British Philosophical Association and the Society of Women in Philosophy UK last year. It highlights the fact that, unlike in STEM where the problems for women have been discussed and explored for a number of years and initiatives such as Athena Swan and the IOP’s Project Juno developed to try to improve the culture, nothing similar exists so far in Philosophy. Indeed, the problem does not seem to have received much attention at all. As with Chemistry, the undergraduate population is fairly evenly balanced between the sexes; numbers fall off rapidly thereafter, with only 19% of professors being women (not much above the value in Biology, although this starts from an undergraduate base consisting of more women than men).

One factor that seems to be significantly different in Philosophy is the heavy dominance of male authors on typical reading lists and whose work is being cited. Or rather, that in itself isn’t different, but it matters in a much more deep-rooted way because these texts are analysed to a degree that would be unusual for a scientist reading a research paper or standard text. In general it isn’t the language or the manner of expressing an opinion that matters to an aspiring scientist, it is only the facts and the equations. So as scientists we are probably less likely to be influenced by or sensitive to the gender of the writer. A second factor is that philosophers – apparently – use styles of argument and language that are stereotypically male. To quote the MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger (and this is a quote I’ve lifted from a very informative and illuminating article  by Jenny Saul on her website)

As feminist philosophers have been arguing for decades, the familiar dichotomies with which Anglophone philosophy defines itself map neatly onto gender dichotomies – rational/emotional, objective/subjective, mind/body; ideals of philosophy – penetrating, seminal and rigorous; and what we do – attack, target and demolish an opponent, all of which frame philosophy as masculine and in opposition to the feminine.

I don’t personally think the language and process of science operates within such a linguistic and gendered framework. Although I have seen ardent feminists object to the language of physics, because concepts such as force are ‘clearly male’, for me this seems an artificial objection. A force is a force. But, I can see how a philosopher being told their argument is emotional or subjective might feel they were being devalued at a personal level, and it could be sufficiently off-putting to contribute to their desire to quit the subject. Thus it would appear that the very structure of philosophical thought and argument as currently practiced constantly reinforces potential gender differences and so contributes to stereotype threat. The report on Women in Philosophy I mentioned earlier suggests that this is both unnecessary and could be overcome, offering some practical suggestions to facilitate a culture shift.

I wish the philosophers all the best in their attempts to level the playing field. If, as is currently being considered and piloted, Athena Swan extends its remit to subjects other than STEM, then maybe philosophy will be a discipline that can particularly benefit.

Update 29th January 2016: I did indeed visit Cambridge’s Philosophy Department and talk to their students as well as the head of department. Clearly the issues are recognized and work is in hand to improve their specific local culture.

Posted in Women in Science | Tagged , , , | 31 Comments

Telling Stories

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Athene Donald

Last week I went to talk at an event designed to encourage young girls to stick with science post-GCSE organised for local schools at Brighton College. I was paired up with the remarkable Stemettes Founder Anne-Marie Imafidon. She was Red Magazine’s ‘Woman to Watch’ in 2014 and has a host of other accolades to her name. Now – having quit her job at Deutsche Bank to work on Stemettes full time – she spends much of her time working with teenage girls to inspire them with her own love of science and coding. Since she is much closer in age to the 15-16 year olds we were talking to I’m sure she came across as a more convincing role model than I ever could. Still, in the spirit of ‘mix and match’ I expect we were a good pairing.

For both of us, though, there was the challenge of how to report the story of one’s life – and what we do and the excitement we get out of science – in a way that seemed both meaningful to a teenager and also accessible. I learned my lesson last summer about referring to my CV as a ‘standard CV’ when I got laughed at by a bunch of ECRs (Early Career Researchers). I meant, ‘here is my CV in a standard format’ not thinking that they would hear it as ‘this is the standard of what yours should look like in 30 years’ time’. Words have to be used with care. Nevertheless, it is all too easy to tell the narrative of one’s life as a Whiggish history of unassailable progression. My life hasn’t been like that and I don’t suppose anyone else’s has either.

I want to tell young women that life is not always plain sailing. Or rather, I don’t ‘want’, it gives me no joy to talk about the kicks I’ve received or the more disastrous interludes in my life that are definitely best forgotten. Nevertheless, I believe strongly these episodes are important to sketch, not just because they will undoubtedly have contributed to the person I am today, but because of the danger of the young seeing the older generation as always having had it easy and that our lives have been painlessly straightforward whereas theirs are mired in uncertainty, fear and difficulty. Being 15, a time when major decisions (e.g. about A level choices, to stay with a narrowly educational example) need to be made but when body and mind are going through the turbulence of adolescence, is not fun. I have not forgotten my own problems and anxieties of the time, although at least I had no doubt about the A level choices I would make.

So, how should one weave a narrative that expresses that success is possible despite setbacks, without making life seem unremittingly difficult and particularly so as a woman in science; or conveying that it is misleadingly easy because, hey look, I’m a professor and so can you be if you just work hard enough? Neither version of a life story is either accurate or helpful. In situations like this I feel that if I am not careful I could end up presenting my life as a series of vignettes that appears to reduce the complexity of living to a Disney storyline with the inevitable punchline of transformation from frog to prince(ss). No one travelling through the convoluted maze that is life creates a path that adds up to a case of invariably wise decisions aided by the appearance of an occasional hole in the hedge to get one from A to B painlessly and without work. Life ain’t like that, but in half an hour it’s hard to avoid giving that impression. The storyline needs to invoke also the irredeemably stupid dead end choices made and the dragon that breathed fire and scorched one’s dreams, choices, ego and/or self-esteem. But the mere mention of dragons might be enough to convince a 15 year old in the audience that science is a dangerous place for a woman and they’ll stick with media studies and English literature, thank you very much.

It is also not easy to convey the excitement of research when most school children barely touch equipment, let alone do an experiment that hasn’t been done by several million of their predecessors previously. Science is too often taught as not open-ended, not for the curious, but as a sequence of facts to be memorised and, if you’re lucky, to be understood. I know for me it was the incessant need to memorise labels, such as the parts of a plant or animal that turned me off biology in my teens. There seemed no requirement to understand how these parts connected or why they worked as they did. I believe (and hope) biology GCSE has moved on from this but school science, in the spirit of passing exams, is still far too often not about discovery and curiosity. So explaining that every time I used to look down a microscope (back in the days when that was what I did) I was excited at the possibility of looking at something that hadn’t been seen or understood before may simply not strike any chord in a teenager’s heart. The excitement of the unknown just waiting to be revealed as I prepared each sample gave me a buzz that modern school laboratory work simply cannot approach, any more than my own current daily grind of committee work (however important). Whiggish progression – pah. That is definitely a backwards step!

So, for every talk I give to the young, be it school children or those already committed to science but finding their way through their studies and early career, I have to ponder the balance between up- and down-beat comments. I never know how it will play out to a particular audience – nor can I ever know what impact, for good or ill, I might have had on any particular listener. Anyhow, how it comes out on the day may vary according to my own mood and energy levels at the time. I wish there was a simple answer for how to inspire the scientists of tomorrow. All each of us can do is to try (Just1ActionFWIS).

Postscript: Having written this and got it ready to post I have just come across  #realacademicbios on Twitter. Some of the tweets I’ve seen highlight the problems of being too naive and optimistic in summing up one’s life and passing that on as wisdom for how the next generation should behave. The tweets are thought provoking and well worth reading.

Posted in Education, Women in Science | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Confidence, Rebellion and Schools

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Athene Donald

‘A swot and a rebel’ was how Mary Beard described herself when I interviewed her last week for Churchill College (you can listen to the full interview here). She seemed to think this was a common pairing of terms but I’m not sure I’d agree. She, like me, was a Cambridge undergraduate – although a couple of years later and at Newnham College not Girton – and has spent most of her academic life here. We talked a lot about how her career developed and how, when and why this rebellious streak mutated into the forceful, respected and outspoken public voice she represents now. But I remain slightly puzzled by this combination of attributes: indeed, for me in my first year in Cambridge I think I would have described myself as ‘trying to stop being a swot and ending up just very confused’.

Many Cambridge undergraduates come up as industrious swots. For some this wears off fast as the wider joys of freedom in a university hit home. Maybe it’s Footlights that takes your fancy (think the Monty Python crew) or rowing (Cambridge is home to many Olympic rowers who must have spent less time in the library than perhaps they first intended). Perhaps it’s the Union, although Oxford has a far higher proportion of Cabinet ministers of whom to boast than our own debating society. Many erstwhile swots find their energies diverted into activities perhaps a little less intellectual than they’d anticipated. They may or may not be rebelling against school or family when they permit this diversion; they may even barely notice it has happened so absorbed have they become in these new spheres.

Other students manage to achieve first class results apparently effortlessly, without the sweat and swotting whilst simultaneously singing in every choir going and doing volunteer work in far-flung parts each summer. Are these ones rebelling or just continuing in a contented straight line to whatever it is they deem to be success? Yet another bunch arrive and find that they are no longer a big fish in a small sea and that their school accolades are no protection against the hurly burly of intense study in Cambridge. These can really struggle with their confidence as well as their studies.

And confidence is hugely important to students as to the rest of us. Where does it come from? A recent Sutton Trust Report (A Winning Personality) seems to suggest schooling is key – as no doubt it is – but then, at least if you believe the Guardian analysis, the authors gets confused between confidence and being an extrovert. The Sutton Trust report indicates that future earning potential is all intimately tied up in this too, so getting to the bottom of what works would be important – if it could be done. It seems to me, from a cursory reading of the report and other worthy writers (e.g. Quiet by Susan Cain) that these are murky waters where many terms are thrown around but hard science and evidence (as opposed to anecdote or statistical averages of self-reported terms) is rather more difficult to come by.

You can be a confident rebel, which perhaps describes Mary Beard, or a rebel who is rebelling in order to cover up vast insecurities. You can be extrovert and yet still incredibly insecure, since extroversion only means you are energised when surrounded by people. This effect could be because that way you feel appreciated rather than because you’re overflowing with self-confidence: such appreciation may mean that the hollow at your centre where self-confidence should sit can be temporarily plugged. You can be very quiet, shy but nevertheless steely, full of both confidence and determination – and quiet is not, I understand the same as introversion anyhow (which crudely means other people exhaust you even if you like them). And you can be just middle of the road, confident in some areas and not in others.

Which all means attempts to teach this stuff at school. as is being advocated for the socially disadvantaged now, is likely to be an uncertain blessing. Does confidence come merely from attending the right school? Or does it come from no one ever pointing out your fallibilities? The two may be linked but that’s far from certain or likely to be ubiquitous. So, once you get to university you may arrive uncertain and insecure and blossom as you find your talents are finally appreciated and that you can cope with new challenges. Or you may find you can indeed cope with new challenges and yet remain the same totally uncertain and insecure person. These labels may really not be very helpful anyhow. I stick with my own personal belief that one is best off faking  confidence regardless of what is going on inside. That way, you may convince others even if not yourself. I do not think this is necessarily a gender issue, or down to having been to the right school. But I do think self-awareness of what you are doing matters.

There will be some people – a lecturer who intimidated you as a student perhaps, or a colleague whose intellect you just know trumps yours by a mile or two – who will always make you feel small. Whatever your subsequent successes I am not sure it is ever possible to eradicate a sense of awe so engendered. Whatever your confidence in general, you may be reduced mentally to the ignorant student whenever you meet that lecturer in later years, even if you are both by this time full professors. However such reduction to your shivering former self will only matter if you let it. And perhaps that is where confidence really comes in. If you can admit to yourself Professor Beta has that effect on you, but you know why (you were a dunce in his lectures, for instance) but what you are doing now has no connection with that former interaction, then maybe you can still ask his advice about funding opportunities, conference talks, or policy directions without feeling embarrassed.

In academia, as elsewhere, the ability to do the job in hand matters. But that ability does not need to equate to self-confidence so much as getting on with it, with a fake smile, enthusiasm or bravado if necessary. It doesn’t mean you have to be rebelling – although in some instances you may well be going counter to received wisdom – nor does it have to mean that you are sure inside yourself that you are the equal of all around. Which school you went to is unlikely still to be of interest to other people by the time you’ve hit 30 (at least in academia0, although privately you may feel it is indelibly inked on your forehead. But one thing is sure. If you let nerves overwhelm you to the point of paralysis you will never find out what you are capable of.

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Being Unexpectedly Provocative

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Athene Donald

I have recently returned from a trip to Santa Barbara, to the conference to honour my late mentor Professor Ed Kramer, and San Francisco, where I met up with various alumni and alumnae of my College and the University. In Santa Barbara the conference was obviously about science, with talks from many of Kramer’s former postdocs and students, his extended family if you like. All of us had happy memories to share as well as details of our science (past and present). Each of us chose to present our stories in our own idiosyncratic and personal way that enabled us to pay our tribute to a great man. But I did something I have never done before at a scientific conference – at the request of the organisers. Not only did I tell a skeletal story of my science over the decades since I worked with Ed at Cornell but, reflecting the final conversation I ever had with him at a conference in 2010, I also wove in a little about my work around gender issues. The result surprised me.

Although I had agreed to incorporate some gender stuff months ago, had given as my title ‘Crazes, Proteins and Gender’, as the time approached I felt very uncertain how to bring equality issues into an international science conference. It hardly seemed appropriate to talk through something like Athena Swan specifics at a conference where there were only 2 academics working in the UK (one of whom was me), but I couldn’t do chapter and verse about any other country. It didn’t seem the moment to get very specific about the work we’ve been doing in Cambridge either, when both legal and structural frameworks will again not necessarily be comparable between nations. So, 24 hours in advance of my presentation my talk contained only two slides on the subject matter, both very general.

However, over an extremely early morning breakfast (body clock awry on California time) I was accosted by a Czech professor based in the US who told me how much he was looking forward to hearing what I had to say about gender. Umm, I said, I haven’t got much on it included – at which he looked disappointed and encouraged me to think again. So, in the gap between that early breakfast and the shuttle leaving for UCSB I did indeed think again. I found some more slides to illustrate the problem, quickly inserting a further three – two striking images and this list of what I call the ‘daily grind’ facing many women:

  • Being ignored/talked over at committee meetings
  • Being expected to do tasks others won’t, and which probably won’t be ‘good’ for career progression
  • Being ‘forgotten’ to be invited to after work drinks
  • Having to listen to casually sexist remarks
  • Seeming to be invisible
  • Being accused of being emotional or ‘not able to take a joke’, particularly when registering a complaint about someone else’s behaviour.
  • And, if part time, not being taken seriously.

(The Punch Miss Triggs cartoon was one of the images, relating to that first bullet point. The other was the Manchester Malmaison billboard of a ‘lady engineer’ with all the wrong overtones, indicative of ubiquitous stereotyping). This short list of bullet points is far from complete of the petty instances that are so wearing, but it is appropriately non-nation-specific to give a fair illustration of what so many women face.

As I say, the result surprised me. Over the next few hours I was accosted by men and women with their thoughts. I was thanked for initiating this dialogue, for opening people’s eyes, for reminding men of the challenges and for being provocative. As far as I can judge talk at several tables over lunch was driven by what I had said. I guess I am used to talking to audiences that are, as it were, primed. Who know that what they are attending is an ‘Athena Swan’ talk, or arranged by an organisation’s equality committee. This bunch of attendees was taken more unawares but were almost certainly well-intentioned folk who might not have had occasion to think too much about the issues before (there were few women present at the conference, largely for historical reasons.) It made me think maybe this is something that could usefully be done in regular seminars – just 5 minutes-worth of slides snuck in at the end perhaps – or other presentations. Perhaps some of my readers might like to think about doing something similar themselves. It doesn’t take much preparation and it might just help to spread the word in a different way from those talks clearly labelled as ‘this is about women in science issues’ which may not grab everyone’s interest or, worse, deter them from attending as bor-ing.

After leaving a rather muddy Santa Barbara – the California drought chose the few days I was there to end, with a spectacular 4 inches of rain during the first couple of days falling on hard ground which rapidly turned to mush underfoot – I went on to San Francisco. There I gave a couple of talks, one of which (to University alumni) was about Scientific Leadership, utilising the resources of the College’s Archives. With useful quotes from Churchill himself and Rosalind Franklin reflecting on visits to the Sunshine State, I also wove in a little more about issues facing women in science and how off-putting the working environment can be for those starting out. Once again that was the part of the talk that got most attention and both in the formal Q+A and also in the subsequent private conversations the question I was asked most urgently was ‘how do I encourage my teenage daughter to stick with science in the face of….’. The issues seemed to relate both to the subject being uncool for young girls and that teachers didn’t always act supportively. I wish I had had a better answer to give than that parents have a major role to play in helping to overcome the stereotypes and to counter other people’s negative messages.

Now I’m back in England these two experiences give me food for thought. It makes me realise that many good folk are still remarkably unaware of the issues but, given half a chance, they respond positively and welcome the opportunity for discussion. I will factor these realisations into talks in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Communicating Science, Equality, Women in Science | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Numbers Game

Posted on January 9, 2016 by Athene Donald

If you are the only boy in a ballet class or the only girl studying physics, it can feel uncomfortable. However much what you’re doing may be your passion, it may feel awkward. Quite likely you will adopt some adaptive strategy: perhaps talking extra loud, showing off – or alternatively trying to hide metaphorically under the table so people do not comment on your ‘difference’. Following the maxim that what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger may mean you come out even more determined than you went in. But you will almost certainly also come out differently from how you’d have turned out without the loneliness and perhaps hostility. Being different is hard even if rewarding. I think for many of us, however, being unusual may become so ‘normal’ that when suddenly you’re not in a minority it can feel strange.

Recently I attended a small, select lunch of diverse academics whom I’d not met before. As it happened there were four women and three men. As it happened there were four vocal women and three rather silent men. It felt quite extraordinary and I found that terribly sad. I was sad that I’d noticed this gender split, sad that it felt so unusual, and sad that we couldn’t just be people but that I was so aware of the way we behaved by gender. I would have been interested to know if others present spotted the way the conversation was carved up but, not knowing these folk nor likely to meet them again, I don’t suppose I ever will.

I have previously been at discussions over formal meals when, with a minority of men present, the conversation has been dominated by them. I well recall one when with a ratio of 2 women for each man, nevertheless the first five speakers were all male (out of a total of seven I think). I reached a point, as the fifth man weighed in, of deciding I was going to speak next wherever the conversation had got to. I hadn’t consciously been holding back before but I had not felt the need to leap in swiftly. Again, at the time, I remember being disappointed that I had noticed what was going on.

These comments are not meant to be castigating anyone, of whatever gender. It is much more a reflection of how hard it is to be ‘normal’ or to know what should be ‘normal’. The world I move in is not gender-unaware. Just because we are not discussing anything to do with gender (the dinner I am describing was discussing school education in some specific branches of science, though not physics) does not mean that gender does not intrude. It is perhaps worth wondering what it would take for this not to be the case and I suspect the answer is only when no one thinks there is ever a need to discuss gender at all. We are not there yet, not by a long way.

This situation impacts on conference platforms, on appointment panels and other committee memberships. It is easy, too easy, to say that the numbers should reflect the population from which they’re drawn. But those numbers may be hard to access with sufficient granularity, slavishly following them may lead to poor coverage by area (geographical or disciplinary), and fluctuations in small numbers should mean some leeway anyhow. I have seen people applaud a platform that is 80% women when the population is 30%. Should this be regarded as success, as a fluctuation, or a failure because it is out of line with the pool from which they’re drawn? You could approach this in any of those ways and justify your position.

People are increasingly sensitised to this problem, without necessarily knowing what is ‘right’. A new science communication prize has recently been announced by Stephen Hawking, and Twitter reacted with frustration to the fact the ‘panel’ was all men (Brian Cox, Dr Brian May, Dr Richard Dawkins and Alexei Leonov along with Hawking himself). It isn’t clear to me that the panel is in fact a judging panel rather than simply those who shared the platform when the prize was announced, but nevertheless they could have involved some notable science communicators who also happened to be female to balance things up at the launch (Alice Roberts, perhaps, Kathy Sykes or Helen Czerski immediately come to mind). But they didn’t. I wish we had got past the point where we need to count, to notice and to complain. On every platform, in every room, it seems we still have issues to be resolved.

I started off by remarking on the boy in the ballet class. It could be the man in the nursing lectures just as much as the woman in the engineering lab. They are an uncomfortable oddity. In the UK as in much of the developed world we remain steeped in stereotypes. These may have shifted substantially over the decades but they have not vanished. A female CEO is still a focus of surprise, her dress is still scrutinised in a way no man’s would be (unless it’s Jeremy Corbyn not showing sufficient respect) and her actions analysed looking either (or both) for signs of feminine weakness or unfeminine strength. Each of us has to keep a watch on our own biases as much as on our actions, but knowing when we have reached true equality – that is a challenge.

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