When I was starting out as a mathematician, I didn’t want to draw any attention to the fact that I was a woman in this very male-dominated field, and I certainly didn’t want any extra help. During my undergraduate time at the University of Cambridge, I was invited to take part in a mentoring scheme for women, but I declined. I objected to the idea of being treated differently on account of being a woman. I wanted to be treated the same as my male peers. I have gradually changed my mind about this, because of my experiences and because of my expertise. As I write in my guest essay for Times Opinion this week, sameness is a subtle notion when we are talking about anything more complicated than numbers, and even for numbers, it is more nuanced than it might appear at first. I now see that if two people weren’t treated the same in the past, then treating them the same in the present does not make for equality overall. If someone faced more adversity in the past, then in the name of fairness, we should try to make up for that adversity now. It took me a long time to recognize that I might have faced obstacles in math that my male colleagues did not, mostly because it was impossible to empirically prove. But I feel lucky that some senior (male) professors recognized the obstacles all the same and helped me to overcome them. I now see that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives shouldn’t be about giving people extra help; they should be about measuring people’s achievements with more nuance and context. As I explain in my essay, the abstract field of metric spaces offers a surprising amount of insight into how we could approach D.E.I. in more effective ways.
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