With regard to gender imbalance on MO, I would suspect that somebody who is not a trained sociologist would have great difficulty in figuring out what is going on. Ryan's observation regarding time constraints of some female mathematicians is one data point, esmeyny's post is another data point, and Isabella Laba's post is a third; but that's all that they are, and I would be hesitant to jump to conclusions. Female mathematicians are a non-homogenous group, which span many countries and cultures, and it won't be easy to ascertain why they are perceived to act in a certain way. Indeed, viewing "female mathematicians" as a set instead of as a collection of individuals is in itself the most dangerous form of sexism, I think.
With regard to the English language: if somebody would write "she", it would bother me in that it would indicate a conscious choice to write in a certain way, sort of like somebody who calls themselves "X years young". So it would distract from the content because it differs from standard usage, but minimally. So I would say that "he" has a gender-neutral meaning, whereas "she" does not. But so what? If somebody wants to choose a gender for a reader (and imagine the reader any way they please) then that strikes me as a stylistic choice of the author, as opposed to something on which I feel compelled to have a political opinion.
In particular, I think that eliminating the problem itself (discrimination against women on the internet) is a far superior idea that making cosmetic changes to our language (whether it be English, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, or Swahili). In particular, there is no shortage of misogyny among people who speak in a gender-neutral way, and no shortage of the converse among people who speak in gender-specific fashion, and confusing pronoun usage with misogyny seems another example of lazy thinking.

qiaochu: Some of the things I've taken away from the comments of Izabella Laba (her post really) and esmenyey is that some women may not use MathOverflow (and/or not under their real name) because they are concerned about sexist treatment and/or potential harrassment as a consequence. (Concerns based on their experiences in similar fora online and offline, and concerns that seem very reasonable to me. They are, however, not concerns that have held me back in the past, and are unlikely to affect me in the future unless my perception of MathOverflow changes.) It doesn't seem to me like the right follow-up question to this is to argue "is mathoverflow sexist"? as that's a vague and loaded question that leads to a lot of straw men/politics/arguments that get nowhere (and may ignore the specific points made by women that started them). (Also some arguments that women may be tired of listening to -- at least, I've heard the gendered pronouns discussion more than enough times; and it's an important discussion, and people should be aware of it. However I don't think that any women have complained that MO doesn't use enough female pronouns.)

It seems like a better follow-up, given the original purpose of the thread "is there anything we can do to address these concerns?/ to convince women who have been treated this way in the past that they will not be burned again"? Unfortunately these are genuinely hard questions: there's not an easy answer. (Some women may never want to join MO for these reasons. But that's worth knowing.) But the way of doing it is probably to take these concerns seriously and hope that MO will eventually acquire a reputation (as Izabella Laba said) as someplace where women are treated better, not to argue over whether these concerns are justified. (Also: if the gender ratio on MO doesn't concern you, that's fine. But that doesn't mean you should be dismissive of others' concerns.)

To add an actual contribution to the topic at hand, regarding the previous "women have less time to waste on mathoverflow". As a mostly lurker myself, I've noticed that the list of people with Enthusiast or Fanatic badges has a still small, but higher fraction of women on it (probably not statisically significant, since small sample size) than the list of people with high reputation. I'm not sure that this is a meaningful measure of anything, and I can think of ways of explaining this that aren't really about gender (example: graduate students are more likely to be women, have more free time, but may post less often because less expertise). But I thought I'd mention it.

+1 abmiller

The problem of harassment and stalking of opinionated women on the internet is a major problem. I'd like to think that it's less of a problem in fora centered on a small field than in more political and politicized corners of the internet, but it's hard to know for sure. I'd also like to think that some of our moderating policies might nip such problems in the bud (as people either reveal their own names, or the moderators are more quick to pull the plug if they do something bad). But, it's hard to know for sure. I certainly don't blame people who are worried about that risk.

To follow up on what Alison said, I think it's really important to keep in mind that thinking about and identifying problems in our culture, systems, and thought processes isn't calling anyone "sexist" (or racist). I think it's telling that the word most often comes up in these kinds of discussions not by X calling Y sexist, but instead by Y saying "how dare you call me sexist" in response to something that wasn't calling anyone sexist. As Avenue Q (almost) says, "Everyone's a little bit sexist"; but, trying to fix and identify some of these issues is not saying anyone in particular is evil or bad.

Finally, I'm worried that this thread is shedding more heat than light. I think the moderators should consider closing it. In particular, Gil mentioned above that he knows of "no examples of behavior over MO which is specifically or intentionally unfriendly to women." I would have agreed with that sentiment, but no longer can because of this thread.

All,

We can analyze or speculate all we want, but it seems to me unmistakable that there are one or more features of MathOverflow that discourage the participation of female mathematicians. The numbers are unambiguous. There are plenty of top notch female mathematicians who are able to participate in most other professional activities (attending and giving talks, writing and refereeing papers, collaborations, etc.) and yet they choose not to participate in MathOverflow. This is in sharp contrast with the striking number of top notch male mathematicians, who have chosen to participate. Both Laba and esmenyey have tried to explain why this is so. Although their views do not necessarily represent other female mathematicians, I think we have to take what they say very seriously.

I am very curious about whether other sites using the same software have observed the same pattern.

I would very much like MO to switch to more flexible software that might allow us to experiment with different arrangements that might improve the situation. I doubt we will know much without some trial and error. More informal feedback from other female mathematicians would also be very helpful.

My last remark seems to have been unclear. What I meant was I think this thread is the first thing on MO that has remarks unfriendly to women. (I don't mean evil or horrible, just unfriendly.)

I've been away from the discussion for a while, and wow did it blow up! So I apologize if this comment may not bring anything new to the table, but I have really appreciated the candor of everyone involved in the discussion and I find disturbing the comments that suggested that some participants posts should be deleted.

The fact that some participants to the discussion showed themselves far from supportive is somewhat disappointing, of course, but they are entitled to their opinion, and their contributions were certainly illuminating for me: if anyone is wondering why women may be extra circumspect online and in MO, these comments constitute the beginning of an answer...

So the conclusion is that I hope that this thread will know to refrain from censorship.

@Alexander Woo: I don't think that my experience is consistent with your observation. In a different country (Japan, if it matters), most female mathematicians whom I met didn't fit that description at all. Some of them weren't self-protective enough, I thought- and I did witness two of my colleagues getting awfully sexually harassed at a conference on one occasion (by a non-mathematician).
Unfortunately, MO seems low on mathematicians of either gender from such countries.

The only case that comes into my mind was of one person posting in this topic, and it was done for the holy end of trolling string theorists rather than for whatever else people register under a nick of the opposite sex.

That made my day, thank you. I'm very glad to know that somebody's fighting the good fight of trolling physicists.

I also think that the discussion is somewhat enlightening, if also at times unsettling.

If I may make a suggestion: we are currently talking about cultural practices among mathematicians and mathematical communities. On the other hand, there are also profound cultural differences between different, um, cultures, i.e., people of different nationalities and geographic locations. But Math Overflow represents -- not officially or exclusively, but for the most part -- anglophone, North American culture. I feel like some people coming from outside of anglophone North American culture are writing in to say, "No, that doesn't entirely square with my experience." Well, no kidding. Living in Russia, or Japan, or Germany, or Romania is still not exactly the same as living in North America. (Even Canada is not exactly the same as the United States -- you may laugh, but I was reeling from culture shock for much of the postdoc I did in Montreal. But in my experience it's close enough, especially in this regard, so as not to fragment the discussion.)

Would it be too restrictive to limit this conversation to behaviors and treatment of women in anglophone, North American academia? Or, at least, if you are coming from a different culture, could you please indicate that as a disclaimer / point of information?

Dear Mr. Pete L. Clark,

"But Math Overflow represents -- not officially or exclusively, but for the most part -- anglophone, North American culture." Yes, maybe today you are right, but tomorrow you may not.

"Living in Russia, or Japan, or Germany, or Romania is still not exactly the same as living in North America." In context of this discussion this claim need to be proved. I know what it is like to live in Russian or Romania (again in scientific context) and the only difference is that in these as well as in some other european countries there are no such insubstantialy strong feminist views in women communities.

"Would it be too restrictive to limit this conversation to behaviors and treatment of women in anglophone, North American academia?" Yes it would be very restrictive and harmful for MO in general.

"Or, at least, if you are coming from a different culture, could you please indicate that as a disclaimer / point of information?" I think this is certainly a joke.

@sergei, @Pete: I think abmiller's comment may be relevent:

It seems like a better follow-up, given the original purpose of the thread "is there anything we can do to address these concerns?/ to convince women who have been treated this way in the past that they will not be burned again"? Unfortunately these are genuinely hard questions: there's not an easy answer.

In light of Pete's comment, I agree that perhaps the question should be "to convince Anglophone/ North American women who have been treated this way in the past...". This focusses the question in a way which I think is constructive.
I don't think feminism/politics is an issue: the issue is to convince a group of people who are wary (perhaps for good reason) that this is a safe and worthwhile place to discuss mathematics. And clearly this is a problem. I would point out that we haven't seen many Russian or Eastern European female mathematicians on MO either, although I don't know what to make of this either.
I don't think there's an easy answer, but clearly we should be nice to one another, and have low tolerance for misogynous and unfriendly comments, which I don't think are OK in any country or culture.

-1 Anixx: off-topic, not constructive, lazy thinking, and potentially offensive.

Maybe I am repeating the point but anyway it is worth to be repeated. Dear female MO participants, in order to settle the problem which You all may think has the place to be, You should indicate a concrete list of a concrete difficulties which You all encounter. If, indeed, there will be such COMMON difficulties among You (which as I wrote seems doubtful to me), then all MO participants should consider some concrete changes (again, as, I suppose, You argee with, these changes should not be very harmful for MO) in order for these difficulties to disappear. That in my view would be the best.

Anixx's comment is not offensive. The reaction from Daniel ("lazy thinkinhg") and Noah (call the local Moral Police) is unreasonably offensive. It looks like Daniel and Noah regard teaching as something less important than research. For your information: teaching is as important and requires as much effort and ingenuity. So far people mentioned exactly 2 sexist comments on MO out of about 50000. So sexism on MO is not a problem. Something else may be. Being busy is clearly one issue. Fear of potential sexism could be another one. But we can't do anything with both of these reasons. The problem is outside MO.

Alexander Woo wrote:

The personalities of the female graduate students were not representative. As a group, in distribution, female graduate students seemed to me to be far more motivated, assertive, and self-protective than the average human being.

First, my recollection of fellow female grad students is quite different, I found them as diverse as the males. Moreover, I am not convinced at all that this provides evidence of sexism in Math. It can actually be used to argue the opposite. I found American women as a whole more motivated, assertive, and self-protective than the females in my culture, but I very much doubt that there are more sexism in America than in my country (Vietnam, since Pete asked).

@all: Well, I am officially frustrated with this conversation. Several people have said things in this thread that I would be rather disturbed to hear from a colleague in my department. It's not clear to me how many of these people are actually faculty in a North American math department, or if they are, would actually say such things "in real life". But if this is the sort of thing that women in mathematics have to hear on a daily basis...yikes. I certainly don't want to hear these things, and they're not directed at me.

[And, to respond to something which is only slightly frustrating: @Sergei: I lived in Canada for 2.5 years. Please believe me that Canadians do not self-identify as "American". When you say "American" in Canada, they know you mean residents of the big, loud country to the south. I can't speak for Mexico, but I would be surprised if it were different there.]

I agree that this thread has degenerated into a debate over whether male mathematicians, American or otherwise, engage in sexist behavior or not. But I don't see that as the original point of this thread. Putting aside whether we are sexist or not, there is a significant population of female mathematicians in and out of North America who have learned to deal on a daily basis with male mathematicians, sexist or not, like the men participating in this thread. The observation here is that very few of even those women have chosen to participate in MathOverflow. That for me is something worth understanding and trying to fix. Deciding whether there is a larger problem with sexist behavior among male mathematicians and, if so, what to do about it are topics far beyond the scope of this thread and MathOverflow.

Darij Grinberg wrote:
"2) esmeyny (in an otherwise very interesting post): "Women who are angry are always judged negatively". Now I wouldn't say this, given the popularity of idols like Joan of Arc, Ayn Rand, Rosa Luxemburg. Particularly in the blogosphere, where people are SUPPOSED to be angry, or else why are they blogging in the first place. Sorry, it seems that clichées have gotten the better of both sides of the debate here."

I concede that 'always' was a misplaced hyperbole unworthy of a post on a mathematical discussion board. (I am not convinced of Joan of Arc as example of woman that has not been judged negatively, though.) In spite of my poor choice of words guided by frustration, I do stand by my point that on average, women are penalized significantly (more) for speaking up in comparison with men.

Allow me one final remark:
Despite the negativity of my remark and the obvious and intentional lack of concrete suggestions for change, I did not post here to deflect the topic towards a general discussion on sexism.
I posted primarily for the following reason:
If I read somewhere else about MathOverflow and why there are few women there (or similar places), and then someone says things along the lines that women are just not interested in math/internet/research/helping strangers/etc, it bothers me personally. If one of you is giving that interview in the future, you might have my response in mind, too, and might list parts of it among the possible reasons (or just say that you do not know which is an underused option for this kind of interview question).

Disclaimer: This post has been written without any guarantees that the writer is or isn't a North American, anglophone woman by birth, education, nationality and/or current, former or future affiliation.

I too think this thread may have outlived its usefulness, or at least have drifted away from the original matter at hand without finding a new constructive direction. Though perhaps Deane Yang's last comment suggests a possible new thread for discussion. So I would vote to close.

For what little it's worth (speaking as a British male living in Canada, educated in a particularly odd series of crucibles), I am inclined to agree with what Noah Snyder, Todd Trimble and Pete L. Clark have said above; while I think the comments/observations made by esmeyny and abmiller should give many of us pause for thought.

Darij: with the best will in the world, I don't think the tone of your comments is helping here.

I am equally annoyed by men doing the same. It is a personality trait I associate with stupidity, wishful thinking and cowardice... I am by far not the only one around with this kind of thinking (among the ones I know).

Generally inferences are only as good as the data or the sampling procedure used to get them. Also, mote in thy brother's eye, and all that. (If you really want to discuss this further with me, I suggest contacting me by email, because I am currently sufficiently angry that any attempts by me to respond here will I fear not be very constructive or edifying.)

Yes, it would be great if everyone could be outspoken, arrogant, and forceful, concentrating only on the pursuit of truth and not on the feelings of those around them. Unfortunately those are traits that Western society tolerates only in men -- women exhibiting such behaviors are quickly shut out, ostracized or marginalized. I'm sure that if you found yourself in such a situation it wouldn't take you long to learn that certain methods of presentation and discussion got your point across or got the job done, while others got you ignored or worse.

I don't agree with this premise. Stop projecting your prejudices on all of us.

Before disagreeing with this assessment (I never notice it either! that doesn't mean it doesn't happen), I have a modest proposal: go to three or four of the women you know who have been successful in their chosen profession, and ask them if they ever think about how best to present their ideas to maximize the chance that their voice will actually be heard. Personally I know very few women who are not highly conscious of this reality, not only in professional life but in daily interactions.

You've never had to suck up to someone to have your concerns heard? This experience is not unique to women.

I think that this whole notion of feeling guilty about how women are treated in mathematics and other places is not the right answer. You do what you can to make things better. You're only guilty if you haven't made that effort.

Darij Grinberg, taking the country you mentioned (Germany) as a reference point for your culture, which is one with which I am familiar enough to say the following with convidence: for all I know, the bandwith of behaviour that typically allows a successful career in an academic context for women is considerably more narrow than the one for men. This has nothing to do with 'playing the doll' and is (of course, in an oversimplified form) rather about staying as close as possible to the optimum between 'hard' and 'soft', whereas for men larger deviations (in either direction) from this optimum are admissible. And I cannot see anything in esmeyny's statements either that suggests to me that she thinks 'playing the doll' is the best thing to do.

I have to say that this discussion is beginning to look a lot more like the internet out there and I am glad that MO is fortunately free of this deplorable tone that this specific Meta discussion has acquired. I doubt that seeing such a discussion would encourage *anyone* from joining MathOverflow, or at least not anyone interested in constructive discussions.

I find this regrettable, since, the way I see it, adding more qualified members can only improve the quality of the site.

Adding more comments to this discussion, on the other hand, not so much. Participants have had their say, and no opinion was censored. Now, 140+ comments later, let me join my voice to those clamoring for closure of the topic.

In light of some of the last comments, I also think that closure is appropriate at the moment. The issue however is very serious and we may need some time to think about what happened here and may return to this in more concrete form later.

I also think this thread should be closed.

That said, the (awful) tone of the thread itself indicates that the topic under discussion is very important to the future of MO. I hope that there is some (private) discussion of the topic (among the moderators and others) which leads to some considered changes, e.g. of the type Dylan Wilson suggested.

I also believe this thread should be closed.