Anyway, I think the answers provided thus far have provided enough of a basis for future askers of this question to find their own solutions. How do I say this? "I vote to close"? I don't want this question (or its meta-questions) to keep us from our research any longer.

First, a technical remark, you can access versions of the question by clicking on the date (Presently Sept 1, in the middle below the question).

In my opinion, this debate, and your comment explicitly or implicitly mixes two issues.

The main 'problem' with this question is, in my opinion, what I wrote in my (and globbaly the) first comment on this question:

I quote it for convenincence:

I vote to close this question, as I think it has nothing to do with mathematics. While you ask about mathematicians, I strongly believe that in this regard there is nothing specific to mathematics relative to other scientific disciplines (or perhaps even other professional activities).

In slightly more detail. I consider an advice question on MO as (potentially) appropriate if the situation is directly related to and specific to (research/academic) mathematics. To make the 'specific to' more explicit, if for such a question I believe that the answers would be the same or very similar if it was asked for experimental physics, life sciences, philosophy, history,... (or a significant subset thereof) then I think it is off-topic for MO. As said, I think this question is not specific to mathematics and as such off-topic. As a first approximation, this is all there is to it.

Now, the main part of this discussion is on something quite different and I contributed to it, but somehow this discussion was forced upon me. Due to the fact that various people explictly or implicitly claimed that the question was closed / people request its closure because it is 'for women' or something along these lines. Having my user-name prominently in the case for closure this indirectly, but then quite directly, accuses me of some sort of misogynism (perhaps this word is too strong, but I do not know a weaker as precise one). Pseudonymus or not, I could not let this stand.

I really did not want to start such a debate, and so at first tried to avoid it by saying the following:

If this question and discussion stays active, I would suggest it is changed to a gender-neutral one. I do not think that the differences between such a situation for a male and a female mathematician are sufficiently different to requier carrying out such a discussion in a gender-specific way.

Which in retrospect was too cryptical, as people understood this as some form of complaint that male mathematicians are left out; it seems to me that your comment also goes in this direction. Yet the point of this comment to me was something else: to leave 'gender' out of this debate as to me this was irrelevant for the closure and also to point out something I found unfortunate. I will discuss your disclaimer. But there is something else, and I'd say one can also challenge that the disclaimer applies in this case.

In the original version the second paragraph is missing. So that

Is there a set convention for which name (maiden name or married name) a female married mathematician should use?

clearly suggest that every married woman changed here name upon marriage, and that this is the norm, and that every woman should change her name upon marriage. I do find such a formulation unfortunate.

Now, regarding your disclaimer. But, who is the minority in this context? (Also cf. my response to Yemon on the heavily downvoted answer.) Let us try a slight modification of the first sentence:

Is there a set convention for which name (birth name or married name) a married mathematician should use?

I guess if somebody has a gender-association in this context then it would be 'female person' anyway; the number of people for whom 'mathematician' is so strongly and purely a male notion that even in the context of name-change-on-marriage (which I assume for a person with such a mind-set typically would have strongly female connotations) should meanwhile be quite small, at least so I strongly hope.

Thus, it seems to me not at all clear whether the first part of your disclaimer applies in the present situation. So, that according to your assertion, one could interpret the formulation as unfortunate for this reason. (As I said this was not my issue with the formulation.)

To put it differently, I do think that making minorities visible can be valuable, but the context has to be apt. Otherwise this 'making visible', turns into reinforcing or creating stereotypes.

Yet, none of this all is the reason why I think the question is off-topic and as such should have been closed. If it is not specific to mathematics it is off-topic whether it applies to all, a majority, or a minority of mathematicians.

Ryan: why do you think meta specifically? (I'd rather guess the person was not following meta.)

General: But, since the questioner said, one should close the question, one could simply follow this request.

I have a thesis defense in a month. I heard it important for my career in math to make a good impression on the committee. What color dress should I ware: red or green? What if my eyes are brown? What if my area of research is algebraic topology?

The author was Elsa Pferd.

Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2011.09.01

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/74312/choice-of-color

Seems deliberately trollish.

In particular, that there is no better place, or nobody is able to come-up with a suggestion for one, for me does definitely not imply that a question should not be closed. (I won't find it now, but similar sentiments have been expressed by others long ago.)

Thanks for clarifying your point. In that form I basically agree with you on the general principle. But it's nevertheless not clear to me that there is a better place to ask this question. "Go ask the AWM" doesn't necessarily help if the AWM has no mechanism for receiving and answering such questions. (Maybe it does; I don't know.)

Meanwhile others have said things similar to what I write below already, but since I said so much above:

First, thank you for the explanation!

Second, your question itself made me write one comment (the first one). I write comments similar to this one about once a day, and several other users do likewise; this is nothing unusual. It is certainly not obvious (and indeed there is no true consensus), which questions are and are not consider as on-topic for the site. The 'faq' and 'how to ask' on the main page give some information on conventions of the site.

I hope you continue to visit the site, and am looking forward to your future answers and questions!

Sincerely,

quid

http://www.ams.org/notices/200608/commentary.pdf

http://www.ams.org/notices/200611/commentary.pdf

José Miguel Figueroa O'Farrill Portela Ferrer San Pedro Gómez de Molina Rojas y Andreu :)

• A statement that the question is (one of) bad or inappropriate, or words to that effect;
• A (dated) explanation of why it is bad or inappropriate (where dated is to cover the situation that standards change);
• A resource or possible alternative where the question is good, appropriate, or likely to receive a good and direct answer.

The etiquette change is that the information be given in answer format rather than in comment format. It can be changed to community wiki by the answerer or a moderator as deemed appropriate, and the question can be closed or locked depending on how divided the community is on the propriety of the question. This is (in my view) a more respectful treatment for some questions, especially those for which there is still some grey area.

Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2011.08.31

voloch, +1 to this suggestion.

Administrative note: the question got reclosed, despite three comment votes to keep it open. Thus, I voted to reopen purely on procedural grounds.

But now for specific points:

I do not understand Ben's remark. It seems to me the questioner is well aware of the fact that the name one writes on publications does not have to be identical to the legal name [I do not know if this is the correct term but I hope it is clear what I mean]. And, because of this, it is an option to continue to use ones birth name for publications even if one changes ones legal name due to marriage. And, the question seems to be how people decide whether they do this or not. By contrast, if one were obliged to use ones legal name the question would reduce to deciding what if anything one does to ones name on marriage. But this is a different question (still less appropriate).

So, I think what is asked is: under the assumption somebody changes the legal name due to marriage. What are criteria to decide / what is the convention, which name to use for publications.

To me that some change of the legal name happens is implicitly clear in the question. Though it might be helpful to make it more explicit. To me this also to some extent addresses the objection of Jose Figueroa. Of course, not everybody is affected by a change of name due to marriage; not everybody marries, not everybody changes the name on marriage.

But for those who do change the name, what are the implications for the name on publications (and perhaps more generally the name used in the professional context).

I think for a general overview question there is too little to say that is not very general. Except perhaps one turns this into a big-list question of mathematicians that changed the name due to marriage (with or without gender limitation) and the respective implication on publications. However, except for somewhat historical persons, I would be very hesitant to do this, as it seems intrusive to me. For example, I would not list the people I mentioned above. This is the question we have at the moment. Precise formulation aside, I voted to close it.

For an advice question, as Henry Cohn suggests, there might be a couple of things to be said. However, this is not the current question. My opinion on such a question would be that I would not vote to close but it would be very close. My remarks on the formulation regarding gender-neutality apply to this question as well.

One possibility, taking into account Ben Webster's comment in the original question and Henry Cohn and Tim Chow's comments above, and if the question is actually about seeking career advice:

I have noticed that some female mathematicians continue to publish under their maiden names after getting married, while some do not.

For example, Fan Chung is married to Ron Graham, but she publishes under "Fan Chung." Vera T. Sós is another married woman who continued to use her maiden name, but the T. stands for Turán. Yet, I'm pretty sure that Emma Lehmer (née Trotskaia) published under her married name. And Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat once published as Foures-Bruhat.

For a mathematician who has published under one name, and now has acquired another, what issues should one consider when deciding which name to publish under, and what are some strategies for how to deal successfully with a name change?

(Go ahead, be brutal, and shape the question into one that you'd like to see.)

Indeed, as I argue, the problem with the formulation arises precisely because it is more common for a women to change their name, which gives rise to the idea that there is some 'norm' that the woman changes her name and the man does not, and this idea (which I find problematic) is reinforced and thus perpetuated by formulation like the one I criticize.

The problem precisely arises when the formulation is in line with / reinforces an existing situation of asymmetry. (Under the assumption one is of the opion that the situation should be more symmetric.)
Some professionalls studying question related to gender-equality and language, say that in a society of perfect gender-equality usage of gender-neutral language would be less (or not) important, since a main problem is that a gendered-language can reinforce existing differences

So, indeed, if I would believe that the ratio is the same or similar (and I explictly said it is not), I would have less or no problem with the formulation. Precisely, because there are few males that change their name it is important to give visibility to it, by approriate choice of the language.

.) The MO-unfriendly one is quite different. There are two groups defined by gender (at least let us says so for simplicity); in which way you refer to them is not so relevant. The way you suggest is simply more direct. There is one MO community and two groups; how you call them is not that relevant assuming everybody knows what is meant. (The situation would be different if we would be talking about online communities in general. Where the questions 'why are online communities unfriednly to women' and the question 'why are online communities unfriendly to people from the less represented group' are different questions, assuming that there is at least one onlinie community where men are the underrepresented group. It then depends which one you want to ask.)

.) The 'department' one. There are at least three things. First, the current, opposed to the one you describe, question does not ask for any advice, and is in no way linked to the user (this is similar to the above difference). The user does not describe the actual personal situation and ask for something related to it. It as a general question. I would not object to the formulation of a question 'I am going to get married and intend to adopt the name of my future husband. Could you give me some advice on how to handle this name change in my professsional life as a mathematician' (though personally I might rather use 'spouse'). However, this is a different question than the one that got asked. Second, the question you suggest mostlikely explicitly or implictly would present this situation as at least somewhat problematic. By contrast, the names question suggest a naturalnes of the situation. Third, the situation 'female in all male' and 'male in all female' could be more different, than the name-change (relative to gender).

Let me give an other example:

a. "How do female mathematicians with kids handle attending conferences?"

b. "How do mathematicians with parenting-responsibilities handle attending conferences?"

Your reasoning seems to suggest that due to the fact that relatively more women have significant parenting-responsibilities, one should ask the former. I definitely would prefer the later. Except, the question makes in some sense clear why the specific gender is relevant in the context. If it has no particular relvance, the only explanation I can see for its presence are stereotypes.

ADDED: I just now saw your update to your first post. Thank you for mentioning both women and men.

a. the questions are rephrased gender-neutral by somebody else, or b. the questions are phrased gender-neutral in the first place.

For a. perhaps, which is why I did not edit it myself. But, in case you mean b. I strongly disagree.

If one were specfically interested in gender-specific differences, one could add that to the question, too.

Now suppose the question is not to be taken so literally. What, then, is the real question? If it had been phrased clearly as an "advice" question, as Henry suggests, then I would not have voted to close. But it doesn't strike me as an advice question. If the OP is prepared to rephrase the question clearly as an advice question then I would vote to re-open.

If it's not an advice question then I'm again left wondering what the point of the question is. Is it asked out of idle curiosity? In that case it strikes me as off topic.

Gil, I believe I was not on MO or at least not really active when the other two questions appeared (I'll check and correct if this is wrong). But, it seems true to me there was a strong reaction to this question and the others were successfull. Regarding the motives, I do not know. I can only speak for myself. I did not downvote and tried to write an objective and neutrally phrased closing-comment. Yet, it is true I had a spontaneuos negative reaction towards this question. But, for the opposite reason you seem to suggest. I think the question reinforces gender-stereotypes that work against women. If I had not seen that the questioner is female, and it is thus a save assumption that this was done inadvertently, I would have left an unfriendly comment pointing this out. So, I at first did not say anything.

Henry, I agree.

Finally, I can live with the question being reopened in principle. But it would be important to me to make it gender-neutral: i.e. the 'female' deleted, and perhaps the 'maiden name' changed to 'birth name' (in case this is the correct gender-neutral analog). [Or at least some form of mention that name-change on marriage is not limited to women; I do not know the name-laws of that many countires, but those I know are rather gender-blind; as said earlier, yes, in practise the ratio is different, but I do not want to contribute, however small, to this imbalance by (implictly) presenting it as the norm on MO.] To stress how important, I offer, a bit against my conviction, my vote to reopen if this edit is done. (I believe I can vote to reopen after an edit, even if I voted to close, hope this is correct; I will be online for one more hour. But then will be offline for several hours.)

I repeat what I already said in comments; while I did want to make the second one right away as well, I initially tried to avoid it not to start a gender-debate tangential to the on-topicness; however, since the question seems more active then I envisoned and gender was brought-up in the debate, I then decided to make it.

I think the question has nothing (or very little, in any case too little) to do with mathematics specifically, even in the broad sense incuding community norms or conventions. As I said I doubt there is anything specific about the math community as opposed to other scientific communities and even in a more general professional communities where 'name recognition' has an immediate relevance. I consider most 'convention' question as borderline, if the link to mathematics is in addition at best vague, my opinion is clear.

Moreover, I find the precise phrasing of the question unfortunate (as well as the discsussion that already developped and stayed in the same tone) since it reduces the question of changing ones name (due to marriage) to a question that (only) female mathematicians face. While there can be little doubt that in past and also present (at least in those parts of the world with which I have some familiarity) female mathematicians or women more generally were and are faced with this situation more frequently, there are also male mathematicians and men more generally that change their name due to marriage. This reduction seems particularly unfortunate to me as it is likely to reinforce existing stereotypes along the lines that the woman adopts the name of the man and not the other way round. I am aware that I restricted my discussion to the woman-man model of marriage; this was only done to make my point clearer I hope nobody is offended by this restirction.

In summary, I think the question is off-topic. Irrespective of this, I would ask that (if it remains active) it is changed to a gender-neutral form. (I could edit it, but I would not like to do this just so.)

Leaning towards casting a vote to re-open, though I am going to reflect on it for a while before deciding.