Founded in 1949, the Mathematics Department is one of the oldest departments of the University of the Andes (Los Andes) in Bogotá, Colombia. The creation of its undergraduate in 1964 initially aimed to educate students to become High School teachers. Now, the almost 600 undergraduate alums, 200 magisters, and 30 PhDs have gone on to hold high positions at national and international companies and universities, most developing prestigious investigations in their fields; it's no wonder that for the past four years, QS has ranked the Science Faculty as the second best faculty to study natural sciences at in Colombia.

Los Andes, in general, has always sought to achieve "an education of excellence that contributes to closing Colombia's knowledge gap with the scientific advances of the world." The university was founded in 1948 by Mario Laserna as the first private higher education institution in Colombia with a secular character, independent of political parties, and independent of defending the interests of any social or economic group.

Even now, 75 years later, Los Andes continues to build a robust academic community with a strong social impact. In its Integral Development Program (2021-2025), the university states three main "dreams":

1. A university that transforms lives and thus contributes to the transformation of society.
2. A university that promotes the welfare of all its members, pluralism, gender equity, and diversity.
3. A university that works to achieve a significant impact in the generation of knowledge, sustainability, democratic debate, reform proposals, and the construction of hopeful and inclusive narratives.

As an undergraduate and master's alumna from Los Andes, I've seen firsthand the university's effort to achieve its dream number 2. However, the Mathematics Department always represents a challenge for achieving gender parity in all instances: students, faculty members, and even the mathematicians referenced.

The Students

In the second semester of 2022, Los Andes had more than 18 thousand students at all levels (undergraduate, master, doctorate), but just 146 in the Mathematics Department. That's 0.8%.

Click here to see the students' data.

In the three programs offered by the maths department, there are 22 female students, 95% of which are at the undergraduate level. The amount significantly decreases the higher the degree. What happens after women major in mathematics? Is it possible that they pursue higher education in maths but in other universities? Well, in my case, I pursued a Master's in Journalism -although that's a story for another time-. But if you ask me, there might be a mix of reasons, from gender expectations to gender representation.

I remember a few years ago, I was producing a podcast, and the interviewee was Jennifer Morton, Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, who often writes about grit. She gave a particular example related to living under conditions of oppression and pessimism traps that resonated with me:

The Faculty Members

The social context that Jennifer Morton talks about is also present at the faculty level. In general, Los Andes doesn't have a balanced ratio of its professors; there are 1.7 men for every woman. But the situation is worse in the Science Faculty, where only 29% of professors or lecturers are women.

Click here to see the faculty members' data.

In the maths department, associate professors (the highest rank) have significantly less female representation than lecturers. Associate professors also have a more significant workload than lecturers, which can intersect with gender expectations of women regarding family and caregiving responsibilities.

Balancing these expectations and the unconscious biases from peers, subtle stereotypes, and male-dominated interactions can create a less welcoming and inclusive environment, leading to fewer women in higher ranks.

The Referenced Authors

Nikoleta E. Glynatsi, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute, analysed 19 thousand maths articles to determine the authors' gender. Out of the 14 thousand authors with an identified gender, there were five men per woman.

In a similar exercise, I analysed the referenced authors in the syllabi of all the electives taught since 2017. There were 399 unique authors, but the ratio was much higher for those with an identified gender: almost 19 men per woman.

Gender parity in maths is an overdue goal, but results like the last one give a small glimpse of optimism for the future. However, it is interesting to see that only one of the female professors referenced female authors, and one of them was herself.

Here's an exploratory visualisation of the authors referenced by professors. Make sure to click around to enter the different layers of the circles, where you can see what books and authors were referenced by professors in their different classes.

Click here to see the dataset.

Whether the problem is gender representation, gender expectations or social context, a change is happening, and I can't wait to see where it takes us -and by us, I mean women-.