Global Gender Gap Index 2014: 29th

Activities for women in mathematics

While there are several national/local associations for women in Science along the different Spanish universities, there is only one organization for women in mathematics: the commission for women in the Real Sociedad Matemática Española (Spanish Royal Society of Mathematics). The main associations or commissions for women in science are:

• Unit of Women and Science of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness: organization established in 2006 that fights for the effective equality between genders. It produced the White Paper about the Situation of Women in Science in Spain in 2013. Available online at http://www.idi.mineco.gob.es/stfls/MICINN/Ministerio/FICHEROS/UMYC/LibroBlanco_Interactivo.pdf
• Women and Science at CSIC (Spanish Council for Scientific Research): commission that produces a yearly report with statistics about women scientists. Available at http://www.csic.es/mujeres-yciencia. It organized different raising-awareness events to celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2013.

None of these commissions distinguishes between the different sciences, so we cannot infer accurate data about the general situation of women mathematicians. However, studies from both commissions show and underline the existence of the so-called Glass ceiling for women. Even when the percentage of women studying mathematics at an undergraduate level is larger than the percentage of their male colleagues, as far as we follow the ascending positions line, these percentages get reversed.

The Commission for Women of the Real Sociedad Matemática Española (RSME) is formed by 9 members and it is led by Marta Casanellas Rius, professor at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. It pursues spreading the most relevant women mathematician contributions and stressing some of the difficulties and integration problems that stop women to reach senior positions. The main activities that were accomplished since 2012 are:

• Updating the webpage of the commission: http://mym.rsme.es/
• Starting a new initiative in which women mathematicians are recorded while explaining and sharing their concerns about their jobs. Some videos are available at the previous webpage.
• Organization of different debates and discussions about the situation of women in Science, mainly inside the program Dona 2.0 (Woman 2.0) at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and also at some other Spanish universities.
• Producing a detailed report (2014) with information about the percentage of women mathematicians in different positions at universities in Spain. The data was collected by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics in 2010.
• Insisting to the Spanish Government on including special clauses in all research calls for maternity leaves.

EWM activities and membership

The main aim of the Spanish section of the EWM is keeping going with the awareness of the worries and difficulties of women mathematicians in order to try to detect the specific problems and find solutions to them. Some of the precise actions that the Spanish section of the EWM expects to accomplish to reach these goals are the following ones:

• Organizing a round table inside the Congress of Young Researchers of the RSME (September 2015).
• Taking part in the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad in 2016.