Just Do Maths! Women in mathematics take a stand against stereotypes

In early april, the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES in French - Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies) in Bures-sur-Yvette hosted a brand new exhibition. Proudly displayed on panels were portraits of ten women who all have one thing in common, namely that they are mathematicians. Just Do Maths! proclaims the exhibition poster. The message could hardly be clearer. But the aim of the event goes far beyond that.

Ten female mathematicians with different careers 

"We initially wanted to publish new portraits on the Université Paris-Saclay website, as mathematics is poorly represented there and female mathematicians even less so," explains Maëva Fézas, Education Manager at Université's Graduate School Mathematics, who initiated the project. "And then we asked ourselves what would be the best format to encourage people to read these portraits. That's when we came up with the idea of adding a photo exhibition, combined with events - meetings, conferences and debates."

In collaboration with Université's different constituent faculties and institutes, schools, associate institutions and partner national research organisations, the GS Mathematics team finally selected ten women mathematicians whose career paths and research themes are presented on the exhibition panels. Applied calculus, topological data analysis, geostatistics, numerical analysis and more. Their work provides a glimpse into the many different worlds and applications associated with mathematics. 

"We wanted the portraits to cover a wide range of topics, in both applied and fundamental mathematics, and to be taken from several laboratories. We also wanted to highlight women mathematicians with slightly different careers, who are involved in university life on a daily basis as academics, education managers, internship supervisors or mentors," explains Maëva Fézas. 

Mathematics, one of the disciplines with the lowest female representation

Women in mathematics to break stereotypes and inspire female students. Just Do Maths! is not just a photo exhibition, it is also a pretext for raising awareness of gender issues in mathematics and the place of women in this discipline, which continues to have one of the lowest rates of female representation in higher education and research in France. 

"In 2022, women accounted for 22% of the academic and research staff in mathematics," confirms Catherine Goldstein, mathematician and historian of mathematics, at a conference held at IHES to coincide with the launch of the Just Do Maths! exhibition there. And the trend does not seem to be reversing - quite the contrary. "The figures show that the situation is very stable in France. In the 1990s, the proportion of women in the discipline was already around 22%," explains the historian. In some branches, the numbers are even lower. "A few years ago, one of our colleagues, Christian Kassel, claimed that female pure mathematics lecturers were an ‘endangered species’ that could disappear by 2050."

A "catastrophic" reform for maths teaching

Mélanie Guenais, mathematician at Université Paris-Saclay and Vice-President of the French Mathematical Society, spoke at the Lumen exhibition opening in March, denouncing another worrying situation caused by the latest secondary school reform. Adopted in 2018, this reform abolished compulsory mathematics teaching at secondary school level. 

This had the effect of more than halving the number of girls on science courses, "clearly exacerbating gender inequalities." As a result, the proportion of girls fell back to the levels seen in the 1960s. "We have regressed 60 years," notes Mélanie Guenais. 

While this reform dealt another blow to the teaching of the subject, the problem of non-parity in maths has many different roots. Stereotypes are one of them, as is sexism, which is still very prevalent, points out Mélanie Guenais. But the lack of women in maths and their low visibility lead to a lack of female role models that also helps to maintain this non-parity, according to Clémence Perronnet, sociologist and co-author of the book Matheuses – Les filles, avenir des mathématiques (Female mathematicians - Girls, the future of mathematics - CNRS Editions, 2024), who was also invited to give a lecture at IHES in conjunction with the exhibition.

In a sociological study carried out at a summer maths camp, "two-thirds of the girls present told us they had never met a female researcher or engineer," she pointed out during her talk. "We believe that having role models, whether real or fictional, with whom to identify is key to projecting yourself. But there are still far too few female scientific role models and they are not diverse enough."

The exhibition on tour in 2025

Just Do Maths! aims to fill this gap with its ten portraits of women mathematicians from all walks of life. And the touring exhibition is currently pursuing its journey across Université's campuses, thanks to the different entities that have collaborated with the GS Mathematics team to give the project greater scope. 

After an inauguration at Lumen and a stopover at IHES and ENS Paris-Saclay, the exhibition moved on to AgroParisTech, CentraleSupélec and the Mathematical Institute of Orsay. Since 27 January and until 6 March 2025, Just Do Maths! can be discovered at the Laboratoire de mathématique et de modélisation d’Évry (LaMME). The exhibition will then spend the spring in the Saclay Center of Inria, in Palaiseau. 

• Find all the portraits of the women mathematicians and the next exhibition dates here :
  https://www.universite-paris-saclay.fr/just-do-maths-paris-saclays-women-mathematics-against-stereotypes