One professor talked about the importance and difficulty of hiring and keeping women and minorities. ``The dean challenged his department units: If any of them hired one woman or minority, he would use his discretionary funds to pay the salary of a second woman or minority hired into the same unit. His rationale is that, since keeping them seems to be very difficult in a white-male-dominated culture, it is important not just to add tokens, but to add real critical mass and create the culture that's necessary for women and minorities to flourish.''
And finally, one woman offered a perhaps obvious but especially important piece of advice: ``Small gestures toward inclusion mean a lot. Make women feel welcome. But this is not just about women: Any underrepresented group needs to feel like they are first-class members of the community.''
Some women we spoke to had never experienced overt sexism. Perhaps the ``old-boy network'' is more historical than real, as one woman put it. Another reported that women are being promoted faster than men at her site. No doubt some problems are due to individual rather than to societal quirks and inadequacies. In any case, individuals and groups are making changes. Some organizations and committees go out of their way now to look for balance.
The underrepresentation problem does not derive from the fact that female scientists are consciously ignored, but that
One woman believes strongly that we must ``improve primary and secondary education, especially in mathematics, the basis of all science. Today's children don't know math or the fun of it.''
Since AI is a relatively young science, and the number of women is small to start with, there are not enough women at the necessary career levels to reach ``critical mass.'' Several women talked about being deluged with requests to speak at meetings or sit on committees; since it is ``politically correct'' these days to appear unbiased, those women who are qualified and have established names are asked to do much more than they have time for.
The interviewees emphasized the need to encourage people, and especially women and minorities, to pursue AI and other scientific careers, and then to find ways to keep these people involved.
Of course, there were many positive comments, too, especially how much these women are enjoying their research endeavors. Not surprisingly, the most common suggestion we heard was to do high-quality science. Women are clearly doing their part, for themselves and for the field.