The following describes harassment experienced by a woman who is a professor of mathematics, whose words I’m posting here (anonymously and with names changed) with her permission.

=============

In November 2023, I visited a Mathematics Department at a respected research university in the USA at the invitation of a professor (I will be calling him Zacharia) who works there. We initially met at a conference where we were both invited as plenary speakers by my former colleague and collaborator Mung. Zacharia appeared to be very interested in my talk and to share my research interests. However, the visit turned out to be uncomfortable and ultimately unproductive from a scientific or networking standpoint.

During my visit, I persistently felt like a prey that is being pursued. In my detailed account below, I write about the insistence from my host, the continuous balancing on confrontation at the risk of displeasing him, the tension and the going against my wishes when I clearly and repeatedly indicated that all I wanted was to discuss mathematics.

Following the visit, feeling disheartened and upset, I reached out to Mung for moral support. We had previously discussed the situation of women in mathematics, and I hoped to share my recent experience as a concrete example. His answer and lack of support was not what I expected. It was particularly surprising to me given our history of collaboration and what I thought was a friendship.

Below, I include the email I sent to Mung as well as his response. I believe this exchange sheds light on the realities that women in mathematics face, despite the ubiquitous rhetoric of support for diversity in the STEM fields, the need to combat bias, to raise awareness, to address harassment, maintain professional atmosphere, etc. etc.

This was not the first time I found myself in such a situation, and it always left me feeling drained and disheartened, and questioning whether I should leave academia. When I was younger I blamed myself and agonized if there might have been anything in me that prompted the unwanted behavior: maybe I smile too much, maybe I am too enthusiastic, maybe I should not wear a skirt (and I only wear the below the knee skirts). But now I am older and I know that it was not my fault at all. Still, despite my secure professional position, the aftermath of the visit left me drained and depressed. As I wrote to Mung, the visit basically incapacitated me for three days after my return. And, the lack of support from him, whom I considered a friend, doubled the distress.

I wish to make this correspondence public so that other women who have similar experiences know that they are not alone and that it is not just “their fault”.

For my own protection, I have edited out or changed personal details such as names, university names, and specific fields of mathematics.

From: Me
Sent: Monday, November 2023 10:18 PM
To: Prof Mung

Dear Mung,

I hope you are doing well. 

I wanted to give you an account of my visit to Zacharia in the University of Pella last week. This is going to be a long email. In the past, we talked about my situation, also in the general context of women in mathematics, so my account below is meant as a quite concrete example of what I was trying to explain to you before.

Best wishes,

Anna

========

On November 9-10 I visited the math department of the University of Pella to give a seminar, by the invitation of Zacharia. The visit was so awful that if I could have foreseen even a part of it, I wouldn’t have accepted to come. Let me start by saying that I was really looking forward to that visit. I thought that Pella is a great department with many very good [field of math] experts whom I was hoping to meet. I cancelled my two classes in [my university], revamped my talk slides, and did some preliminary calculations about a possible approach to [a concrete research project] hoping to discuss and try to establish a collaboration with Zacharia. I also looked through Zacharia’s published papers which convinced me that he is an expert on [a particular topic related to that project].

On Wednesday, I took an evening flight and arrived to Pella at approx 8:30pm. In our prior email exchanges, Zacharia insisted on picking me up from the airport. I was arriving late, and it is a 40min drive one way, so I wrote him that I am perfectly comfortable with taking a taxi to my hotel and then we meet in his office the next morning. But he really insisted. So, I thought that he is just friendly and polite and agreed. But after he picked me up, the weirdness begun: he told me that we go and visit places then at night – he brought me to a sightseeing spot to look at some lake, drove to show me “nice houses” around, then downtown to see “interesting architecture”. It was completely dark and cold and past midnight in my time zone. He made me leave the car each time and walk with him despite I was repeatedly saying that all I wanted is just to go to my hotel and retire for the night. He completely disregarded my requests and was set on “entertaining me” in a pushy way, claiming that I am “young” and for sure not “this much tired” and that he knows that I will love the view, and that it is just for “a moment” etc. Well, each “moment” was another 30 minutes. He almost brought me to a fancy-looking restaurant “just to eat a little” but then I protested strongly and he dropped it. Along the way he kept telling me how many plans he has for us for these coming two days, including taking a boat ride, hiking (he will bring me the hiking shoes), going to restaurants with a panoramic view and downtown and “just wherever I want”. I said that all I want is to discuss math, to which he playfully replied that we may discuss and exchange ideas while doing all these other things. 

When we arrived at the hotel it was past 11pm. I did not feel comfortable that he definitely leaned to see my room number, but I did not want to be confrontational as I have just arrived and he is my host and colleague and I really want to discuss math with him. We said goodbye and agreed to meet in the hotel lobby the next day at 10am; I suggested that I come directly to his office but again he didn’t want that.

Thursday was my talk day. Before I describe the day, let me anticipate that the audience at my talk turned out to be minimal: Zacharia, one other faculty (not in my field of maths), two random grad students and one undergraduate. Nobody followed what I was talking about, or showed any interest so it felt like lecturing to a wall. Earlier, when I asked Zacharia about my itinerary and whom I am meeting during my visit, his answer was “you can do whatever you want”. So I checked the seminar list for that day and found one other talk which looked interesting. Zacharia clearly tried to discourage me from attending it because “we have to go to a restaurant downtown”.

In the morning that day I basically forced Zacharia to talk math and I presented my calculations regarding the [project I envisioned] on the board, explained the angle of approach and asked if he was interested in working on this together. He seemed surprised and sort of teased me that “I work too much”. He said “yes of course we will write a paper together” and we talked, but without depth or interest on his side, just superficial and general. We then went for lunch – he again wanted to drive somewhere but I convinced him that we just go to a cafeteria on campus. During that lunch I felt uncomfortable because all he wanted to talk about was gossips about other mathematicians, listing names of people and asking “who is good” and “who is not good” in my opinion, and what is my connection with them.

After my talk he refused to talk math again,  as he wanted to take me out to dinner. We drove to some restaurant and he said we wait there 1.5 hrs to be seated, so we can “spend time together”. I refused and pushed him that we eat in my hotel’s restaurant. At that time it already started weighing heavily on me that I had to fight with him all the time because otherwise who knows where he will be bringing me and at what time. At the dinner, consistently with what I felt before, he was just gathering information about me: bombarding me with questions about my family, and if I have friends and who they are (he asked me to show him a photo of a girl friend of mine on my phone, out of the blue), and if I really “love” shopping or hiking or sleeping, what kind of movies make me “excited” and so on. He kept calling me “poor Anna”, touching my arm repeatedly etc. 

I was miserable because of my talk, and all this pushing and insisting and essentially no math. To add to the injury, after the dinner he wanted to walk me to my hotel room, on the basis that he is interested to see it because he did not know if they had a microwave for guests. He even took the elevator with me to my floor but at that point I asserted myself and just said good night. He again insisted that he comes to pick me up the following morning. 

On Friday he was late for our meeting in the hotel lobby. When he arrived, he asked “what are we doing and where are we driving that day”. He was displeased when I told him that I wanted to go to the office. He teased me as before that “all he sees in me is just work” to which I then very clearly replied that indeed this is a professional visit and that I am busy with many things, so in as much as I am happy to discuss math with him, in case he prefers to do something else then this is completely fine with me and I will just go to the office or stay at the hotel and work on my own. 

We went to his office but that day “discussion” went bad. He was like upset and uninterested, spoke with a raised voice. I also felt he was condescending to me and attacking in mathematics, not listening to what I had to say, cutting me all the time and asking random and irrelevant questions – he has no clue about [a particular technique that I know well] but acted as if he knew it. I was patiently answering for some longer time but then asked if I please could show him the calculations that I prepared. Then it was bad – at some point he yelled at me that “if you just do calculations extending other people’s results then when nobody comes to your talk then don’t complain and take it”. What?? He also said some other things implying that he has quite low opinion on everything I am working on (though I am sure that he has no clue what it is). It was unpleasant and insulting. Still, to clear the air, I agreed to go to lunch and again all he wanted to talk about was what I think about other mathematicians and do I know this or that person.

After lunch I stayed in my office for one hour as I had an online meeting. Then he came for me and I managed to show him some calculations on the board; I felt that he sort of “gave up” and was just staring at me, without being involved. Finally, he said that surely I must be tired because it is quite late so let’s go to dinner – it was 5pm then and I remembered how he had no problem dragging me around at 10pm two days before, no question about my tiredness then. Since I was worried that again we will drive who knows where, during my online meeting I checked that there was a restaurant 10 min from my hotel. I told Zacharia that I really wanted to go there and I called and made a reservation myself.

Dinner was homeomorphic to lunches and the dinner before. Afterwards he wanted to go for a walk around the restaurant and I really had no force to fight with him so we went, including looking at shops and buying things in the supermarket. He wanted to bring me to the airport the following morning but I firmly refused and said I will take Uber. He finally did not fight with me on that.

Overall, I hated every minute of my visit. It was utmost unprofessional and disrespectful to me as a mathematician. I was thinking to confront Zacharia and suggest that in the future he hires an escort service instead of being cheap and using the departmental money to bring himself a companion on the pretense of inviting her to give a talk. In the effect, that visit made me so depressed that I was unable to do anything for three days after my return to [my university]. The last time when I felt that way was while visiting [another mathematician] – the insistence, the constant balancing on confrontation at the risk of displeasing my host, the dragging me in his car to places he chose, on account of “me going to love them” when I clearly indicated that I don’t. Only that [that person] was brilliant and happy to talk math all the time. He also respected me as a mathematician and when I told him a theorem while driving in his car, or walking or in a restaurant, he would listen attentively, make smart comments, ask questions and give me literature tips. He would also introduce me to people and bring them to my talk.

My visit with Zacharia on the other hand, was a complete waste of time from every angle.

==============

From: Prof Mung
Sent: Tuesday, November, 2023 5:50 PM
Subject: Re:

Dear Anna, 

I appreciate that you shared your experience with me but will not make any comments. I treasure my friendship with you and also with Zacharia. Both of you are my collaborators whom I admire profoundly, and in a small group of people I can call friends at both the personal and professional levels. 

My wife and I came to Europe a week ago. After landing, we came to [there follows a paragraph of unrelated description of his leisure travel plans].

Best, 

Mung

===========================