Women, Academia, Math: An Ephemeral Golden Braid

The relation among women, academia, and mathematics is a long-term romance which, as many love affairs, had its ups and downs (unfortunately, till nowadays more downs than ups, as we shall see). The aim of this work is to investigate the figures of the presence of female mathematicians in Italian academia, to give an interpretation of their trends, and to suggest possible good practices and affirmative actions, with a special focus on young people, to reduce the gender inequality in this area. In particular, we will report on a new tendency in recruitment that arose in recent years, the so-called Glass Door phenomenon, i.e., the obstacles women face in entering the first levels of the academic career: while the recruiting of “ricercatori” was almost gender- balanced till 2010, in the last decade the presence of women dropped down also in this role, as it was turned to a temporary one.