‘Is this satire?’: Women in maths poster goes viral for advertising four male speakers

A women in maths organisation at a US university has been criticised for a poster featuring only male speakers for an event.

Stephanie Driggs, 20, a graphic design student at the Brigham Young University in Utah shared a photo of the poster on campus after tracking it down from an Instagram post by a friend.

Captioned “… is this satire?” the poster advertised a talk for women in mathematics by four BYU professors, saying “come learn about research done in data science topology, number theory and dynamical systems”.

Driggs took issue with the presence of four male speakers on a poster for a women’s event.

“It was not intended to be a personal attack on whoever created the poster, but rather an opportunity to raise awareness and get a conversation started about sexism and the lack of female representation in STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs.”

It seems many on the social media platform agreed with her; the tweet was retweeted over 10,000 times.

Some, however thought the issue was down to bad design, citing the club welcomed female speakers regularly.

Driggs said the reaction has been “crazy”.

“When I initially posted the tweet, I knew it would probably get a little more traffic than my other posts, but I did not expect it to get the amount of attention that it did,” she said.

“The posters have been replaced with a more appropriate message. We very much value the Women In Math organisation.”

The department did not yet respond to a request for further comment.

The Women In Math club meets every fortnight to network and support women in the subject.