The Gender Gap in Physics, the Search for Root Causes and Lessons for Transforming Our Climate

While it is well-known that men are over-represented in physics at all levels globally, interventions to mitigate this gender-gap have taken a range of forms across space and time, which reflect a range of assumptions about its cause. I will discuss an attempt to understand the root cause(s) of this over-representation primarily in the Indian context. Combined with the obvious disparities along dimensions other than gender, this attempt leads us to the importance of interrogating the idea of merit itself, in order to transform the culture of physics.