Critical Mass: Women and Diversity in Economics is an initiative seeded in the fundamental belief that women and their economic contributions are core to the economy and to economics. 

After decades of debates about increasing the representation of women in economics that have produced disappointing results, we have chosen to call out Adam Smith (1723-1790) and his work as having laid the basis for the persistent gender blindness in the field of economics. Smith was radical in the way he did not speak of women and relegated women's work in the household as non-productive. The marginalization of women in the economy is rooted in Smith's theoretical framework of the industrial, market economy, which translated over time into very low representation of women in leadership positions in a scientific discipline which is highly influential in our world today.

The discipline is increasingly recognizing the issue of low representation of women and diversity, but in the search for solutions the focus is still on bringing more women to economics, an 'add women and stir' formula. The problem, we argue, is not that women lack interest in economic questions, concerns, and policies, but rather that economics is still fundamentally wedded to an approach to gender that goes back to the eighteenth century. Bringing up the issue of gender-based assumptions in economic theorizing and research, as is, for instance, done in the field of feminist economics, still faces resistance by most economists.   

To move forward and evolve as a discipline and in practice, we believe that the economics community must openly acknowledge the limitations of Adam Smith's work with respect to the conceptualization of women's economic behavior and their contributions to the economy, its impact on later generations of economists, and the economy at large. It is our strong conviction that unless this issue is addressed and the agency and economic contributions of women fully integrated into economic analysis, only a very limited number of women will choose to study and make a career in economics.  

After decades of efforts to bring more women into the pipeline in economics, from undergraduate students to professors, the numbers have stalled and recently even gone down. The average proportion of women economics majors is around 30%, the proportion of full professors, those who have the best chance to impact the direction of the field, hovers around 15%. To change the culture of economics, however, a critical mass of 30-40% is needed. Only then can women speak of their experience and from their perspective without having to be concerned about going against the dominant values in economics and putting their career at risk. The insight of women and men of color is much needed to transform economics into a scientific field of study that includes a wider set of perspectives and can therefore become more objective and effectively address today's problems and threats. It is time for a new approach, comparable to the path taken to bring more women onto the boards of corporations. We propose using the competition between universities, regulation in the academic field, regulation by the government as employer and provider of funds, and the pressure of public scrutiny to break through the bias in the culture in economics. 

The closed culture in economics is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with expeditiously. We have the tools to do that; experiences in the STEM fields provide ample good examples. We are, however, beyond the phase of leaving this to the dominant regime in economics. It is time for more rigorous methods, such as the use of regulation, directed investment in knowledge development, setting targets, and monitoring outcomes.