May 7, 2008
Category: Some Good News For A Change
I actually had to create a new category for this post. That says something about how infrequently I have something good to celebrate on the gender and science front.
Anyway, this year's Albany Medical Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research was awarded to two women! All previous recipients have been old white guys. But this year, Elizabeth Blackburn and Joan Steitz are the winners. Grrl has a nice post up here with background on the winners and some info on what they plan to do with the prize money. Peggy has a post up, too.
Next: I look forward to the day when the fact that it's a woman who won whatever prize is no longer "news". So get working on gender equity, folks, because my life is half over already.
Posted by Zuska at 3:48 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Why There Are No Women in Science
Everybody ought to read this comment by Grimalkin. Especially those of you who are so enamoured of "just speculating" and/or "considering the possibility" that women's essential biology causes them to "not be interested in" math, science, and engineering. After you read it, please stop parroting unthinking, unreflective, misogynistic crap about why women just don't go into [name your favorite technical field here].
Posted by Zuska at 3:22 PM • 8 Comments
Category: Gardening For Life
It's spring, and everything looks great in the garden right now. Well, except for those pervasive Star of Bethlehem invaders that have to be pulled out by the dozens. Star of Bethlehem is a non-native, very invasive plant that can take over your flower bed almost overnight. I spent about an hour or more yesterday pulling it out of my flowerbeds. Its flowers are white, but it's not one of the four white flowers of the post title.
The four white flowers would be: tree peony, woodland phlox, chokeberry tree blossoms, and foam flower. I am not what you would call a photographer - I take snapshots, not photos, I fear. Nevertheless, maybe you will enjoy these flower snapshots!
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 9:02 AM • 7 Comments
May 2, 2008
Category: Friday Bookshelf • Positive Actions • Recruit, Retain! • Resources • Why Aren't You Reading This?
You're a smart woman, and a fabulous scientist or engineer. You know you can be a great researcher or professional engineer. But have you given thought to doing more than your job - to becoming a leader? F. Mary Williams and Carolyn J. Emerson hope you will, and to encourage you, they've put together
Becoming Leaders: A Practical Handbook for Women in Engineering, Science, and Technology. The book is a joint project of the
American Society of Civil Engineers, the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the
Society of Women Engineers.
As the authors note in the introduction, there is plenty of research out there that looks at women in the workplace, particularly STEM workplaces; that delineates the history of women in science; and that examines inequities and analyzes social and economic issues. Most of you don't have time to wade through all the research. What you want to know is, what are the "practical, manageable actions that [you] or [your] organizations can undertake" to promote your own career and improve the situation at large for women.
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 6:50 PM • 7 Comments
May 1, 2008
Category: Gendering Technology • Why Aren't You Reading This?
From the AWIS Washington Wire:
A new collection of essays, Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering, explores how taking gender into account in the areas of science, medicine, and engineering can enhance human knowledge.
Inside Higher Ed has a conversation with the editor, Londa Schiebinger. IHE leads annoyingly with this:
The discussion of gender and science can take place on many levels. Some focus on issues of bias in who gets to do science. Others use much broader definitions, looking at the impact of gender on scientific questions and findings, as well as on who leads the research enterprise.
What's annoying is the assumption that considerations of how gender affects the science we do is a "broader" sort of inquiry than the (narrowly focused, less important, lower level) issue of bias and access. I don't have any patience for this view. In fact, I can't even see the two issues as completely mutually exclusive. They are interdependent.
Posted by Zuska at 9:02 AM • 7 Comments
April 30, 2008
Category: Gendering Technology • Moron Management • Our Innate Womanly Natures • Sex Discrimination • Stereotypes We Know And Love • What They're Saying • Why There Are No Women in Science
UPDATE: Apparently it was not clear to some people that the second "quote" below is a parody written by me, of the first quote written by someone else. I hope this clears it up.
You may want to advocate for gender equity in science and engineering. But you are just wasting your energy. Pat O'Hurley tells us so.
I'm simply saying that it is [foolish] to expect female engineering enrollment to be equal to men's enrollment, if engineering is a field which is, statistically speaking, more attractive to men than to women.
This would be an insight gained from the following sort of deeply objective and scientific analysis:
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 6:56 PM • 57 Comments
Category: Naming Experience • Science Follies • Sex Discrimination • Why There Are No Women in Science
The National Academy of Sciences has announced its latest crop of members, and there are 16 - count 'em! 16! - women out of the 72 elected. The Chronicle of Higher Education spins this positively with the headline "16 Women Elected to National Academy of Science" and the following opening:
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 1:16 PM • 10 Comments
Category: Daily Struggles • Naming Experience
Yesterday I attended a talk on gender and science. It was a very frustrating experience, because I had been looking forward to the talk. But the speaker, a senior administrator who should know better, made it a difficult and trying experience. About a third of the slides in the talk were dense data tables scanned from publications. Projected on the screen, the type was so tiny you could not read a thing on them, at least from where I was sitting in the audience. The speaker kept saying, "Well, you can't read this, but it doesn't matter, because all you need to know is..." All I need to know is, why are you wasting my time showing me slides that can't be read? It is disrespectful to your audience to not care enough to take the time to create real, readable and informative slides that summarize your research. Also, I can read your slides as well as you can. Please don't read them to me. Potential speakers take note: do not do this to your audiences. Some good advice on giving a talk: I hope that's not behind a paywall.
At any rate, in the question and answer period, a young woman raised an issue one often hears - that of senior women who not only don't mentor junior women, but treat them harder than their male counterparts. I will admit to having encountered a few women like this in my past, but I'm also aware that the opposite exists: young women who absolutely insist that discrimination and bias are a thing of the past, who seem unwilling to think about the structural features of institutionalized sexism. They'll even go so far as to defend white male privilege when you raise the issue. Here's part of what I think is at play in this.
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 12:34 PM • 8 Comments
Category: Outrage of the Week • Sex Discrimination • Stereotypes We Know And Love • Why There Are No Women in Science
For a long time now, I have not been what you would call a believer in progress. That is, I do not think things are bound to improve in the gender equity arena. I think we are in the middle of a backlash (more on that later); women's enrollment in undergraduate engineering has stalled or declined; it isn't just a matter of waiting for the old fogies to die off and be replaced with young men who won't be sexist asshats. Since sexism is structural and institutionalized, it is perfectly capable of replicating itself unless it is actively fought and dismantled.
And if you don't believe me, read this post from Female Science Professor. (Hat tip to PhysioProf.)
My colleague sighed and said that now some of the younger generation do the same thing. He sits in hiring committees and hears young male faculty question whether female applicants are capable of having their own ideas and working independently, but these issues are not raised for male applicants. He has been fighting this attitude for so long, he was discouraged that it wasn't something that went away as younger faculty were hired.
We can't afford to just sit around and hope that someday all the sexists will be dead. They're busy reproducing themselves. When they prefer hiring "people just like me", it's not just because they're white and male. It's because they share - or will tolerate - egregious sexism.
Posted by Zuska at 11:22 AM • 9 Comments
April 25, 2008
Category: Announcements • Comments Policy
Greetings, Gentle Readers. I just rescued a number of comments from hang-up in moderation. No idea why most of them got moderated - they didn't even have links in them. Some of them were made many days ago. I want to apologize to you all for not getting those comments out there sooner. I have been going through a bout of almost daily migraine and have not been on the computer much at all, let alone blogging, let alone tending to the blog. Until I get my next botox treatment and it kicks in, it may continue like this so please be patient.
Posted by Zuska at 8:05 PM • 4 Comments
April 17, 2008
Category: Burns My Shorts • Outrage of the Week • Science Follies • Sex Discrimination • Why Aren't You Reading This? • Why There Are No Women in Science
UPDATE: After posting this entry, I found out that the paper I discussed here is not actually slated at this time to be published in a peer-reviewed journal; it is merely available as a preprint. Nevertheless, I hear that the folks at Nature have picked up on this and have interviewed the author; we may see something next week there about it.
Remember that famous line about how women need to be twice as good as men to be considered half as good? A new statistical study by Sherry Towers available on ArXiv.org shows just how true this is in the world of particle physics.
Here's the scoop:
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 7:23 PM • 40 Comments
April 8, 2008
Category: Isn't It Ironic? • Moron Management
I just had to share this very recent comment with you all:
I would actually very much like to avoid this blog (and a few others), but the ScienceBlogs channels - which I prefer to having to subscribe to each and every blog individually - won't let me do so. I usually just skip over the posts, but if there is any way to stop the "content" here from cluttering up my feeds, I'd appreciate hearing about it.
Lazy, whiny, insulting misogyny asking for help in maintaining the lazy, whiny, misogynistic state - you gotta love it. That takes balls, I suppose - if by balls you mean arrogant whiny ignorance.
Posted by Zuska at 4:41 PM • 68 Comments
Category: Gendering Technology • Stereotypes We Know And Love • Why Aren't You Reading This? • Why There Are No Women in Science
Liz Henry's delightful, insightful skewering of the sexism deployed in an article about Google VP Marissa Mayer provides a very recent example of a pattern noted by Ruth Oldenziel in Making Technology Masculine: Women who love technology require an explanation; men who love technology are just being masculine. Oldenziel notes:
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 4:26 PM • 105 Comments
Category: Announcements • Positive Actions • Role Models
From my email inbox: information about AWIS coaching seminars. Two dates, four times, 45 minutes in length, details after the jump.
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 3:12 PM • 1 Comments
April 7, 2008
Category: Ludicrous Language • Scientiae Carnival • The Real Geek Goddesses • Why There Are No Women in Science
Scientiae's April Carnival is now up - actually has been up for a few days while I've been off having migraines. Peggy has done an excellent job with many thought-provoking submissions. I particularly like Mrs. Whatsit's ponderings on what it what it means to "have the balls". And I positively swooned on reading Liz Henry's submission. That's some writing after Zuska's own heart! Here's a delicious excerpt:
You can see two assumptions set up here:
- Women who like computers are ugly.
- It fucking matters.
and
It's tokenizing; it's like suggesting women are only in tech because of Affirmative Action By Boyfriend.
Read it, read it, so much righteous anger combined with fantastic writing must be read!
Finally, here's the call for next month's Scientiae. Flicka Mawa wants to know how our views of ourselves and our careers have changed over time. Whoa, that will be a particularly difficult topic for me. Hopefully I'll be able to get something written inbetween migraines which are just plaguing me these days.
Posted by Zuska at 6:08 PM • 3 Comments
Category: Announcements • Moron Management • Those Humorless Feminists
Some things have recently led me to think it might be a good time to post the following reminders on this blog:
1. The legitimacy of feminist theory as a field of intellectual endeavor or feminism as a useful guide to action and public policy is not something that is up for debate on this blog.
2. Similarly, talking about gender and science is also not up for negotiation. It's the whole point of this blog and if that distresses you, I suggest you just not read anymore.
We might debate the particulars of these topics and how they play out in real life situations. But we're not going to argue here about whether or not there's anything to talk about. If this discussion does not meet your needs, you can find plenty of places in the blogosphere to nurture your budding moronocity. This is not one of those places.
Posted by Zuska at 5:44 PM • 21 Comments
April 5, 2008
Category: Naming Experience • Race Matters • The Occasional Post on National Politics • What They're Saying
I'm watching "The Night James Brown Saved Boston" on VH1. It is an excellent program.
I was 5 years old on April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated. I don't have personal memories of what he did for America, but I grew up revering him. JFK, RFK, and MLK were equal in sainthood in my house growing up. I think I gained most of this sensibility from my mother.
One of the commenters on this program - I think it was the Rev. Al Sharpton but I'm not sure - remarked that James Brown was not a crossover artist to white America, but the artist who brought white America over to African American culture. It's just stunning to watch how he defused the potential erruption of violence in the city. He didn't need the police to protect him. He took control of the situation in the concert hall - and the city - that night. It is/was a breathtaking documentary. Should be required viewing in all our schools. If you can watch this and not be moved to battle racial injustice, you have no nerve endings left in your body.
I have a friend who recently told me that she was concerned that African Americans would vote for Obama "merely" because of his race. That he would not be able to fulfill all their dreams, and rioting would be the result. IMHO, if we didn't have a "second Watts" in response to GWB, we needn't worry about one in consequence to Barack Obama becoming president.
Say it loud. Be black and be proud.
And if you can't be black, be anti-racist.
Posted by Zuska at 10:05 PM • 5 Comments
Category: Gendering Technology • Science Follies • Stereotypes We Know And Love • Who Needs to Study Men?
What is it that the world really needs? What should we be devoting our time, energy, and talent to, in order to make this a better world? Climate research? No. Renewable energy? No. Sustainable living? No. Gardening with native plants? No.
What we really need is some computer software that can "judge" how attractive women are.
We can thank Amit Kagian at Tel Aviv University for this great gift to humankind - I'm sorry, mankind. Because what we have really been needing is a new method of judging (heterosexual, I'm sure)) standards of female beauty.
As if we didn't already have 10 gazillion magazines, tv shows, and movies to tell us what the "accepted" standard of female beauty is.
Apparently,
The study only covered female faces because "there is a greater variety of positions regarding male beauty,"
Oh yeah. All of us - white women, black women, asian women, hispanic women, homosexual men - all agree on what counts as male beauty. I'm sure the Bear contingent of the male homosexual community will totally agree with what white women in New York City think counts as male beauty.
Take home message: women have beauty, which can be quantified, but men are all the same.
Sooooo glad to see that years of research time were spent on this important project.
Posted by Zuska at 9:29 PM • 19 Comments
April 3, 2008
Category: Linkfest • What They're Saying • Why There Are No Women in Science
Physioprof weighs in on the issue of pseudonymous blogging and "blogging while female" phenomenon. It's a good read.
Peter Sagal, who hosts NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" has a piece on gender inequity in Whoville. It's awesome. An excerpt:
And there's this -- not only does the movie [Horton Hears a Who] end with father and son embracing, while the 96 daughters are, I guess, playing in a well, somewhere, but the son earns his father's love by saving the world. Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?
Hat tip to Karen Petersen of the National Girls Collaborative Project, via the WEPAN listserv, for that one.
Why didn't I ever think about bribing my doctoral adviser?
Posted by Zuska at 5:42 PM • 4 Comments
March 31, 2008
Category: Daily Struggles • Linkfest • What They're Saying
Pseudonymous blogging - and commenting - is common. Some like it, some don't; some see the need for it, some don't. Whatever side you're on, you might be interested in these two recent columns from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Against pseudonymous writing
For pseudonymous writing
Posted by Zuska at 7:08 PM • 4 Comments
March 28, 2008
Category: Friday Bookshelf • Gardening For Life • Positive Actions • Why Aren't You Reading This?
In the spring a suburban homeowner's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of lawn.
Originally uploaded by garethjmsaunders.
Fertilize! Break out the emergent herbicide! Fire up the sprinklers! Here comes the lawn mower and weed whacker! The relentless battle to maintain a time-, energy-, and resource-consuming monoculture that provides a perfect habitat for Japanese beetle grubs has begun!
Or maybe...just maybe...you could try something different this year.
Douglas Tallamy, University of Delaware professor of entomology and wildlife ecology, hopes you will, and tells you why you should in his lavishly illustrated book
Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens. This book is worth the price if only for the many beautiful photos of insects and native plants.
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 4:14 PM • 7 Comments
March 27, 2008
Category: Daily Struggles • Why Aren't You Reading This? • Why There Are No Women in Science
Writer's block sucks. So I did what I often do when I'm faced with a problem I need to solve: I bought a book. The book in this instance, Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer, was originally published in 1934 and was out of print for some time until a recent reissue. It is a charming read. I can't tell you yet if it's going to cure all my writing problems, but I did want to share this quote with you:
It is unfortunate, but the unimaginative citizen finds something exquisitely funny about the idea that one aspires to make a name and a living by any such process as "stringing words together". He finds it presumptuous when an acquaintance announces that he has elected to give the world his opinion in writing, and punishes the presumption by merciless teasing. If you feel called upon to correct this unimaginative attitude you will have opportunities enough to keep you busy for a lifetime, but you will not - unless you have an extraordinary amount of energy - have much strength left for writing.
I couldn't resist adapting this for women in science and engineering:
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 6:03 PM • 5 Comments
March 17, 2008
Category: Linkfest • Recruit, Retain! • Report Roundup • Resources • Stereotypes We Know And Love • Why There Are No Women in Science
Good stuff from the AWIS Washington Wire:
A new website on reducing stereotype threat.
The engineering of ice cream, from Yale's first female dean of engineering.
"More than half the women in the world live in countries that have made no progress in gender equity in recent years. " See the Gender Equity Index website for more information.
"Women in Europe earn about 43% of doctoral degrees in science, but hold only 15% of senior academic positions." More info in this report.
Posted by Zuska at 4:05 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Linkfest • What They're Saying
You just have to read Non Sequitur today. It's a great strip in general but I really liked today's comic for reasons that will be obvious to you.
Lab Cat has announced a Fortnight-long Food Fest.
In fact I am so excited about food and my "F" that I am having a food fest for the next two weeks. I am not going to promise that I will only post about food*, but I am going to try to center my blog around food science, food, molecular gastronomy. If you want to join in my Fortnight-long Food Fest, post a link in the comments.
That's Lab Cat's comments, not mine, of course.
The Science Debate 2008 folks held a press conference in Philadelphia last Friday, at the Franklin Institute. (I wasn't able to attend, which was a bummer for me.) You can watch the press conference here. The press conference is about 30 minutes long. Are the candidates listening? I hope so. One of the more interesting reasons I heard given for why the candidates should debate is that preparation for the debate would take at least 40 hours. That's 40 hours more that the candidates would spend learning about science & technology issues facing the nation than they would otherwise.
Bill Gates testified to Congress last week. Bill says we must prioritize four fundamental goals:
- Strengthening educational opportunities, so that America's students and workers have the skills they need to succeed in the technology- and information-driven economy of today and tomorrow;
- Revamping immigration rules for highly skilled workers, so that U.S. companies can attract and retain the world's best scientific talent;
- Increasing federal funding for basic scientific research, to train the next generation of innovators and provide the raw material for further innovation and development by industry; and
- Providing incentives for private-sector R&D, so that American businesses remain at the forefront in developing new technologies and turning them into new products and services.
Dan Greenberg is annoyed because he thinks this is the same old scare-mongering about a shortage of scientists and engineers that never materializes, and is only designed to provide university research budget increases and relaxed immigration rules so that companies can hire cheap foreign labor. I don't think this is exactly what Bill Gates is saying but you can decide for yourself. Well, except maybe the "revamping immigration rules for highly skilled workers" bit.
Greenberg writes for the Chronicle's Brainstorm blog, commenting on science and technology policy and politics. He usually has something interesting to say.
Posted by Zuska at 1:52 PM • 2 Comments
March 13, 2008
Category: Naming Experience • Race Matters • Tales From The Coal Patch
Alice recently told her ethnic story over at Sciencewomen, and asked others to join in the attempt to "displace white from the default position". Of course lots of comments ensued; her follow-up is here, and well worth reading. In the follow up you can find links to others who took up Alice's challenge.
I've been lying around with headaches most of last week and this one, thinking about what kind of post I might write as part of Alice's challenge. I have to admit I find the task quite daunting, which gives me some new insight as to why some of my fellow Sciencebloggers were loathe to contribute to Scientiae the few times I asked. Afraid to say something Really Wrong that will offend everyone. It's the understatement of the year to observe that race is not easy to talk about. It's not just that white people (self included) are very blind to white privilege most of the time. We are also blind ourselves to what it actually means to be white, what is this condition we call white. Which is itself a form of white privilege, but one that I think actually hurts white people in some ways.
So, I now jump into the abyss with my story...
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 3:06 PM • 20 Comments
March 11, 2008
Category: Isn't It Ironic? • Our Innate Womanly Natures • Stereotypes We Know And Love
A reader recently emailed me about Sociological Images. What a great blog!
WHY: What with the kids these days being all media-saturated, a good image is often more effective for getting a point across than all the citations, repetition, or jumping up and down and saying "really I swear" can ever do. This blog is a space for us to share those really fantastic images.
OUR AUDIENCE: We assume that you, our audience, are sociologically-inclined folks. So we do not typically include a lengthy sociological interpretation of the images.
DIALOGUE: We are aware that images are polysemic and that people will use them in many different ways, so our commentary, when offered, is never meant to control how people use the images (as if we could anyway). We welcome comments that offer additional or alternative interpretations of images, in fact we'd love them, but let's not get into any fights about what an image does or doesn't mean.
Do spend some time on this blog. Warning: May increase blood pressure.
In particular reader MoonSinger wanted to draw my attention to this post titled " 'Your Body': Men Are People And Women Are Women". My sister went to see Bodies: The Exhibition when it was in Pittsburgh and I was wishing I could have gone with her. Not now, though. You can get exhibit-related merchandise here. Not surprisingly, the merchandise depicts images of 'people' , not women.
Posted by Zuska at 4:07 PM • 4 Comments
March 7, 2008
Category: Ludicrous Language • Manifestoes • Naming Experience • What They're Saying
Last month I wrote about children, academic careers, and moms. Lively discussion ensued. Here's something you should read for a follow up, and hat tip to Sciencewoman for the link:
Let me reminds you, once again, that people do not "choose" to have kids. A lot of people choose *not* to have kids--birth control, wealth, and modernity certainly contribute to this decision, which is perfectly irreproachable, by the way--but reproducing is not a conscious decision. It is something that the bodies of living creatures simply DO. It is, in fact, part of the definition of "living."
If Bitch, PhD's post isn't enough to straighten out the knickers you got in a knot over the discussion on my post, then read this one, too.
Later on someone says, "I thought that people who have children do it largely because they want to." No. People have children because if you fuck someone of the opposite sex, chances are that sooner or later you (or, if you are a man, your partner) will get pregnant. It's lovely that we have ways of avoiding this, and tragic when people who want kids find out they can't, but let's not be stupid: having children is not the choice. NOT having children is the choice.
For god's sake, read both posts before you write something stupid here about how having a child is too a choice and people should just deal with the choices they make.
Posted by Zuska at 6:28 PM • 14 Comments
Category: Geekalicious • What They're Saying
According to the Chronicle news blog, computer science enrollment is down by half since 2000.
...undergraduate enrollment in computer-science programs had fallen to half of what it was in 2000 (15,958 to 7,915, to be exact).
But according to Inside Higher Ed, the computer science major has rebounded!
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 5:09 PM • 6 Comments
March 6, 2008
Category: Announcements
Lucky for Scienceblogs - Jane of See Jane Compute has just moved in with us!
Scienceblogs has really needed someone from a computer science/engineering perspective. I am thrilled to pieces that she has signed on.
Posted by Zuska at 5:26 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Burns My Shorts • Gratuitous Sexism • Stereotypes We Know And Love • Why There Are No Women in Science
I don't think this is what Dave Munger had in mind when he recommended using graphics in your blog posts, at the NC Science Blogging Conference.
For the last two weeks, this post has been one of the top 3 posts on Scienceblogs - the number one post last week.
This is the kind of post I would expect to find on an adolescent male's science blog. But hey, why not use objectification of women to boost your science blog? Apparently it works.
Afarensis, I puke upon your pseudonymous shoes.
For whose benefit, we might ask, has Afarensis posted this bit of cheesecake? Why, for the benefit of the male gaze, most assuredly.
The defining characteristic of the male gaze is that the audience is forced to regard the action and characters of a text through the perspective of a heterosexual man; the camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events. The male gaze denies women agency, relegating them to the status of objects. The female reader or viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male.
I'm sure there are a number of you eager to start typing in the comments about how I'm anti-sex and I take things too seriously and hey, it's just human nature that men like to ogle women. Talk to Mr. Zuska about the anti-sex thing; he'll be surprised. I do take seriously incidents of gratuitous sexism because while each is just one tiny thing in and of itself, over time they add up to the mountain that is our sexist society. And men ogling women? I have no problem with men being attracted to women. I just have a problem with objectification and gratuitous use of the female body as a product for consumption. Afarensis's post is no better than the chowderheads I had to deal with in grad school who thought soft porn calendars in the lab were just A-OK. It's already difficult enough to be taken seriously as a woman scientist without your colleagues plastering the walls (and the science blogosphere) with cheesecake.
That blog post sends a message - whether Afarensis intended it or not - that it's still a boys club, where women exist for the pleasure of men, not as equal colleagues in science. Crap like this doesn't surprise me, but it sure does disappoint me.
Posted by Zuska at 4:34 PM • 14 Comments
Category: Announcements • Geekalicious • Linkfest • What They're Saying • Why Aren't You Reading This?
Bora has posted an interview with me at A Blog Around the Clock. See here for all the interviews in the series. He keeps adding new ones so check back now and then.
Via the Chronicle news blog, I found this wonderful site with all of Audobon's paintings of North American birds. Bird lovers, rejoice! Thank you, University of Pittsburgh!
Again via the CNB, The Scientist has named names - the best places for postdocs to work. The Chronicle advises:
Read the fine print: Only 17 international institutions (and 82 in the United States) received five or more survey responses; the magazine did not rank those that received fewer entries.
It would be cool to see a similar survey of "best places to work if you are a member of an underrepresented group." Would it come out the same???
Amazon thinks I would like this book. It does look interesting.
Objectivity has a history, and it is full of surprises. In Objectivity, Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison chart the emergence of objectivity in the mid-nineteenth-century sciences--and show how the concept differs from its alternatives, truth-to-nature and trained judgment. This is a story of lofty epistemic ideals fused with workaday practices in the making of scientific images.
Also sounds like it would feature plenty of nifty illustrations. I shall read it, of course, in my spare time, after finishing all my other TBR books.
Posted by Zuska at 3:03 PM • 2 Comments
March 5, 2008
Category: Announcements • Linkfest • Naming Experience • Race Matters • What They're Saying • Why Aren't You Reading This?
Maria told me about WOC PhD. A link in this post led me to the Feminist Studies Collections: Women of Color & Women Worldwide pages, from which I hopped to the Women of Color page from the Wisconsin Women's Studies Librarian, which in turn took me to Joan Korenman's Women of Color websites list. Joan's excellent list includes Black Women in Mathematics, Digital Sisters, summaries of a few studies, and Sister Mentors, among others.
Abel pointed me to Urban Science Adventures! - which, by the way, has a nice post on women's history month up. Also, Diary of a PhD Student, Education and Class (read this entry), and Field Negro, whose motto, "Silence is never golden!", I totally love. It's freakin' brilliant.
Janet reminded me of Acmegirl (who comments occasionally on this blog) and her blog Thesis - With Children. Read her contribution to the latest Scientiae carnival. Also, See Jane in the Academy.
Dang. I've spent all afternoon on my computer and this link post is all I've managed to produce. Writer's block continues to haunt me (plus five days in a row with headache)...but there are two crocuses blooming in my garden, and a few snowdrops survived last year's planting. Renewal must be just around the corner, no? Well, be sure to check out Scientiae, as mentioned above, and read what everyone has to say about renewal.
Posted by Zuska at 6:41 PM • 0 Comments
March 4, 2008
Category: Daily Struggles • Gendering Technology • Linkfest • Sex Discrimination • Sexual Harassment • What They're Saying • Why There Are No Women in Science
Janet Stemwedel has a lengthy, informative, interesting post on that eternally troublesome question: When in my graduate career should I have a baby? After reading it, I am put in mind of that New Yorker cartoon with the guy on the phone, looking at a datebook on his desk, saying "How about never? Is never good for you?"
The Chronicle news blog reports on a former professor at U. of Georgia with a "long record of sexual harassment." What's a university to do when one of its professors is found to be in violation of the sexual harassment policy? Why, pass him along to another university, of course. Where he will be rewarded by his profession by being made editor of a journal. Makes me wanna puke on somebody's shoes.
To take the bad taste out of your mouth after that last one, go take a look at the Women's Bioethics Project. Regular readers of Adventures in Ethics and Science may already be familiar with this site.
The Women's Bioethics Project is the leading nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy think tank dedicated to ensuring that women's voices, health concerns, and unique life experiences strongly influence ethical issues in health care and biotechnology.
The WBP was founded by Kathryn Hinsch, a former senior executive at Microsoft. Ms. Hinsch promises that the WBP will "remember the bioethics issues like poverty, access to health care, and looking after children and the elderly that truly affect women's lives." WBP has a blog, with several different contributing authors. You'll like this post on a pharma birth control ad parody, and this thoughtful post on sex-segregated schooling.
Here's a website on Title IX and science/engineering. If you want to use any of the materials on the site, and would like some assistance in adapting them for use at your institution, contact Ruta Sevo. ruta AT momox DOT org. While you're over at the site, check out the link for Molly and Dollop. Take a look at Three Times A Week and read about the Every-Ready Man. Here's an excerpt:
Unlike RU-486 or Plan B, viagra is freely available. Erections are an important national resource.
Lastly, I found this via Arts & Letters Daily: a New Yorker piece on our brains and math.
In Dehaene's view, we are all born with an evolutionarily ancient mathematical instinct.
Intriguing!
Posted by Zuska at 9:59 PM • 2 Comments
March 3, 2008
Category: Friday Fare
I had lunch today in downtown Philly with the wonderful and always-interesting Lab Cat. We ate at a restaurant whose philosophy seemed to be "why serve a reasonable portion of food when you can serve a GINORMOUS portion of food?!?!"
This is what Cat got when she ordered a piece of chocolate cake for dessert:
Use the fork as your scale. That's a normal-sized fork. That's NOT a normal-sized piece of cake. In fact, I wouldn't even call that a piece of cake. I'd call that a little cake-berg, calved off of some unfathomably large chocolate glacier. Cat ate a portion of it that amounted to a reasonable dessert, and you could barely tell she touched it. The remainder went home with her, to satisfy her sweet tooth for many a day. I hope she didn't strain her back carrying it home.
Here's another view:
I'm afraid the pictures don't quite do it justice.
Posted by Zuska at 6:31 PM • 4 Comments
February 29, 2008
Category: Geekalicious • Role Models • The Real Geek Goddesses
Lab Lemming recently wrote to me:
However bad the situation here on Earth gets, at least there is another planet in the solar system where women scientists and engineers can work
and then directed me to this very heartening story on the Mars Exploration Rover tactical operations team. It seems that last Friday, every single person on the rather large team operating the rovers that day was a woman. Yay! Emily Lakdawalla, the author, tells us
Think about that. One, two, or a handful of women around could be explained away by the chauvinistic as token participants, the product of affirmative action. But the entire tactical team, from top to bottom -- there's no way to dismiss that; these women all have the skills to do the work, work they do every day...The Jet Propulsion Laboratory sure has changed a lot from the days when women were only in secretarial positions, and competed in an annual beauty pageant called "Miss Guided Missile" (see M. G. Lord's Astroturf for more on that story).
Miss Guided Missile, indeed. Astroturf sounds like a fabulous read...I suppose I ought to add it to my ever-growing, never-shrinking TBR pile.
Thanks, Lab Lemming, for sending this bit of news my way...it is indeed refreshing to read about a positive workplace transformation for a change! See, it can happen - so I don't want to hear about that "lowering our standards" crap ever again.*
*though I know I shall not be so lucky.
Posted by Zuska at 11:55 PM • 3 Comments
Category: Daily Struggles • Geekalicious • Making Disability Visible • Naming Experience
There's been some quite lively blogging recently over at Abel Pharmboy's pad. Of particular note was the live-blogged vasectomy:
Anyway, as a medical blogger, I will try to liveblog the process from my Palm Treo 700p at the Hospital-That-Tobacco-Built. While I hope it will distract me and relieve some of my anxiety, I'd like to post it on blog as a public service to other men who want to be selfish and make their wives have tubal ligation after the mother of their children suffered through birth(s). (I've blogged on PharmGirl's complicated C-section experience and having my scrotum hacked into pales in comparison to the pain she experienced.)
I gotta say, Abel rocks.
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 11:53 PM • 7 Comments
February 28, 2008
Category: Daily Struggles • Scientiae Carnival
Skookumchick wants me to talk about renewal for the March Scientiae. I will try, though I'm sure this would be much easier for me if I had already undergone some form of said renewal.
What do I find compelling about the work I do? What do I hope for?
I would say I hope for a day when I have no reason to continue writing this blog. I'm not expecting that to happen anytime soon, however. So, instead I will hope for the strength to continue writing. You can't believe how enervating it is sometimes to think about gender and science on a sustained basis. I think I said on this blog somewhere before, it's not like when I was little I said to myself "gee, I hope when I grow up I will get to spend large amounts of time thinking about how crappy things are for women in science and engineering!"
And yet...I still find it compelling to do this work, because there is so much that needs attending to, and because many of you write to me and tell me that it makes some sort of difference that I produce this blog. Progress is still intolerably slow, and yet having this conversation is good for all of us, isn't it? Blogging lets me say out loud all the things that have been making me crazy for years about Science and Engineering Land. Here's a modest hope for 2008: that the number of cranky commenters who think I ought to try being nice and sweet if I want anybody to listen to me will be just slightly fewer than in 2007.
What will get me through this year?
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 4:48 PM • 10 Comments
February 27, 2008
Category: Naming Experience • Positive Actions • Race Matters • Recruit, Retain! • Report Roundup • Resources • Sex Discrimination • Why There Are No Women in Science
Maybe you've been wondering just exactly how few women scientists and engineers there are in academia in the U.S. Or, to put it another way, maybe you've wondered just exactly how much men scientists and engineers are overrepresented in academia.
There's a new website that gathers and presents comprehensive data you can use to answer those questions. The National Women's Law Center presents The Women's Prerogative. You can find out how many women are teaching in science and engineering at your school - there are data for 150 research universities. There are fact sheets that delineate and discuss the problem and possible solutions. There's much here that will help raise your blood pressure, but I'll just note this: even in the biological sciences, where women have had perhaps their greatest success in infiltrating Man-Land, women are still underrepresented on the faculty. From 1993 to 2002, women received 45% of the PhDs in the biological sciences - yet they make up only 30% of assistant professors in the biological sciences faculty at research universities. (See Scope of the Problem fact sheet.)
The Women's Prerogative doesn't just present the data and leave you with your pissed-offedness increased. It also offers suggestions for specific actions you can take to address the issue at your university, and with the federal government. Because yes, folks, Title VII and Title IX are relevant pieces of legislation here.
So, do take a look-see at the data, and do get pissed off, but don't stop there: write to your university president or the federal agencies that fund scientific research or take any of the other actions suggested on the web site. Let's make some noise!
Posted by Zuska at 1:48 PM • 14 Comments
February 21, 2008
Category: Positive Actions • Resources • Why Aren't You Reading This?
Alice has a very good post over at On Being A Scientist And A Woman about resources on implicit bias, including some really nice stuff to help you counteract implicit bias in reviewing/hiring situations. Go read it!
Posted by Zuska at 5:15 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Geekalicious • Positive Actions • Recruit, Retain!
Yes, February 17-23 is this year's National Engineering Week! I'm a little late to the party, I know...I've been a little preoccupied. But today is Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day! There are events going on all over the U.S. even as we blog. But you know, you can do your own IAGTE activity at any time...it doesn't have to be today. And E-week has a list of 10 easy ways to get involved. Some of them are really easy, like #7: Donate copies of "Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers" to local libraries or a high school guidance office. "Changing Our World" is a product of the Extraordinary Women Engineers project. Another great source of information is the Engineer Your Life site, with special resources for parents and counselors as well as engineers. Finally, here's a fun site the budding engineer in your family may enjoy: A Sightseer's Guide To Engineering. I think I'm going to have to travel to Easton, PA for the Crayola Factory tour and the National Canal Museum. Check out the interactive map for nifty engineering sites near you. And take a girl to see one!
Happy E-Week, everybody!
Posted by Zuska at 3:20 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Daily Struggles • Moron Management • Positive Actions • Role Models • Sex Discrimination • Why There Are No Women in Science
What happens when you speak up about gender inequity in Japan's science culture? Why, you can expect to be accused of "tarnishing the reputation" of the university, that's what. That's what happened to biophysicist Mitiko Go when she spoke out about an instance of egregious sex discrimination. One Woman Is Not Enough, an editorial just published in Nature, recounts the tale. It's no wonder Go had to be essentially at retirement before she felt she could risk speaking up. Instead of retiring, however, she's now president of a university and a member of the Council for Science and Technology Policy. She's in a position to push for serious change.
Women make up only 12.4% of scientists in Japan, and the editorial notes:
Japan needs its women like never before. There are fewer students than available university seats and a trend away from mathematics and science among students. The society is greying, and there remains an unwillingness to open the borders to foreigners on a large scale.
There is government support in the form of money for programs to encourage young girls to enter science, but all the encouragement in the world isn't going to help if the culture of science remains untouched. That's why Go's actions as university president are so critical:
As part of her model programme, Go encourages all researchers at Ochanomizu to work 9 to 5. To do so, she has changed rules and faculty meeting schedules. This is by no means a revolution. But it may be a step in undoing a culture that has handicapped Japan by keeping roughly half its creativity under wraps. Too bad it can't happen faster.
Notice the key bit of leadership here: she has changed rules and schedules. It's not just rhetoric about diversity being good and we need more women in the workforce to stay competitive, blah blah. She's taken specific actions to disrupt the prevalent culture that excludes women. Real institutional change requires just that: changing policies and procedures, not just figuring out how to shovel more women into a hostile system and help them cope.
It may be a small step forward but it's a significant one. Three cheers for Mitiko Go!!!!
Hat tip to reader Beth Montelone on this story.
Posted by Zuska at 2:42 PM • 6 Comments
February 15, 2008
Category: Daily Struggles • Isn't It Ironic? • Naming Experience • Resources • What They're Saying
If you are, you may want to read this article over at ScienceCareers. It's very informative, with a link or two to some resources, and what's even cooler, it features quotes from Mrs. Whatsit (named "Abigail" in the article) and Sciencewoman (named "Mary")!!! Good stuff.
p.s. hat tip to my Sciblings on the back channel for letting me know about this!
Posted by Zuska at 12:28 PM • 5 Comments
February 14, 2008
Category: Announcements • What They're Saying
Abel Pharmboy reports on inaccuracies in breast cancer websites:
So it was no surprise to me and actually quite alarming to read a recent report suggesting that while only 1 in 20 breast cancer websites offer incorrect information, CAM-focused [CAM = complementary and alternative medicine] websites were 15 times more likely to contain inaccurate or incorrect information.
Go read the whole post, and the comments too.
Posted by Zuska at 6:59 PM • 2 Comments
Category: Sex Discrimination • What They're Saying • Why Aren't You Reading This? • Why There Are No Women in Science
If you find yourself in the condition of being unavoidably female, and you aren't willing to undergo a sex change operation, then your best publication strategy may be to hide the XX affiliation.
The title of a recent publication on this issue is self-explanatory: "Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors" by Budden, Tregenza, Aarssen, Koricheva, Leimu, and Lortie. Sadly, as the authors note, double-blind review is "rarely practised". If your name screams out "woman", you may be better off with an initial.
Of course, this is nothing terribly new; just a very nice and thorough documentation of the effect in one journal, Behavioral Ecology. The authors observed a 7.9% increase in female first-authored papers after double-blind review was implemented at BE. That's an increase three times greater than the increase in female ecology graduates across the same time period of the study. No similar increase was observed in comparable journals that continued with standard review practices. The authors also note that the double-blind review process may eliminate bias against less well-established researchers, where women in the field are concentrated.
This article has been discussed elsewhere in the blogosphere, including over at Grrl's place and Nature's Peer-to-Peer blog.
Grrl comments:
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 6:07 PM • 29 Comments
February 13, 2008
Category: Burns My Shorts • Daily Struggles • Naming Experience • What They're Saying • Why There Are No Women in Science
Sciencewoman ponders seen and unseen parenting responsibilities. In a discussion about parceling out responsibilities for a large project, the department chair expressed his desire not to unduly belabor a Department Dad because of his Very Special Parenting Responsibilities; Sciencewoman, however, he had no problem assigning the task to her. Until reminded by her colleague that Sciencewoman, too, is a parent. Why was Daddy's time more worth protecting than Mommy's? Well, one hopes the department chair has learned a lesson.
What really burns my shorts even more, however, are the resentful commenters who think that parents need to suck it up and not get "special treatment".
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 3:50 PM • 40 Comments
February 12, 2008
Category: Apologists for the Oppressors • Burns My Shorts • Gratuitous Sexism • Outrage of the Week • Race Matters
I've written in the recent past about why Jim Watson is bad for science, especially the perception non-scientists get of science as a result of his pseudo-scientific racist natterings. I analyzed the reactions within the scientific community to the recent Watson imbroglio.
It's far past time for me to speak up about how Watson's mess hits closer to home. I am talking about his role on the board of directors of Seed Media Group as a scientific adviser. Seed Media Group, as you may know, is the organization that sponsors Scienceblogs. I have to tell you, it is extremely disgusting to be associated with Jim Watson in this way, no matter how distant that relationship may be. Seed doesn't tell us what we should or can't blog about, but the fact remains that I am blogging for an organization that thinks hanging out with Watson is just dandy - even in the face of the recent blow-up that came after he dissed all of Africa. I have to ask myself seriously if it is a good idea to continue that association.
Here are some questions I'd love to have answered:
Read on »
Posted by Zuska at 12:46 PM • 24 Comments
February 11, 2008
Category: Announcements • The Occasional Post on National Politics • What They're Saying
Here's the word, from Sheril at The Intersection - and the word is exciting!
For months everyone has been asking us, when will there be an invitation sent to candidates...a date... a venue...
Well it's finally happened! It's official. Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Barack Obama have been invited to ScienceDebate2008.
The location? Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, named after one of our nation's greatest scientists (and greatest patriots). The date? April 18, days before the Pennsylvania Primary.
We're so close to seeing this through and now more than ever, we need you're help! This is our biggest news yet and the first tangible Call to Action for the blogger coalition beyond the announcement. The time has come to mobilize your readers.
We are asking that you not only announce the invitation, but also to engage readers to take action. How people can get involved is listed within our post here:
1. Contact the campaigns, and tell them to attend ScienceDebate2008! A list of contact information for the campaigns can be found here. (see right margin)
2. Write letters to the editor of your local newspapers, raising further awareness about this initiative. Some handy letter writing tips can be found here.
3. Tell a friend about ScienceDebate2008 (handy link here). We need to spread the word as much as possible at this critical time. We're at 13,000 supporters right now; we want to get to 15,000 supporters by the end of the week and 20,000 supporters by the end of the month. We need your help to make that happen.
This is our collective call and if there was ever a time that we need your help, it's now. We need to make a ton of noise about this. We need to make the campaigns say they'll come to Philly debate.
Together we can make this happen!
Thank you,
S & C
For other links:
Press release
Official candidate invite text
Franklin Institute
Campaign Contact Info
Philly and the Franklin Institute - awesome choice of venue.
(Not that I'm biased about Philly or anything...) Geez, it would be great to be able to attend...but I doubt I'll be on the ticket list.
Make noise! Share the info! Contact the campaigns!
Who do you think will be first to accept the invite????
Posted by Zuska at 8:42 PM • 2 Comments
Category: Announcements • Daily Struggles
It has been difficult to get back into a regular rhythm of blogging after all the time off when I was dealing with stuff for my mom. I think all that took more of a toll on me than I realized. Although mom is doing great in her new place, and seems really happy, I've still felt overwhelmed and stressed (partly because caring for her finances has been no small task.) This all contributes to blogger's block, which I experience every now and then even without provocation.
I have ideas for things I want to blog on, and one post in particular that I urgently need to do for my own conscience's sake. I hope to produce some of those for you this week. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
I thought yesterday would be my day to get going again...and then there was migraine. Today, it's a million doctor appointments. Okay, just three, but it feels like a million. One of which, I'm off to now. See ya later.
Posted by Zuska at 3:49 PM • 2 Comments
Category: Announcements
February is turning out to be quite a great month at Scienceblogs! Welcome, welcome, welcome, Alice Pawley, now co-blogging with Sciencewoman! Alice "wants to be a feminist-but-tenured professor when she grows up". I say, why grow up? except for the tenured part. That will be nice. And may both you and Sciencewoman achieve it swiftly and easily!
Alice waves hello here, and then gets right down to business here. I am looking forward to the evolution of this co-blogging experience. Also I'm curious what new name they'll pick for the blog. In the meantime, you may now double your pleasure while reading On Being A Scientist and A Woman.
Posted by Zuska at 3:35 PM • 1 Comments
Zuska is the kick-ass alter-ego of Suzanne E Franks. When not dispensing Zuska's wisdom, Suzanne can often be found gardening, reading, or having one of her thrice-weekly migraines.
