What They're Saying

Jenny F. Scientist reports the following: Recently, three women joined my lab, more than doubling the female population. (Just in time for me to leave.) There was instant bonding, which I had only seen before among married postdocs or among single grad students. But it is lovely to have other women about. We go to lunch together; every couple weeks we all go out together for drinks or dinner. (Which I love, by the way.) Every so often one of the men comes along- we are outnumbered about 3:1- but mostly, not. Dr. S argues that this is discriminatory of me. What if the poor dears fell left out…
A great post at eduwonkette looks at gender and stereotype threat in math performance. Stereotype threat has been well-documented in "laboratory" settings, but eduwonkette reports on a study in a real-life setting: These men and women were, by all accounts, in the pipeline for math and science careers. Students in the "gender nullifying" treatment read just a few extra sentences before taking their tests: What about gender differences? This mathematics test has not shown any gender differences in performance or mathematics ability. The test has been piloted in many mathematics courses across…
What makes you a member of family, or a citizen of a nation? Over at Sciencewoman, Alice reports on a session she attended at this year's NWSA conference: In a session on the technologies of citizenship, Banu Submramaniam of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst talked about the developing practice of doing DNA maps to understand your heritage, and then linked into a discussion about how caste is argued by some activists as analogous to race, and then DNA scientists go in to study caste with no sociological or historical theorization of what it means. It's all very interesting to me,…
You all may be aware of the moronically stupid column by John Tierney that ran in the NY Times recently, an opinion piece disguised as reporting. I haven't had a chance yet to give my own response to this piece of tripe, or to show you how it is but one more piece in Christina Hoff Sommers's American Enterprise Institute-funded propaganda campaign against women in science. The Association for Women in Science wrote a letter in response to Tierney's trash. Naturally, the NY Times refused to run it. However, you can read it here. In addition, [AWIS] constructed an in-depth op-ed, also…
I've been sorting through books lately, in an effort to cull and control my ever-burgeoning collection, and of course I have to browse through each book to decide if I want to keep it. It's a slow, but rewarding process. This evening I was wandering through Migraine: The Complete Guide, when I happened across this delightful anecdote from a fellow migraineur: Many migraine patients feel that emergency departments treat them with disrespect and with disregard for the seriousness of their condition. Emergency-room personnel, they say, do not consider severe migraine a true emergency.…
Why would you celebrate Black Independence Day on July 3rd? It took the work of slaves to build America; the slaves came before the nation, so Black Independence Day would logically precede the traditional Independence Day, July 4th. On July 3rd, I joined about 200 others in downtown Philadelphia, at 6th and Market Streets, to celebrate Black Independence Day and to honor in particular the 9 slaves transported to Philadelphia by George Washington (of the 316 slaves at his Mt. Vernon Plantation), and in general, all slaves whose labor helped build this nation. (See here for background…
Kylie at Podblack asks, for the next Scientiae, "A voice in the crowd" - are you heard? How are you heard? Are you one of a team that works as a choir or does discordance rule the roost?...who really has control of the megaphone? Heh. How am I heard? Depends greatly upon the listener, and how far they've come in examining their own types of unearned privilege. Cranky, irritable misogynistic Rethuglicans hear me as a shrill, whiny, petulant, hairy-legged, man-hating, castrating feminazi. Yes, Gerard Harbison, you can think of that as an homage to you! You are a cranky irritable…
I was browsing the Women's Policy Inc. site, which is awesome, and ran across an item in the June 16, 2008 issue of The Source that just left me with my mouth hanging open. I can't find a permalink for this item; follow this link and scroll down to the fifth item, "House Approves Paid Parental Leave for Federal Employees". What's under discussion is a bill that would allow federal employees to be paid for four of the twelve weeks of parental leave to which they are entitled under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (P.L. 103-3). The legislation also would permit federal employees to…
A number of my Sciblings have taken up the challenge of the last "Ask A ScienceBlogger" question, "Why do you blog, and how does blogging help you with your research?" (See for example Alice and Janet and PhysioProf and Grrl and DrugMonkey.) I am not currently involved in research, nor am I even employed, so the second half of the question is not very relevant for me. I thought I'd turn the first part around, though, and share with you all the reasons why I shouldn't be blogging, at least not about gender and science. These are culled from comments over the past I-can't-believe-it's-been-…
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…
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…
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?…
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
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…
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'…
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! For the first time since 2000, the number of newly declared undergraduate majors at doctoral-granting computer science departments is up. They have a table that shows enrollment for the last 7 years. 2006 does look like the nadir, though it's a bit soon to tell if the 2007 number is the…
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…
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…
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…
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!