thusspakezuska | April 8, 2008From my email inbox: information about AWIS coaching seminars. Two dates, four times, 45 minutes in length, details after the jump.
You know AWIS as a networking and mentoring resource - Now try us as you move to the next stage of your career. If your life could use a little boost, try our new Coaching Program.
Specially designed for women in STEM fields, our one-of-a-kind team of professional coaches has put together some great packages to meet your work-life needs.
I would like to invite you to join us for a "live" coaching demonstration with
our team of professional coaches. They'll…
thusspakezuska | April 7, 2008Scientiae'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…
thusspakezuska | April 7, 2008Some 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…
thusspakezuska | April 5, 2008I'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…
thusspakezuska | April 5, 2008What 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…
thusspakezuska | April 3, 2008I've mentioned Kay Weber and her lawsuit against Fermilab on this blog before. Sherry Towers forwarded an email to me that gives an update on Kay's situation:
Those of you getting the first wave of this email probably know Kay Weber personally, but may not know the story that has been a main focus of her life for the past 4 years. Here is her story:
Kay worked at Fermilab (a Department of Energy Laboratory) for more than 18 years. She has a degree in Mechanical Engineering, is a Licensed Professional Engineer, has Master's Degrees in Computer Science and Psychology. When Kay was hired she…
thusspakezuska | April 3, 2008Physioprof 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?…
thusspakezuska | March 31, 2008Pseudonymous 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
thusspakezuska | March 28, 2008In 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…
thusspakezuska | March 27, 2008Writer'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…
thusspakezuska | March 17, 2008Good 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.
thusspakezuska | March 17, 2008You 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…
thusspakezuska | March 13, 2008Alice 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…
thusspakezuska | March 11, 2008A 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…
thusspakezuska | March 7, 2008Last 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'…
thusspakezuska | March 7, 2008According 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…
thusspakezuska | March 6, 2008Lucky 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.
thusspakezuska | March 6, 2008I 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…
thusspakezuska | March 6, 2008Bora 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…
thusspakezuska | March 5, 2008Maria 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…