thusspakezuska | June 4, 2009I'm visiting with mom this week, taking her to a number of doctor appointments and dealing with some minor medical issues. No time for stuff I promised you like the second post on Chapter 1 of The Gender Knot.
So what I want you to do, to pass the time while you wait for me to show up again, especially those of you who consider yourselves to be white, is go and read this: Shinin' the Lite on White Privilege. I promise it will shake up your thinking. It sure made me look differently on my experience as a beneficiary of the land-grant university system. See if you can figure out why,…
thusspakezuska | June 1, 2009By now perhaps you have heard of the Silence Is The Enemy project started by Sheril Kirshenbaum at The Intersection with help from Isis at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess. From Sheril's post:
Today begins a very important initiative called Silence Is The Enemy to help a generation of young women half a world away.Why? Because they are our sisters and children-the victims of sexual abuse who don't have the means to ask for help. We have power in our words and influence. Along with our audience, we're able to speak for them. I'm asking all of you-bloggers, writers, teachers,…
thusspakezuska | May 30, 2009Scientiae wants to know what keeps us moving forward in our science, work, and life. I am not a practicing scientist right now, and I don't have a job, so I guess this will have to focus on life.
Perhaps it's not surprising that not working makes me feel, quite often, like I'm standing still, or marking time, while life marches by. Of course that's not true. I'd just become so used to understanding my life as paced and marked by the rhythms of work that even after all these years, it is still disorienting not to have a job.
Moving forward, I think, is a concept that belongs more…
thusspakezuska | May 28, 2009As has been noted, the recent edition of The Gender Knot has been substantially revised and reorganized, and I have been working off a 1997 edition, which is bound to cause some confusion for those of you reading the new edition. I've decided, therefore, that for the rest of the book, I am just going to have to get the new edition. I will finish out the discussion using my current text but for the remainder of the chapters I will go off the new edition.
This, combined with my upcoming (next week) week-long visit with mom, will delay slightly the discussion of Chapter 2, which I had…
thusspakezuska | May 27, 2009Welcome to our discussion of The Gender Knot by Allan Johnson. This is the first post in the discussion series. We will be discussing Chapter 1 "Where Are We?" You can find all posts connected to this discussion here.
I just noted a potential problem. There is an updated edition of the book now available. Right now I am working with a 1997 edition. I haven't decided if I will purchase the new edition; for now, I am going to keep going with my old one. But, if you are working with a new edition, you may encounter something in the book that I have left out. If so, please feel free to…
thusspakezuska | May 27, 2009I promised you the first post on The Gender Knot today, and I still plan to get it up today if at all possible. My plan had been to work on it Monday and Tuesday but most of those days I was plagued with headache and it was difficult to concentrate on writing. So, it's not done yet.
Please note Chapter 1 is available online here.
In the meantime, perhaps you'd like to listen to fellow Scienceblogger Pal MD's latest Palcast, The Kitchen Edition, which relates to my post On Being A Patient.
Or maybe you'd like to read this post by Sheril Kirshenbaum at The Intersection and just puke, puke…
thusspakezuska | May 24, 2009Longtime Zuskateers know that one of the reasons I am feel able to speak so freely is that I am not currently employed. Thus, I do not fear an employer's displeasure with what I might have to say about the sorry state of affairs for women in science and engineering in educational, academic, and workplace settings.
But now and then I do wonder...one of these days I suppose I will be in a position to go back to work. Though I blog as Zuska, my real name is right up there at the top of the page for anyone to see. To re-enter the workforce, I'll be a position of supplication, and any…
thusspakezuska | May 22, 2009UPDATE: There still seem to be some comment problems. Two entries, at least, are missing most of their comments and when I tried to test comment on one of them, the comment landed on another entry. Trying to get it fixed... (10:20 pm Fri. evening)
UPDATE: Hopefully the borked comments problem is fixed now. Some problems with the MT software, some settings were messed up...think I've got it straightened out now. If you are seeing problems anywhere on my site, please email me at
bobtownsuz AT yahoo DOT com.
Dear Readers, from where I sit, it seems to me that on each entry on my blog,…
thusspakezuska | May 22, 2009In response to my recent post on being mauled by the PA at my annual gyn exam, reader Danimal was moved by my saying this
I say if it hurts, you should feel free to yelp. And no doctor or PA should be shushing you. I am ashamed to say that when my PA shushed me, I let her make me feel embarrassed, and I actually apologized to her. That is just messed up.
to comment thusly:
You disappoint me Zuska. On the bloggesphere you have no problem barfing over someones shoes, usually when appropriate, including mine. Yet here it was entirely appropriate, yet you did not. Come on, you can do better.…
thusspakezuska | May 22, 2009Question: Did you know that there are National Historic Chemical Landmarks?
Answer: Yes, there are.
Question: What did the American Chemical Society declare to be its first National Historic Chemical Landmark, and where can you find it?
Answer: "Old Faithful", a Bakelizer or steam pressure vessel, vintage 1909. Phenol and formaldehyde were hardened at 150 C and 100 psi and voila! commercial quantities of Bakelite were the product. You can find it at the museum at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia.
I spent several delightful hours there yesterday afternoon and could…
thusspakezuska | May 21, 2009It can't be avoided. Once a year you make the trek to the gynecologist's office for the annual exam. For various reasons, the whole experience is extremely unpleasant for me, and yet I go, because I try to take care of my health. And hey, I have health insurance! And it pays for the annual exam. Lucky me, I don't even need a referral to see my gynecologist. Though I do get to pay the higher copay for "specialists". This is especially maddening as my primary care physician, a woman I respect and dearly love, could do the exam for me - and does, for many of her other patients - but my…
thusspakezuska | May 20, 2009Everybody needs to read the eight posts on Historiann's list of Lessons for Girls. I really mean that. Go NOW and read. If you don't have time for all eight, please at least read about anger.
If I wish I had learned one lesson earlier in life, it's this: it's okay to be angry, it's okay to make other people angry, and anger can work for you. (Well, that might be three lessons, but I find it hard to disentangle them, so bear with me.)
I found this link to Historiann's goodness from a comment on a post over at Dr. Isis's pad, but unfortunately I did not pay attention as to where. If…
thusspakezuska | May 18, 2009It's May, and that means farmer's market season again - yay! The pain of having to get up early on Saturday - in order to get the good stuff before it's gone - is canceled out by the tasty joys of all the good meals you can make with that good stuff. And the farmer's market has encouraged me to eat outside my comfort zone. The friendly vendors tell me about vegetables I've never tried before and give me cooking suggestions. Last year one of the vendors offered a great cookbook that has been a great help, too - Simply in Season. There's a Simply in Season website, too.
This past…
thusspakezuska | May 16, 2009Isis has a post about the secret life of scientists - an important topic, lest the young 'uns think that grown-up scientists have no lives and just sit around in their labcoats all day reading journal articles, plotting experiments, and analyzing data. Go forth, read, and be amazed by the musical stylings of one David Kroll - scientist, mentor, administrator, and guitar hero.
thusspakezuska | May 15, 2009Hat tip to reader James Ramsey...
What do women really need in computer? Because, what with our vaginas and all, our computing needs are so, so different from those of men. Thank the goddess Dell is looking out for us, with its helpful marketing strategy that emphasizes "color schemes, cases and dieting tips". Oh my god, I can accessorize my laptop? I must have died and gone to heaven! Here's a "Tech Tip" from the Della site (isn't that so cute??? get it? Dell, the real site, is gendered "guy", while Della is for us girls. I mean, who would want to buy a laptop from a guy site, right…
thusspakezuska | May 15, 2009Well, that's quite a vigorous discussion we've all been having these past few days over proto-feminist d00ds, no? I am grateful to you all for your participation and for the many good suggestions made to help proto-feminist d00ds along the path of growth. In case some of you missed it, Comrade Physioprof offered his own handy-dandy guide for d00dly commenters over at Isis's place.
With all the interest in these two posts, I'm thinking that maybe we need to spend a little more time talking to/with/for the d00dly d00ds. Herewith, I am proposing Zuska's Outreach Project For D00dly D00ds.…
thusspakezuska | May 12, 2009The next edition of Scientiae, the carnival in support of women in STEM, will be hosted by Alice and Sciencewoman on their Sciencewomen blog during the first week of June. The theme for the carnival will be Moving Forward, and you can find details about the carnival, ideas for submissions, etc. by checking out this post. Deadline is midnight UTC on May 31.
I hope I can get my act together this month and contribute. I have not been very good about this the last several months...too much going on IRL. I didn't even manage to get up an announcement about May's Scientiae, but you can find it…
thusspakezuska | May 11, 2009In the midst of a vigorous discussion on my last post, reader Deatkin expressed his frustrations as to how he might engage in a positive manner in a discussion of feminist issues. In this case, it was not the hairy-legged man-hating feminazi Zuska who was intimidating; it was Comrade Physioprof.
Now, I'm perfectly willing to accept that the problem lies with me on this... In sum, I may simply be too immature (I'm 20 and a mere undergraduate) to think broadly and imaginatively enough on feminist issues in order for me to reach a conclusion that somebody such as [Comrade Physioprof] would find…
thusspakezuska | May 8, 2009The most excellent Dr. Isis has launched her most excellent Letters to Our Daughters project. Isis tells us
The inspiration for my Letters to Our Daughters Project comes from my hope that we can recreate our family tree here, creating a forum where the mothers and aunts in our fields (which I hope to not limit to physiology, but that's where I'll start because that's who I know) can share their wisdom with us. I think there is a wealth of information among these successful women and I hope to use this forum to share it with young scientists who are yearning for that knowledge.
Today, Isis…
thusspakezuska | May 5, 2009Every manly man of means these days has gotta have a man-cave, right? Every man gotta be a caveman, right?
Wrong. D00ds, step away from your caves! You must read The Caveman Mystique, and if you cannot, as a self-respecting caveman, be bothered to read a whole freakin' book, at least read this post over at The World's Fair. Fab interview with Caveman Mystique author Martha McCaughey.
Maybe if you read the book in a techno-geeky way, say, on Kindle, you could preserve your caveman status even as you are deconstructing it????
Image from Flickr, posted by VonMurr http://www.flickr.com/…