Daily Struggles
thusspakezuska | February 21, 2008What 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…
thusspakezuska | February 15, 2008If 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!
thusspakezuska | February 13, 2008Sciencewoman 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…
thusspakezuska | February 11, 2008It 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…
thusspakezuska | January 30, 2008The Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting article today about the "issue of cultural sensitivity...in the world of comedy". Comedy: When The Laughing Stops looks at how comedians struggle with knowing where to draw the line - and when to go ahead and cross that line.
Some people fear that when comics don't delineate boundaries, it gives the public the impression that it, too, can freely utter offensive comments. [Chris] Rock addressed the subject during his sold-out New Year's Eve show at Madison Square Garden. Fat girls make fun of skinny ones, he said, but skinny ones can't do the…
thusspakezuska | January 28, 2008Mrs. Whatsit pointed out that Propter Doc has recently written on the topic of blogging under a pseudonym. It's a very thoughtful post and touches on many of the issues we discussed at the NC Science Blogging Conference. In the middle of the post, Propter Doc says the following:
If you blog about being a scientist then you are probably in a position where you need to take steps to conceal your identity. The world doesn't need to know what flavor of scientist you are, or even your gender.
Is this really the case? That is, does your gender not matter in science blogging, even (or especially…
thusspakezuska | January 22, 2008Coffee, good food, and the world's best popsicles - these were just a few of the perks associated with attending the 2008 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference! Not to mention mingling with 200 other bloggers, journalists, educators, and students. I've been so out of touch with the blogging world for so long recently; it was delightful to feel the energy and ideas sparking off each other. Plus, I got to meet Sciencewoman and Minnow!
Karen Ventii and I had planned to webcast our session on Gender and Race in Science Blogging, and we did, in a manner of speaking...unfortunately, it…
thusspakezuska | November 1, 2007David Perlmutter, professor and associate dean for graduate studies and research in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, has a column in the November 2 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education on knowing when to keep a secret. Perlmutter offers up some good advice about managing one's career by knowing when to hold one's tongue, or even by avoiding hearing the secret someone else is dying to share. He suggests you fend off the would-be gossipers by saying, "I think I know what you are going to tell me, and it's really none of…
thusspakezuska | October 29, 2007When I was a postdoctoral student my supervisor sent me for three or four days to what we participants called "cancer camp". It was a mini-course on the histopathbiology of cancer. We learned to interpret pathology slides, how to look at them, read them, identify cancer in all its various forms and stages. We were taught the vocabulary that pathologists use. Just as importantly, we were taught how to see. How to understand what it was we were looking at, to tease the meaning out of the brightly colored and oddly shaped masses we were looking at in the microscope. Without being taught…
thusspakezuska | October 15, 2007So, it's Blog Action Day, and we're all supposed to post something related to the environment. Science Woman has a very hopeful post about how "having a daughter has brought the idea of intergenerational responsibility into much sharper focus" for her.
What shall I tell you? I spent a good part of this afternoon clearing out a neglected, overgrown flower bed in the backyard. It was a beautiful day to be out working in the yard, warm and sunny. We're going to be in the low to mid-70s the rest of the week. That's 15 to 20 degrees warmer than average for this time of year.
It was a very…
thusspakezuska | October 8, 2007One of my readers recently wrote to me to talk about the frustrations of trying to manage a career in science while needing to work part-time for a period of time, due to health concerns.
Part-time employment is something that many of us might want to consider for a variety of reasons, at various stages in life. Maybe, like my correspondent, we're temporarily ill and can't keep to a full-time (read: 80 hours per week) schedule in an academic lab (or even a more "normal" sort of schedule in a corporate setting). Maybe there's a new child that needs our attention, and working part-time for…
thusspakezuska | September 11, 2007Female Science Professor works with Professor Troll. Perhaps many of you have a similar colleague or acquaintance.
What do you do when you constantly have to rub shoulders with Professor Troll's ilk? Like mosquitoes in summer, they buzz around strong, intelligent women, unable to stay away, compelled to bite with the little meanness of remarks on your lack of merit, while simultaneously injecting the irritant of blather based on their wildly inflated ego. You will find the words "rigorous" and "hard science" and "real scientists do/would/are..." popping up in their conversation a lot.…
thusspakezuska | August 22, 2007Since I don't work I have a lot of time in the morning to listen to talk radio. One of my favorite shows is Radio Times With Marty Moss-Coane. Marty, you rock, girl! She can wrangle arguing guests or a too-chatty caller like nobody's business.
Today's show was all about the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal. In the second hour she had historian Edmund Russell on the show to talk about the history of dog-fighting, and a sad tale it was. At one point he spoke about having encountered a man somewhere in the south who was involved in the related "sport" of cock-fighting; he asked him if he…
thusspakezuska | August 15, 2007Female Science Professor has been posting a set of tales based on her recent, annual trip to spend quality time with the extended family. Those of you with families should be able to sympathize.
In Men Are So Special, she reminisces about last year's bang-up good times:
It might be easier to endure these family visits if I could get away once in a while and take a break from making sandwiches for my uncles, but our family get-togethers occur on an island, in a house surrounded on 3 sides by tall trees and on the fourth side by a cliff. I think it would be easier to escape from Alcatraz.…
thusspakezuska | August 11, 2007The other day I wrote, half in jest (but only half), about the threat of women taking over the nation's technical universities and thus filling up campus wastecans with used menstrual pads and tampons.
This inspired Absinthe to comment:
Your comment about the trash cans hits a nerve with me... don't even get me started on the issue of female bathrooms in physics departments I have worked/studied at. At UPenn (for instance) for two years I had to hike down three flights of stairs and over to an annex of the physics building to get to a women's bathroom that had a total of two stalls and was…
thusspakezuska | July 31, 2007You can study it scientifically, gather the data, analyze it, publish it in Science, and have it discussed on NPR. But by golly, if you are asking us to give up cherished stereotypical beliefs about male and female nature, then you can just take your data and shove it, mister! You are wrong, wrong, wrong, because My Personal Feeling About How Things Are says otherwise.
This, of course, would be the kind of reaction stirred up by Matthias Mehl et al.'s study Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?, published in the July 5, 2007 issue of Science. Let us consider the abstract from the…
thusspakezuska | July 30, 2007The word of the month is "balance", or so they tell me for the upcoming scientiae-carnival. I have been thinking for days about what I could write on this topic. What does balance mean to those without careers?
I can talk about stuff from the past, how I made choices about balancing career and relationship over a period of several years. First there was the decision to leave my life in Philadelphia and all my friends to move to Kansas, because I wanted to continue living with Mr. Zuska. That was a hard decision, but I was able to find a job that represented a significant career advance…
thusspakezuska | July 24, 2007That fabulous group of women, the X-Gals, is back with the last of their installments in the Chronicle of Higher Education and it is truly Must Read C (of Higher) E.
This last installment is titled On the Origin of Academic Species and it is a cataloging of the various types of folks who've responded to their columns over the past year. Included, as might be expected, are The Generally Disgruntled, The Me-Too, The Condemning Wo/man, and The Dismissive Male. Of the latter, X-Gal Tess Isaac writes:
...when Jana described an adviser who told her to choose between work and family while her…
thusspakezuska | May 31, 2007From the Chronicle of Higher Education daily update, I learned about a forthcoming book, Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers:
In the new book, Ms. Mason and Ms. Ekman say it is common for women who start off in fast-track jobs in law, medicine, academe, and business to slip into the "second tier" once they have children.
Those jobs, they write, have fewer and more flexible hours, but do not pay as well and offer less responsibility. It is often difficult for women who slip into the second tier to make it back into the upper echelons of an…
thusspakezuska | May 4, 2007Info, resources, network, academic life - it's all good.
From the WEPAN listserv:
The National Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife combines into a single website information resources and community discussions to support those who study or participate in academic work: faculty, administrators, graduate students in the pipeline, staff.
Up to date articles, policy examples, and discussions are available on topics ranging from family-friendly benefits, tenure attainment, and faculty satisfaction to policy development, productivity, and demographics. This one-stop website was developed at the…