feminism
pharyngula | March 17, 2008From among our most German friends, I found this article on WeiterGen on women in science that led to an article by one of my favorite scientists, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, that I found rather disappointing.
She describes her experiences as a woman in science of a previous generation, in which the discrimination was much more overt. She experienced seeing her work given to the credit of her male peers, of working under bosses who told her that women couldn't do as well in science, and of working to the top of her profession to find a paucity of female colleagues and to find herself as the…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Feminist Carnival
The 53rd edition of the Feminist Carnival is now available for you to read and enjoy. I think the host blog, Uncool; In Vino Veritas is quite interesting, so you should plan to stick around for a look after you've read the carnival links.
grrlscientist | February 9, 2008tags: gender bias in science, female scientists, science publishing, sexism, feminism
I have been thinking about this problem of reviewer bias against female scientists and have a proposal: all scientists should either choose or be randomly assigned a gender-neutral first name, such as "Lee", "Alex", "Jordan", "Reese" or "Ali" or something like that, followed by the initials denoting the scientist's real first name, along with as many more initials as that person desires, and ending with the surname, spelled out. Thus, if a reviewer is subconsciously biased against his (or her) female…
mikethemadbiologist | February 1, 2008From commenter mcc over at Pandagon:
"Post-racial" just means "after we all agreed not to talk about race anymore".
"Post-feminist" means something similar.
Indeed.
mikethemadbiologist | January 30, 2008Conservative blogger Ben Domenech, in a stereotypical display of rightwing 'humor'*, writes an imaginary speech for Fred Thompson's withdrawal announcement (italics mine):
I have never seen such a bunch of pansies strutting about pretending to be leaders.
Rudy Giuliani? Slick cheater. Mike Huckabee? Jesus freak. John McCain? Crazy. Mitt Romney? Woman.
That says everything, although 'insecure, pencil-dick weenie' probably wouldn't be superfluous.
*There are funny conservatives (Christopher Buckley often cracks me up), but among movement conservatives, much of what passes for humor would be…
grrlscientist | January 27, 2008tags: All Women Blogging Carnival, blog carnivals
The latest edition of the All Women Blogging Carnival is now available for your reading pleasure. They included a submission from me, too.
grrlscientist | January 21, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, Female Scientists, science publishing, science blogging, gender bias, sexism, feminism
A microbiologist at work.
Image: East Bay AWIS.
In the wake of the Science Blogging Conference in North Carolina, which I was unable to attend due to financial reasons, The Scientist's blog published a piece today that asks "Do Women Blog About Science?" This article was written partially in response to the kerfuffle that was triggered last year after The Scientist asked what were their readers' favorite life science blogs. Several women, including me, noticed that they only…
mikethemadbiologist | January 9, 2008A tale of two political videos. First, girly:
Now, manly:
Here endeth the snark.
pharyngula | January 5, 2008Although this article does make a very good case that you can't be a feminist and religious at the same time. Even the most peaceful religions, like Jainism and Buddhism, treat women as inferiors.
The article doesn't mention any female-centered religions, though, like Wicca…I suppose you could be a Wiccan feminist, but you're still stuck trying to believe in crazy stuff.
pharyngula | January 4, 2008Those darn human rights organizations keep meddling in people's personal affairs — for instance, they think fathers and brothers shouldn't be allowed to beat or kill their wives and sisters if they have been dishonorable, and that women ought to report abuse to the police. Don't they know that violence against women is a good thing? There are perfectly good reasons for it.
Relationships between fathers and daughters or sisters and brothers also provoke argument from human rights organizations, which propose the suggested solutions for all relationships. Personally, I don't think fathers or…
grrlscientist | December 27, 2007tags: I and the Bird, blog carnivals
The latest edition of the SheBlog carnival is now available. It is interesting to note that this blog carnival will be the featured blog carnival next week on the blog carnival site (does this make sense?).
grrlscientist | December 10, 2007tags: she blog carnival, blog carnivals
The 7th edition of the She Blog Carnival is now available for you to read. This carnival has some really interesting and important essays, especially the one about the rate of poverty in elderly women.
pharyngula | December 4, 2007Ladies! Here's the class for you!
The class, "Biblical Model for Home and Family," is one of nine courses, with others focusing on the value of a child, clothing construction, nutrition, and meal preparation, that make up a homemaking concentration Southwestern began offering female humanities majors this fall.
The move has attracted criticism, but Bible-based homemaking courses aren't that unusual. Masters College, a Christian liberal-arts school in California, offers courses teaching women how to cook, manage time, and "joyfully submit to their husbands." Southern Baptist Theological…
mikethemadbiologist | November 26, 2007A new divorce policy in Japan highlights the different outcomes when women are not dependent on men but interdependent with men. It's scaring the hell out of Japanese men:
A change in Japanese law this year allows a wife who is filing for divorce to claim as much as half her husband's company pension. When the new law went into effect in April, divorce filings across Japan spiked 6.1 percent. Many more split-ups are in the pipeline, marriage counselors predict. They say wives -- hearts gone cold after decades of marital neglect -- are using calculators to ponder pension tables, the new law…
pharyngula | November 19, 2007A few little videos by way of the marvelous Kevin Hayden:
Ladies, did you know that you are just like a cardboard box? We're supposed to treat you delicately and with respect, just in case you've got something in your uterus. If you've had a hysterectomy or you're menstruating, though, and we know the box is empty, well, we don't have to worry about you so much.
Guys, did you know that you are followed everywhere by a mob of enthusiastic, hyperactive sperm? I love how both sexes can be objectified by the functions of our gonads.
I've shown the video for this one before, but I'm going to…
pharyngula | November 14, 2007ScienceWoman has exactly the right idea on combining academia with the profession of being a human being. I was amused at the part of her manifesto that says she'll draw the line at a moderate work-week of 50-60 hours — it's a good goal, but it's strange how it's simply taken for granted that academics will put in those 10+ hour workdays.
grrlscientist | November 9, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, women in science, feminism, gender disparity, academia, career
Image: East Bay AWIS.
An article was published in today's issue of Science that explores the reasons that female scientists are not achieving that elusive Principle Investigator (PI) status that is generally thought to be the epitome of success in academe. In short, this article argues that family responsibilities hold women back; women sacrifice their own career aspirations to care for children or elderly parents, and they also are more likely to sacrifice their career in favor of their spouse's…
grrlscientist | November 5, 2007tags: She Blog, blog carnival
The second issue of the She Blog blog carnival is now available for you to read and enjoy. The author of this blog carnival says it has received such a tremendous response that she is planning to change it from a once-per-month blog carnival to weekly, to encourage people to visit each and every blog that sends a submission.
grrlscientist | October 24, 2007tags: Carnival of the Feminists, blog carnival
The 46th edition of the Carnival of the Feminists is now available for you to read and learn from. In addition to all the other essays they linked to, I am pleased to say that the editor also included an essay that I wrote. So get on over there and give them some support!
grrlscientist | October 22, 2007tags: humor, cartoon, abortion, anti-choice, women, religion, blogging
Image: Jesus and Mo.