Gendering Technology
thusspakezuska | March 9, 2010I failed to produce this post in time for DNLee's Diversity in Science carnival - Black History Month: Broadening STEM Participation at Every Level. That's mostly because I had a bunch of personal stuff going on in the past couple weeks that just wouldn't leave me alone. I think I'll be back to more regular blogging now.
You might have already read my brief post on Hercules, the chef enslaved by George Washington who eventually escaped to freedom. In it I noted "It was no small thing to be a chef under such circumstances, and the degree of technical skill required was surely astonishing…
thusspakezuska | January 7, 2010Maybe you tell us why they're blue.
First the name. Avatar--if you play computer games, you may know this very well--is a character you use inside an unreal world. The word Avatar has its origins in Indian mythology. An Avatar (ava-tara in Sanskrit) is god's visit to earth to fix something that is broken. Vishnu, one of the three gods who protects creation, by necessity visits earth often. Vishnu, the puranas declare, is dark-blue in color (the original story teller was inspired by blue oceans, blue sky?).
Thank you, Scientific Indian.
Maybe you go pretentious.
The point, though, is that…
thusspakezuska | November 6, 2009You should never, ever criticize something a New Atheist says about science and religion. Never tell them maybe it's not the best idea in the world to just go on about science/evolution + religion in whatever way, at whatever time, in whatever manner, for whatever reasons. In fact, you cannot criticize the speech of New Atheists even if your goal is not to tell them to shut up, but to suggest that they might get their message across better and more effectively if they tried delivering it in a different manner than the one they've been using, because suggestions like that are CENSORSHIP and…
thusspakezuska | August 4, 2009You are a male physics professor, and you want to improve science education. What could possibly be a better idea than to team up with a bunch of professional cheerleaders and make a video of them shouting out science tidbits while they shake their pompoms? Science cheerleaders!
I know, right? You wish you'd thought of it first, don't you?
The only thing worse than this loathsome idea is the Chronicle of Higher Education reporting on it with the headline "Blonded By Science". Seriously.
I am not sure whether James Trefil, of George Mason University, seriously thinks that women…
thusspakezuska | June 24, 2009Bloggingheads.tv has John Horgan interviewing Richard Wrangham of Harvard on a variety of topics related to his new book Catching Fire. The part of interest to me - and to our ongoing discussion on patriarchy - relates to cooking as a "primitive protection racket" in which men agree to protect women's food supply in return for being fed so they can just hang out and do manly shit. It's a fascinating discussion, if you can get past Horgan giggling in sheepish delight every time Wrangham points out what a shitty deal patriarchy is for women.
Interestingly, this section of the interview is…
thusspakezuska | June 9, 2009When I was a young girl, I used to watch my mother at her ironing board. There was always a lot of ironing to be done. She kept a big clear plastic bag of clothes waiting their turn at the ironing board, and would sprinkle them with water - there was a special bottle for this sprinkling. I do not think we owned a steam iron when I was very young, and dampening the clothes in this manner was an attempt to help ease the wrinkles out during the ironing process.
Eventually I became old enough to assist in the never-ending ironing chores, and my mother let me practice on pillow cases, just as…
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 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 | March 9, 2009Ironing is women's work. And women's work, we know, has nothing to do with engineering or technology. Irons are not technology; they are domestic appliances.
Collect a bunch of them, though, and they start looking like technological art objects. Then you can write a book about them.
Which is exactly what Jay Raymond has done. For the past 25 years, he's been collecting vintage electric irons.
But not just any old electric irons. Raymond had a thing for streamlined irons, whose sleek, curvy designs make them look more like an art object than a domestic appliance.
Raymond, it turns out,…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2008There was something that always bothered me about the Mac commercials purporting to show me how hip Mac computers are. It's that I never really felt included in the world of those ads.
Mac computers are personified by a uber-cool geek-chic attractive young white man. PCs, of course take on the flesh of a somewhat portly, a bit older, less attractive white man whose geek is unredeemed by any hint of cool. Did I mention they are both white men? In ad after ad after ad, we see these two white men portray personal computers to the viewing audience. You can watch the collection of ads from…
thusspakezuska | May 1, 2008From the AWIS Washington Wire:
A new collection of essays, Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering, explores how taking gender into account in the areas of science, medicine, and engineering can enhance human knowledge.
Inside Higher Ed has a conversation with the editor, Londa Schiebinger. IHE leads annoyingly with this:
The discussion of gender and science can take place on many levels. Some focus on issues of bias in who gets to do science. Others use much broader definitions, looking at the impact of gender on scientific questions and findings, as well as on who leads the…
thusspakezuska | April 30, 2008UPDATE: 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…
thusspakezuska | April 8, 2008Liz Henry's delightful, insightful skewering of the sexism deployed in an article about Google VP Marissa Mayer provides a very recent example of a pattern noted by Ruth Oldenziel in Making Technology Masculine: Women who love technology require an explanation; men who love technology are just being masculine. Oldenziel notes:
Whenever women enter computer rooms and construction sites as designers, hackers, and engineers...they need to be accounted for and explained. For decades scores of newspapers have reported, commented, and elaborated on the many "first" women who trespassed the…
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 | March 4, 2008Janet 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…
thusspakezuska | December 7, 2007I have no time for a real entry, but if you haven't yet had your daily quota of sexist nonsense, check out these two links.
Melissa McEwan parses the gender segregation at the Discovery Channel Store. (Thanks to Bora for tipping me off to that post.) In case you were wondering where to get your scientific nail polish kit, you now know. And just in time for the holidays!
And the Chronicle news blog reports on the continued sorry state of tenure for women at MIT. The comments will annoy the piss out of you. I swear someday my head will explode when I have to listen yet again to some…
thusspakezuska | November 4, 2007Ladies, all these years you've been using blenders and understood them as belonging to the category "kitchen gadget".
But when he uses the manly new stainless steel RPM blender, it's not a kitchen gadget, it's a tool!
Or so the manly man on HGTV's "I Want That! Kitchens" informed viewers this afternoon.
It was a beautiful spot on the show. We saw the happy nuclear family at home, mom reading to the kids, and dad - dad practiced a few karate kicks for the camera. That helped establish his manliness for us, prior to us seeing him in the kitchen using that gadget - I mean, the new RPM…