Positive Actions
thusspakezuska | June 27, 2007I recently got a notice from the AWIS - Philadelphia chapter about a film in production here in Philadelphia, called "Future Weather". The filmmakers, independent and mostly women, wrote to AWIS as follows:
We...are dedicated to bringing the stories of real women and girls to the big (and small) screen, one little story, one strong-willed girl at a time. We hope you will join us... I'm sure you are aware of the lack of positive female role models in the media, especially those with any interest, much less commitment, to science. We are hoping to change that.
Future Weather is the story of…
thusspakezuska | June 27, 2007Rice University is hosting a workshop called Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position. From an email announcement about the workshop:
At Rice University we are strongly committed to increasing the diversity of science and engineering faculty and students. As part of this goal we are sponsoring an exciting new workshop for senior women graduate students and post-docs who are interested in pursuing an academic career.
The workshop, Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position, is designed to provide participants hands-on experience to enhance their knowledge of and ability to find the right…
thusspakezuska | June 3, 2007Every week in the Currents section of the Sunday paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer runs a feature called "Influences: What Shapes The Minds That Make The News". It's basically a "twenty questions" type of thing, with the same questions each week, and each week some interesting local bigwig answers it.
This week's bigwig is Catherine T. Hunt, who is president of the American Chemical Society, and is also described as a "leader in technology partnerships, Rohm & Haas Co., in Spring House". Let me just note here that she is also an alumna of Smith College; women's colleges send a…
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 24, 2007Please don't forget to nominate posts for the 2007 Science Blogging Anthology. I've added an icon to the left sidebar that you can click on (it's the blue "Open Lab 2007" bit just below "nominate posts for") to go to the very easy, very short nomination form. Let's make sure that this year there are some posts on women and science, some posts from women science bloggers, in the anthology.
Bora tells me that nary a single post in those categories has been nominated since I made my original plea a week ago. Everybody too busy with end of the semester? And now Memorial Day weekend is…
thusspakezuska | May 17, 2007Perhaps you are familiar with the 2006 Science Blogging Anthology, The Open Laboratory, that was put together by Bora Zivkovic. It is a great collection of (most) of the best of last year's science blogging, but as Bora has recently noted to me, it is lacking something important. That is, there are NO contributions pertaining to women in science. NO posts from any of the fabulous women scientists writing about the issues women deal with daily on the job, in the classroom, in the lab.
Bora and I would like to change that for the 2007 anthology. But we need your help.
We need you to…
thusspakezuska | May 14, 2007I have to admit, I am an avid reader of comic strips in the daily newspaper. There's a lot of social commentary in the daily comics. Over the past year or two, I've watched as a few of the more conservative strips have slyly (or not so slyly) introduced references to intelligent design into a panel here and there. Here's an example I commented on in September 2005.
You will also find reflected in many comic stips stereotypical attitudes about gender. You don't have to look very hard most of the time. So when you find something different, it's really a pleasure.
Today's Baldo strip…
thusspakezuska | May 12, 2007The theme of the upcoming Scientiae carnival is "Mothers and Others, women who have influenced you along the way". So here are my musings. scientiae-carnival
I am fond of saying that my mom is the reason I became an engineer. She is not, of course, the sole reason I became an engineer, nor is she the sole person responsible for me sticking it out despite all the crap I had to put up with and all the jerkwads who tried to discourage me and get me to quit along the way. But she played a pretty significant role, and that's all the more remarkable given who she is and where she came from.…
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…
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2007Thanks to Skookumchick, there's a new blog carnival in town called Scientiae!
This is a blog carnival that compiles posts written about the broad topic of "women in STEM," (STEM=science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and may include posts:
stories about being a woman in STEM
exploring gender and STEM academia
living the scientific academic life as well as the rest of life
discussing how race, sexuality, age, nationality and other social categories intersect with the experience of being a woman in STEM
sharing feminist perspectives on science and technology
exploring feminist…
thusspakezuska | February 22, 2007Absinthe has asked me to do a mirror post of her post on this issue. So, here it is.
Several months ago I told you about the Kay Weber v Fremilab lawsuit in my post Class action lawsuits. If you read the link to her federal court Complaint contained in that post, you will see that she lived through a decade of appalling sexual harassment and even more appalling retaliation when she complained to the lab (she was successively demoted over the course of a decade from being one of the top women at the lab to eventually working under the supervision of a tech...she was ultimately fired…
thusspakezuska | February 22, 2007I've been away for awhile enjoying my usual spate of migraines that pop up at the end of a botox treatment cycle. On top of that I'm getting physical therapy for neck and shoulder pain caused by the chronic migraines; being on the computer seems to aggravate it. I'll try to ease myself back in....
...So here's a short post: The daily Chronicle report had a wonderful piece on negotiating academic job offers. Lots of very practical tips, and a link to the AAUP salary surveys. Print this one out and study it.
thusspakezuska | February 10, 2007I saw a commercial on t.v. the other night for something called the "Gender Knee" so I looked for it on the web and voila!
The First and Only Knee Replacement Shaped to Fit a Woman's Anatomy
Now, I'm not sure I love all the rhetoric on their website:
From the cells in their bodies to their taste in clothes, it's no surprise that women are different from men.
Uh, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the cells in our bodies function in much the same manner. I'm always a little wary when people start waxing eloquent about our innate womanly natures...usually they end up making pronouncements about…
thusspakezuska | January 24, 2007I think my favorite part of the day at the Science Blogging Conference was when Dr. Free-Ride gave her talk. It was titled "Adventures In Science Blogging: Conversations We Need To Have, and How Blogging Can Help Them". I am hoping she will turn this into a paper and publish it somewhere so I don't want to steal all her thunder. But I do want to share just a bit of what she talked about.
Dr. Free-Ride talked about the need for community and communication as key ingredients for human beings to flourish. She also drily noted that since, when she last checked, scientists are still human…
thusspakezuska | January 24, 2007At the Science Blogging Conference, I picked up a bookmark from the North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center. The SMT Center's website is very, very cool. If you are a K-12 teacher, or if you run an outreach program, or if you are a scientist looking to collaborate with a K-12 teacher or someone who runs an outreach program, then you might want to visit this site. They have some nifty resources and lots of good links, including some links to funding sources. This site is especially helpful, of course, if you live in North Carolina, but even if you don't live in…
thusspakezuska | January 18, 2007Everyone says "encourage your daughters to stick with math and science". And you want to do it. You're proud of your daughter, you want her to have every option in the world open to her. But what do you do when she resists?
A worried dad recently wrote with just such a dilemma:
Slightly off-thread but my daughter is determined, against the evidence, that she's no good at maths. She mentions this from time to time, for example when she's doing her maths homework.
"I'm no good at maths"
"Your teachers seem to think you're doing rather well. Your last report was excellent"
"[changes…
thusspakezuska | January 16, 2007Are you a women in a high tech job? Please consider participating in this worthwhile project; it only takes a few minutes. Lisa Gable recently wrote to the WEPAN listserve:
I am writing to share news about exciting research being conducted by Catalyst, which IBM is sponsoring, in part. Catalyst is the leading research and advisory organization working with businesses and the professions to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women at work. This study focuses on talent management and women in high tech jobs and/or companies. The research provides insight into women's…
thusspakezuska | December 6, 2006Yesterday, PZ Myers over at Pharyngula posted an entry with a link to my post on Why I Am Not Polite. And just like that - shazam! - blog traffic here tripled. Oh Mighty PZ, Zuska salutes you!
So, a hearty welcome to all you new readers, and I hope you'll stick around to join in the fun. Check out the "About" tab above if you want to get a quick overview of this blog. Or just browse about. Or whatever. It's just nice to see you here along with the regular crew, and thanks for adding so vigorously to the discussions!
Speaking of PZ, if you need a real laugh for today, go on over to his…
thusspakezuska | December 4, 2006SuzyQueue is a frequent commenter on this blog and usually has something interesting to say. I just had to promote one of her latest comments to a blog post:
I have made it a point to celebrate each 'first' woman elected to membership in the engineering professional societies by ordering a cake and having a party in the student commons area. I read a short biography of the woman whose birthday we are celebrating.
I do celebrate other birthdays and since I am buying the cake, I get to decide the event, whether it be a person's, building's, or event's birthday. I celebrate Chuck Yeager's…
thusspakezuska | November 29, 2006From the WEPAN listserv:
The University of Washington has received a grant from the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program (grant SBE-0619159) to offer a series of national leadership workshops for science, engineering, and mathematics department chairs and emerging faculty leaders. These workshops, called *LEAD: Leadership Excellence for Academic Diversity*, are focused on providing academic leaders with the skills and resources to address issues related to departmental and university culture and the professional development of all faculty. A pre-workshop mentoring-for-leadership event…