Women and Science
jstemwedel | May 10, 2009Dr. Isis asked me to write a letter for her most excellent Letters to Our Daughters project, which she describes as follows:
When I was a graduate student, I took a physiology class in which I was given the assignment to recreate my scientific family tree. When I did, I found that my family tree is composed some brilliant scientists. But, my family tree is also composed entirely of men, plus me. The same is true of the tree from my postdoc. I have scientific fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, but no aunts, grandmothers, or mothers. As I considered my career path in science, I…
jstemwedel | April 29, 2009Dr. Isis has some rollicking good discussions going on at her pad about who might care about blogs, and what role they might play in scientific education, training, and interactions. (Part one, part two.)
On the second of these posts, a comment from Pascale lodged itself in my brain:
I think a lot of impressionable girls, especially in that middle-school age group, get the idea that they can't be good at science or math if they like clothes, makeup, and boys. Is it the science/math sterotype that is the problem, or is it that girls make other choices to pursue these alternate interests? "I…
jstemwedel | March 26, 2009
Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics
by Renée Bergland
Boston: Beacon Press
2008
What is it like to be a woman scientist? In a society where being a woman is somehow a distinct experience from being an ordinary human being, the answer to this question can be complicated. And, in a time and place where being a scientist, being a professional -- indeed, even being American -- was still being worked out, the complexities of the answer can add up to a biography of that time, that place, that swirl of intellectual and cultural ferment, as well as…
jstemwedel | March 25, 2009First about those carnivals:
*The deadline for submission to the second installment of the Diversity in Science carnival is midnight (EST) tonight. It's being hosted at Thus Spake Zuska and this month's topic is "Women Achievers in STEM - Past and Present."
I myself am trying to get a post up before the deadline. If you get in under the wire, or have already written a post that you think fits the theme, submit it here.
*The deadline for submission to the April installment of Scientiae, the women in science, engineering, technology, and math carnival, is March 29. The Candid Engineer is…
jstemwedel | March 24, 2009Today is Ada Lovelace Day.
Regular readers of this blog may recall that I am a tremendous Luddite. Obviously, this should not be taken to mean I am against all technological advances across the board (as here I am, typing on a computer, preparing a post that will be published using blogging software on the internet). Rather, I am suspicious of technological advances that seem to arise without much thought about how they influence the experience of the humans interacting with them, and of "improvements" that would require me to sink a bunch of time into learning new commands or operating…
rskloot | March 21, 2009
I'm pleased to announce that, starting in May 2009, I'll be writing a weekly science and health column for Slate's new Double X Magazine. I'll be covering any and all science that might be of interest to women (note: I won't just be covering science about specific female issues -- though I'll definitely cover those). Here, from Double X's website, is a description of the new magazine:
Double X is a new Web magazine, founded by women but not just for women, that Slate will launch in spring 2009. The site will spin off from Slate 's XX Factor blog,
where we've started a conversation among…
jstemwedel | February 4, 2009There's a lively discussion raging at the pad of Dr. Isis (here and here) about whether there isn't something inherently obnoxious and snooty about identifying oneself as having earned an advanced degree of any sort. Commenter Becca makes the case thusly:
"Why are people threatened by the idea that a profession ought to have professional standards, anyway?"
1) It gives the gatekeepers even more power than they already have. Given a world where professional credentials are denied to certain groups, it can get a bit ugly. I think the worst part is that people who are traditionally trodden…
jstemwedel | January 19, 2009There were some really good discussions of ally work in the gender in science session led by Zuska, Alice, and Abel and in the race in science session led by Danielle Lee and AcmeGirl.
One of the issues that has become clearer to me is that there is an inescapable asymmetry in the relationship between allies and those (like scientists of color or women scientists) they are trying to support. (I think the discussion at Samia's blog helped me feel like I got it well enough to put into words.) An ally is someone who wouldn't have to care about the difficulties faced by members of the group s/…
jstemwedel | November 18, 2008So, at the end of the PSA I was so sick that I took to my overpriced hotel bed, forgoing interesting papers and the prospect of catching up with geographically dispersed friends in my field who I can only count on seeing every two years at the PSA. I managed to get myself back home and then needed another eight days to return to a "functional" baseline.
Checking in with the internets again, I feel like maybe I was in a coma for six months.
In particular, I was totally sidelined when Isis the Scientist issued her manifesto and when Zuska weighed in on the various reactions to Isis and her…
jstemwedel | October 9, 20082008 is the tenth year of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards to remarkable female scientists from around the world. Indeed, our sister-site, ScienceBlogs.de, covered this year's award ceremony and is celebrating women in science more generally with a For Women in Science blog. (It, like the rest of ScienceBlogs.de, is in German. Just so you know.)
In addition to the global contest, three further scholarships are given to women scientists in Germany. But, the only women eligible for these awards are women with kids. (The rationale for this is that childcare options in…
jstemwedel | October 7, 2008Let's wrap up our discussion on the Martinson et al. paper, "Scientists' Perceptions of Organizational Justice and Self-Reported Misbehaviors". [1] You'll recall that the research in this paper examined three hypotheses about academic scientists:
Hypothesis 1: The greater the perceived distributive injustice in science, the greater the likelihood of a scientist engaging in misbehavior. (51)
Hypothesis 2: The greater the perceived procedural injustice in science, the greater the likelihood of a scientist engaging in misbehavior. (52)
Hypothesis 3: Perceptions of injustice are more…
jstemwedel | October 5, 2008Last week, we started digging into a paper by Brian C. Martinson, Melissa S. Anderson, A. Lauren Crain, and Raymond De Vries, "Scientists' Perceptions of Organizational Justice and Self-Reported Misbehaviors". [1] . The study reported in the paper was aimed at exploring the connections between academic scientists' perceptions of injustice (both distributive and procedural) and those scientists engaging in scientific misbehavior. In particular, the researchers were interested in whether differences would emerge between scientists with fragile social identities within the tribe of academic…
jstemwedel | October 2, 2008Regular readers know that I frequently blog about cases of scientific misconduct or misbehavior. A lot of times, discussions about problematic scientific behavior are framed in terms of interactions between individual scientists -- and in particular, of what a individual scientist thinks she does or does not owe another individual scientist in terms of honesty and fairness.
In fact, the scientists in the situations we discuss might also conceive of themselves as responding not to other individuals so much as to "the system". Unlike a flesh and blood colleague, "the system" is faceless,…
jstemwedel | July 30, 2008You've probably already heard the news last week that a study published in Science indicates that the gender gap between girls and boys in mathematical performance may be melting faster than the polar ice caps. The study, "Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance" by Janet S. Hyde et al., appears in the July 25, 2008 issue of Science (behind a paywall). [1]
Hyde et al. revisit results of a meta-analysis published in 1990 (J. S. Hyde, E. Fennema, S. Lamon, Psychol. Bull. 107, 139 (1990).) that found negligible gender differences in math ability in the general population but…
jstemwedel | July 23, 2008Connected to my last post (and anticipated by my razor-sharp commenters), in this post I want to look at the pros and cons of routine screening mammography in women under age 50, drawing on the discussion of this subject in the multi-page "patient instructions" document I received from my primary care physician.
The aim of screening mammography is to get information about what's going on in the breast tissue, detecting changes that are not apparent to the eye or to the touch. If some of these changes are the starts of cancer, the thought is that finding them sooner can only be better,…
jstemwedel | July 22, 2008At the urging of my colleague Abel, who liveblogged his own vasectomy, I'm documenting my first mammogram. Given that I had pretty much no idea what to expect going into this, I'm hopeful that this post will demystify the experience a little for those who know they probably should get mammograms but have been putting it off.
Let me preface this by saying that there was no special reason that my primary care physician ordered a mammogram for me aside from my being 40. As such, there's no special cause to be worried for my health as I wait for the results.
Beginning of the month
Had my first…
jstemwedel | June 19, 2008In a follow-up to her review of Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women scientists speak out by Emily Monosson, Alison George decided to investigate how many women who won Nobels also did the motherhood thing:
I started at the first Nobel prize awarded to a woman: Marie Curie, in 1903. To my surprise, she had 2 children (as well as 2 Nobel prizes). Her daughter, Irene, only managed one prize in 1935, but also produced two offspring. And so it went on. Gerty Cori (Nobel prize for in physiology or medicine 1947, 1 kid), Maria Geoppert-Mayer (Nobel prize for physics in 1963, 2 kids)…
jstemwedel | June 6, 2008For the June edition of Scientiae, Zuska notes:
Taking up space in the world is a Bad Thing for women to do. We waste a lot of energy and time worrying about whether or not we are taking up too much space. ...
How do you want to take up space? How do you want to let yourself sprawl, in your professional or personal life?
In the wake of the letter informing me that I had been awarded tenure, I've been thinking about sprawl and containment a lot.
My strategy for my six years as an untenured assistant professor was to come in to the office Monday through Friday and hunker down. Verily, there…
jstemwedel | May 29, 2008Since I read it last Friday I have been meaning to say something about this article in Inside Higher Ed about why female academic appear to have lower birthrates than male academics and than female professionals in other fields. Of course, between work and family obligations (and grinding fatigue) it's taken me until now to get to it.
Is this a clue of some sort?
Luckily, Sciencewoman has written a thoughtful and detailed rumination, and she links to Dr. Crazy's, Mommy Prof's, and Dean Dad's fine discussions, too, so I can keep it brief.
From the outside, academia looks like a perfect…
jstemwedel | April 26, 2008On April Fool's Day, our local Socrates Café had an interesting discussion around the question of what makes something funny. One observation that came up repeatedly was that most jokes seem aimed at particular audiences -- at people who share particular assumptions, experiences, and contexts with the person telling the joke. The expectation is that those "in the know" will recognize what's funny, and that those who don't see the humor are failing to find the funny because they're not in possession of the crucial knowledge or insight held by those in the in-group. Moreover, the person…