women in society

While I'm loving @nparmalee, I thought I'd repost a short series of tweets where she asks a really good question, and one that I don't have an answer to. There's a lot of talk re: women in science and accepting alternate timelines, & I think this is great. I am very anachronistic. That reqs explanation in acad interviews. The explanation is family. Saying that enters fam into career disc, which I would prefer not 2 do Were I to say 'I had another career' (which I did) it wld imply lack of focus, which was never true. Bringing up fam can suggest I want special consideration, which I don't…

Some days the intertubes are not good for my blood pressure. Today was one of those days. It started when my email contained a plea from the National Women's Law Center sent me an email with the title "Breaking News: Abortion at Risk in Health Care Reform" "As you are reading this, there's language on the brink of being included in health care reform that will take away coverage of abortion that millions of women currently have. We must not let this happen because comprehensive reproductive health care is basic health care for women. Call and email your Senators and the White House TODAY.…

If she lives in New Jersey, she might be. Because apparently, refusing a C-section (and then successfully vaginally delivering a healthy baby) and acting "combative" "erratic" and "noncompliant" during labor is considered child abuse and neglect and is grounds for the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services (NJ DYFS) to immediately take away your newborn child and permanently terminate your parental rights. Sounds unbelievable, right? But I am so not making this up. In the case of New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services v. V.M. and B.G., In the Matter of J.M.G., new mother…

This slim novel by author Bi Feiyu takes the reader inside the world of the Peking Opera, after the Cultural Revolution and at the dawn of capitalism in China. Xiao Yanqui rashly lost her place in the opera company just when her star was rising, but now, 20 years later, she's been given a chance at redemption - a chance to return to the lead role in The Moon Opera. The novel follows Xiao as she attempts to control her body and contort back into the role of a much younger woman, despite the fact that she now has a teenage daughter of her own. Meanwhile, Xiao's understudy and star pupil wants…

Have you seen Ethan Siegel? He's the blogger behind Starts with a Bang. The guy has got a lot of hair! And he's offering to shave his head if 100 unique commenters each give at least $10 dollars or 4 hours of their time to the charity of their choice. What a great way to give people a little kick in the butt to do something good. Ethan's post reminded me that I still hadn't completed our promised giving for the Silence is the Enemy project. Alice and I promised to double the amount we were paid for clicks in the month of June. We gave half of that money to Doctors without Borders (MSF) and…

Don't worry I'll be back to the course design series soon, but I spent yesterday focused on other things (paper revisions, grant proposals) and I haven't completed the necessary work to get the next post up. And it's Friday, so let's divert to lighter equally serious but different topics. As the mother of a toddler daughter I've been struggling with the overt patriarchy of the classic Disneyfied fairy tales, in which a stereotypically beautiful damsel in distress is helpless until rescued by a prince. I'd been trying to avoid exposing my daughter to the princess stories (Cinderella, Sleeping…

Dear student who left a 3 oz. blob of ketchup right where people step out of the stairway and into the hallway, The dozens of people who will have to sidestep your mess this afternoon do not appreciate you and your laziness. There are bathrooms with paper towels 15 m away from the spot where you made your mess. I'm the mother of a toddler, and I know for a fact that paper towels will do an admirable job of wiping up most spilled food. Even if you didn't manage to get every last drop of ketchup off the linoleum, people would much rather accidentally step in a few smudges of it than step in…

After the weekend, I'll be back with a follow up to the post on my progress towards tenure, and I'll try to address some of the substantive and thought-provoking comments that you all have raised. But, here in the States, it's already a holiday weekend, and so for today, I'll punt and take on a side issue from that comment thread. Comrade Physioprof commented: "hir" is a total ...abomination! It is so ...distracting it totally ruins the flow of reading, because it is NOT A REAL ...WORD! In terms of identifiability of an anonymous individual, how much difference does a factor of two make in…

Have you ever bought an album and discovered a song so dark, so sad that it makes you physically uncomfortable to listen to it? What do you do then? Can you stand to hear it or do you skip the track in favor of something a little lighter? For me, the songs that twist my stomach in knots are the ones with stories of domestic violence, child abuse, or rape. And when I find one of those songs, I force myself not to delete it from my playlists and I pay attention when my iTunes shuffle pops it up. The singers recorded those songs for a reason - to tell us that terrible things are happening…

Recall that for the month of June, a group of bloggers are trying to draw attention to the horror of violence against women and girls across the globe. Along this theme, I could write about sex tourism in Mombasa (a direct result of increased regulations in Cambodia) or the conversations about legalising sex work so that sex workers can organize , or a continuation of the discussion on mass rapes in Liberia, or the case of a waitress in China who, in self-defense, stabbed a man who, prosaically, "was trying to force himself on her". (What the hell does that mean, anyway? Talk about…

Sheril, Isis, Alice,Zuska and many others have introduced you to the Silence Is the Enemy project, aimed at condemning and reducing sexual violence in places like Liberia, Congo, Darfur and other conflict ridden places in the world. In Liberia, for example, as many as 3/4 of the women have been raped, often repeatedly. And 28% of new rape victims are under the age of 4. Those are girls the age of my daughter and the girls who play on the playground with her. Raped and left to suffer a lifetime of physical and psychological consequences. (At the bottom of this post, please watch an important…

For the past few years, I have been horrified by Nicholas Kristof's posts about violence against children in various crisis zones around the globe - and I have been captivated by his stories of choosing to engage as a human being with such distress and pain rather than a so-called "impartial" or "objective" journalist. In particular, I think of his reporting in 2004 from Cambodia about children forced into sex slavery and his decision to try to buy two girls to free them from traffickers, and his decision with his family to open a school east of Phnom Penh to educate girls to help prevent…

Yesterday Sheril Kirschenbaum and Chris Mooney of the Intersection announced that they were leaving Scienceblogs in favor of new digs at Discover. Unfortunately, commenters on other blogs around those parts have been behaving badly on posts welcoming the new bloggers. It appears that it doesn't matter how good a scientist and writer a blogger is, if she's female, only her appearance matters. (One more reason I only show off my footwear.) Physioprof has an excellent (and relatively profanity-free!) post up taking apart this behavior and explaining why it is not appropriate to make your first…

Happy New Year everyone! I just read a fantastic post by Pat at Fairer Science, where she quotes from writings by mill girls in 19th century New England. The ideas put forward by the young woman who wrote the essay are eerily prescient of the sentiments I expressed 170 years later. I also wanted to point towards Janet's thoughtful revolutionary post respond to a few comments from the "my revolution looks like this" post of a few days ago. From dave: As far as household responsibilities... if my hypothetical future wife is also working full-time, I rather hope she'll force me to pick up my…

I have a dream that one day, academics--both men and women--will be able to take time to go the mountain top--or just the hill in the local park, or even a slope on campus--and cherish watching their toddlers roll down, confident that their careers aren't rolling downhill with them. I have a dream that academics will take the wisdom they gain from fostering their children's development back to their intellectual work, and feel confident that their community admires them for doing so. I have a dream that the stalled revolution will jump-start one day, that all women and men, whatever their…

There's quite the discussion going on over at Dr. Isis's house about different approaches to feminism and how the actions and choices of mothers and others do or do not conform to particular feminist philosophies. I made a comment early this morning that perhaps wasn't clear enough about where I thought the current US societal set-up fails us, so I tried again this afternoon: I fervently hope that there could be a better way than having a woman work a "man's job" (in my case, science professor) and then come home and work a second "woman's job" (mother, cook, housekeeper). How many times have…

I'm at the end of a super long work week, one where I saw even less of Minnow than usual, and one that's leaving me wondering whether my priorities need adjusting. And as I listen to Minnow babble herself to sleep down the hall, I discover this beautiful post from one of the most thoughtful bloggers I know. But here's the thing: making a workplace more family friendly is a fight that cannot be one by women alone. Women cannot be the only ones making a ruckus in the workplace and fighting with themselves, their peers and their bosses to effect change. If we make a nurturant woman's workplace…

Money is on my mind a lot this semester. First, there's the grant writing marathon. And then there's the personal budgetary shortfall. Without a second income, we run a several hundred dollar per month shortfall. I've trimmed the fat from the budget and we're eating through the small amount of savings we had squirreled away. Soon it will be time to think about more drastic measures. And there's one big item looming large in my nightmares of financial ruin - the almost $1200 per month that I am paying for Minnow's truly excellent daycare where she is very happy and well cared for. Why is…

Possibly my favorite political statement of all time: I was raised to believe I could do it all, and that was very empowering. Then I got into the work force and realized there was really no support for me to do it all. ... We either have to fix that or be honest about it. Michelle Obama as quoted in a NYT op-ed by Gail Collins. h/t Sheril.

After my experiences a few weeks ago, and the ensuing discussion, I haven't been able to get the topic of childcare and professional travel out of my head. So here's a reckless proposal on the topic. For everybody: 1) We need to recognize that to be successful, scientists, engineers, or academics need to engage in some amount of overnight travel to professional conferences, workshops, short courses, etc. Sure you might be able to go a year or two or even three without leaving your hometown, but at some point, in order to be successful at your current job or to advance professionally, you…