thusspakezuska | June 9, 2008Because we can't keep our mouths shut forever, nor can we always stay locked safely within our homes, it is inevitable that we must interact with and speak to other human beings. And because of this, it is (nearly) inevitable that we will, at one time or another, say or do something that someone else interprets as offensive.
You know what I mean. You're nattering blithely along, everything's good, we're all happy - except, suddenly, some of us aren't. And you don't understand why. You are a good person. You are not a sexist, you are not a racist, you are not a homophobe. You are an…
thusspakezuska | June 7, 2008UPDATE: I missed one entry because it got caught in my spam filter. JaneB at Now, What Was I Doing? muses on how traditional success criteria lead to uneven weight distributions:
The lesson I'm trying to learn this year and next is that when I try to 'play the game' using externally set values for the things I do and am, I will be off balance - the weights of the different parts of my life will be wrongly distributed. It is up to me to recognise the true weight of things, and to distribute them appropriately for efficient and enjoyable carrying.
This is a really excellent entry, do go read…
thusspakezuska | June 6, 2008My hometown sits in the Southeastern Greene School district of Greene County, itself the very southwest corner of Pennsylvania. And therein, I believe, is born my perennial confusion of east and west. When I lived in Kansas, my hometown nevertheless often seemed to the west of me - because Greene County is in the west (of Pennsylvania), right? When I think of driving home from Philadelphia, I know I am going to southeastern Greene, hence I must be traveling east. It's always a fun time, that moment when you have to choose which direction on the turnpike.
These days, with distance driving…
thusspakezuska | May 19, 2008I missed contributing to the last Scientiae, which is up over at Flicka Mawa's pad, and deals with Career Paths, Perspective, and Changing Self Image. Scientiae is always great; go and read.
I am the host of the June carnival, and finally got my call for posts up at Scientiae. The call is reproduced here after the jump. Posts aren't due till June 6.
Hi folks, Zuska here. I suppose I should start with an apology for getting the next Scientiae topic out so late. But hey, the good news is you don't have to turn in your submission until June 6!
The new topic is: Added Weight. "Huh?" I hear…
thusspakezuska | May 12, 2008In a recent post, I referred readers to a comment that had been left on another post. In the ensuing comment thread, I received a complaint that this was "only anecdotal evidence" . I should have cited some relevant literature to go along with it. That I needed to have "some science" in my post.
One of the many reasons for the existence of this blog is to tell stories about what happens in real women's lives - naming experience. Telling stories and naming the experience are worthwhile endeavors in and of themselves. It drives me nuts the way some people use "anecdote" as if it were…
thusspakezuska | May 12, 2008A friend of mine recently accepted a job in academic administration. He is extremely excited about the job and eager to do good things in his position. He is also a dedicated father and truly shares equal parenting responsibilities with his spouse. His spouse is in a career that is less time-flexible than academia is - or could be.
At my friend's prior job, he generally started his workday a little later than the norm, in order to care for the kids until departure for school. He worked from home very early in the morning, was accessible by cell and email, and came into the workplace…
thusspakezuska | May 11, 2008This is a bit of a late announcement, but I thought some of you might like to play. See full announcement here.
For the next issue, Seed editors want to see the typical or not-so-typical places where Scienceblogs readers do science.
For the chance to get your scientific work space featured in Seed, please send a photo of it to
art AT seedmediagroup DOT com
by Tuesday, May 13th at 5:00pm EST. Please write "Where I Do Science Photo Submission" in the subject line, and send as high a resolution image as you can. No people in the pictures, please. Please include with the photo:
Your Name…
thusspakezuska | May 7, 2008I actually had to create a new category for this post. That says something about how infrequently I have something good to celebrate on the gender and science front.
Anyway, this year's Albany Medical Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research was awarded to two women! All previous recipients have been old white guys. But this year, Elizabeth Blackburn and Joan Steitz are the winners. Grrl has a nice post up here with background on the winners and some info on what they plan to do with the prize money. Peggy has a post up, too.
Next: I look forward to the day when the fact that it's a…
thusspakezuska | May 7, 2008Everybody ought to read this comment by Grimalkin. Especially those of you who are so enamoured of "just speculating" and/or "considering the possibility" that women's essential biology causes them to "not be interested in" math, science, and engineering. After you read it, please stop parroting unthinking, unreflective, misogynistic crap about why women just don't go into [name your favorite technical field here].
thusspakezuska | May 7, 2008It's spring, and everything looks great in the garden right now. Well, except for those pervasive Star of Bethlehem invaders that have to be pulled out by the dozens. Star of Bethlehem is a non-native, very invasive plant that can take over your flower bed almost overnight. I spent about an hour or more yesterday pulling it out of my flowerbeds. Its flowers are white, but it's not one of the four white flowers of the post title.
The four white flowers would be: tree peony, woodland phlox, chokeberry tree blossoms, and foam flower. I am not what you would call a photographer - I take…
thusspakezuska | May 2, 2008
You're a smart woman, and a fabulous scientist or engineer. You know you can be a great researcher or professional engineer. But have you given thought to doing more than your job - to becoming a leader? F. Mary Williams and Carolyn J. Emerson hope you will, and to encourage you, they've put together Becoming Leaders: A Practical Handbook for Women in Engineering, Science, and Technology. The book is a joint project of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers.
As the authors note in the introduction,…
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 30, 2008The National Academy of Sciences has announced its latest crop of members, and there are 16 - count 'em! 16! - women out of the 72 elected. The Chronicle of Higher Education spins this positively with the headline "16 Women Elected to National Academy of Science" and the following opening:
The National Academy of Sciences announced today the election of 72 new members, including 16 women. That's a significant reversal from just one year ago, when only nine women were inducted, the fewest since 2001.
The record year remains 2005, when 19 women were elected.
The academy, most of whose members…
thusspakezuska | April 30, 2008Yesterday I attended a talk on gender and science. It was a very frustrating experience, because I had been looking forward to the talk. But the speaker, a senior administrator who should know better, made it a difficult and trying experience. About a third of the slides in the talk were dense data tables scanned from publications. Projected on the screen, the type was so tiny you could not read a thing on them, at least from where I was sitting in the audience. The speaker kept saying, "Well, you can't read this, but it doesn't matter, because all you need to know is..." All I need to…
thusspakezuska | April 30, 2008For a long time now, I have not been what you would call a believer in progress. That is, I do not think things are bound to improve in the gender equity arena. I think we are in the middle of a backlash (more on that later); women's enrollment in undergraduate engineering has stalled or declined; it isn't just a matter of waiting for the old fogies to die off and be replaced with young men who won't be sexist asshats. Since sexism is structural and institutionalized, it is perfectly capable of replicating itself unless it is actively fought and dismantled.
And if you don't believe me,…
thusspakezuska | April 25, 2008Greetings, Gentle Readers. I just rescued a number of comments from hang-up in moderation. No idea why most of them got moderated - they didn't even have links in them. Some of them were made many days ago. I want to apologize to you all for not getting those comments out there sooner. I have been going through a bout of almost daily migraine and have not been on the computer much at all, let alone blogging, let alone tending to the blog. Until I get my next botox treatment and it kicks in, it may continue like this so please be patient.
thusspakezuska | April 17, 2008UPDATE: After posting this entry, I found out that the paper I discussed here is not actually slated at this time to be published in a peer-reviewed journal; it is merely available as a preprint. Nevertheless, I hear that the folks at Nature have picked up on this and have interviewed the author; we may see something next week there about it.
Remember that famous line about how women need to be twice as good as men to be considered half as good? A new statistical study by Sherry Towers available on ArXiv.org shows just how true this is in the world of particle physics.
Here's the scoop…
thusspakezuska | April 8, 2008I just had to share this very recent comment with you all:
I would actually very much like to avoid this blog (and a few others), but the ScienceBlogs channels - which I prefer to having to subscribe to each and every blog individually - won't let me do so. I usually just skip over the posts, but if there is any way to stop the "content" here from cluttering up my feeds, I'd appreciate hearing about it.
Lazy, whiny, insulting misogyny asking for help in maintaining the lazy, whiny, misogynistic state - you gotta love it. That takes balls, I suppose - if by balls you mean arrogant whiny…
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…