thusspakezuska | April 4, 2007Welcome to Week 3 of our course on "Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science". This post will be a presentation of the summaries for each of this week's assigned readings. If you were not able to do the readings or couldn't get access to the books, I hope this post will give you a good flavor of what the week's readings were all about.
You can reference the course syllabus for more details about the readings in the whole course and the course structure. Here's the initial post about the course. And here are some guidelines about how I'll post on readings and what we should strive for in…
thusspakezuska | April 2, 2007Mosey on over to Lab Cat's place and check out the third Scientiae. As is becoming the standard, lots of good stuff.
thusspakezuska | April 2, 2007Well, just when I think I might be getting the migraines under control, I go and lose a whole week due to some mystery illness. It wasn't a cold and it wasn't the flu, but it sure did nail me to the floor for a week. I'm just getting back on schedule in my life. I'll try to get the Joy of Science summaries posted tomorrow but discussion posts may not be till Thursday.
Anyway....I wanted to call your attention to a nifty post on the "life as a leak" subject over at Fairer Science. And back on March 20, Science Woman wrote a post on Why We Leave that is very good. The discussion in the…
thusspakezuska | March 23, 2007X-Gal Meg Murray hasn't completely leaked out of the pipeline yet. She's taken a lectureship instead of a tenure-track position, and she writes this in a column titled Too Few Choices:
Defining success is a tricky thing. Would I consider myself successful if I had moved my family across the country for my career, making my husband miserable and decreasing our standard of living? We now have a high quality of life (income aside) in a location where our kids are happy and where my husband (who provides the bulk of our income) has limitless career opportunities.
Is that success? I don't know. I…
thusspakezuska | March 22, 2007This post has gotten so long I'm going to have to break it into pieces. Here's the first installment.
You've read a million stories about the leaky pipeline. They all start out more or less like this:
It is no secret that women are under-represented at every level of the science and technology (S&T) system. Statistics clearly show that, much like a 'leaky pipeline', women steadily drop out all along the system.
Nor is it difficult to identify the causes of the leaks. They range from gender-based biases in hiring, evaluation, and promotion; to inadequate institutional support for…
thusspakezuska | March 21, 2007I've been planning to write a post about leaks in the pipeline - specifically, what it's like to be a leak in the pipeline. I've been thinking about this post in my head for a long time, and have even talked about it with a few people via email and face-to-face, but I'm finding it extraordinarily difficult to write it. It's the same with posts that I would like to write about the two most recent X-Gals columns (here and here).
And everything else that I might want to blog about seems locked up behind these things that I want - need - to write about. I wrote a bit yesterday about gender…
thusspakezuska | March 21, 2007So, a million years ago, before my blogging break, I had begun the Joy of Science class. I never did post my third discussion entry for the second week of class...I think it is a lost cause at this point. We'll just skip over that and move on to the third week of class. Why don't we say something like two weeks from now, which I think is Wednesday April 4th? I think I can have the readings done and prepare some discussion by then.
If you look at the syllabus, you'll see that week three is once again comprised of readings all from the Building Inclusive Science special issue of Women's…
thusspakezuska | March 20, 2007Jane Curry was at the Penn State - Abington campus today to perform her one-woman play, "Just Say Know" as one of the Women's History Month events on the campus. A word about Jane: her website describes her as "an author, storyteller, performer, and recovering academic". She is indeed all of those, and more. She's an absolutely delightful person and if you aren't laughing within five minutes of talking with her, then you don't have a pulse. Or maybe your funny bone is just broken.
Since Penn State - Abington is practically in my back yard, I had the pleasure of seeing Jane's show and…
thusspakezuska | March 20, 2007It's been so long since I blogged, I almost forgot how to log in. I am going to ease myself back into some sort of blogging routine this week and hope that the computer time does not bring on the migraines again. So much has happened while I've been gone. Have any of you been following the Science Spring Showdown 2007? Here's a taste of the coverage of the second round in the Mortar and Pestle region (reported over at Adventures in Ethics and Science):
Welcome to coverage of the 2007 Science Spring Showdown second round play in the Chemistry region. The fans in Chemical Arena resorted to…
thusspakezuska | March 15, 2007I don't know if you've missed me, but I've missed blogging these last two weeks. However, my body has demanded a period of healing and I have acquiesced. The neck and shoulder are screaming less these days, and tomorrow I get my next botox treatment for the migraines, so I'm thinking by next week I should be able to tolerate some computer time again.
It's been very, very frustrating to have to submit to the limitations of my physical body, even more so to admit that I feel less mentally sharp because of being so worn out. This is the worst I've felt in a long while. I don't like it! If…
thusspakezuska | March 2, 2007I missed posting on this the day it went up because of my stupid health issues, but the first Scientiae carnival is up thanks to Skookumchick over at Rants of a Feminist Engineer! Go forth and read!
Also note that calls for the second carnival are already posted. Propter Doc of Post Doc Ergo Propter Doc will host.
Now I must get off the computer again before the stupid neck and shoulder seizes up on me. Y'all will have to wait a bit longer for the third installment of discussion of Week 2 of Joy of Science. I hope you are enjoying discussion posts one and two.
thusspakezuska | March 2, 2007This is the second of three discussion posts for Week 2 of Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science. You can find all posts for this course by going to the archives and clicking on Joy of Science under in the Category section.
This post deals with the reading by Fox.
What do women need to succeed in science? Does what they need differ from what men need? If so, why? What constitutes a good environment for women in science? What constitutes success? Will having more women in science affect the way that science is done?
The reading by Fox addresses most of these questions for the case…
thusspakezuska | March 2, 2007This is the first of three discussion posts for Week 2 of Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science. You can find all posts for this course by going to the archives and clicking on Joy of Science under in the Category section.
This post deals with the readings by Rayman & Stewart, Bix, and Benckert & Staberg.
What do women need to succeed in science? Does what they need differ from what men need? If so, why? What constitutes a good environment for women in science? What constitutes success? Will having more women in science affect the way that science is done?
Two of this week'…
thusspakezuska | February 28, 2007I've had a lot of down time lately because of health issues. Migraines, of course, but also now chronic neck/shoulder pain caused by the migraines. I've been working on the discussion entries and I will have them up soon, but I don't know when. I can't spend a lot of time on the computer at one stretch because it causes the neck/shoulder area to become even worse. So - maybe today, maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, if you've read the reading summaries (or, heaven forbid, if you did the actual readings!) and have anything you'd like to say about them yourself, please feel free to post…
thusspakezuska | February 27, 2007Welcome to the Week 2 of our course on "Feminist Theory and the Joy of Science". This post will be a presentation of the summaries for each of this week's assigned readings. If you were not able to do the readings or couldn't get access to the books, I hope this post will give you a good flavor of what the week's readings were all about.
You can reference the course syllabus for more details about the readings in the whole course and the course structure. Here's the initial post about the course. And here are some guidelines about how I'll post on readings and what we should strive for in…
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2007Fairer Science has also done some research and compiled lists of suggesitons on how engineering faculty can change classrooms, and how engineering classrooms can be made more effective for women (and men) students. See here for all the nifty information.
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2007The fabulous folks at Fairer Science, coming back from a great experience at the AAAS conference, have decided to share with all of us a few of their snazzy power point presentations:
...the session convinced me it was time to add a new section to FairerScience: "Presentation Tools." We've started it with two power points presentations (which can also be downloaded in pds):
Women, Science and Media: Where is the FairerScience? provides a general introduction to issues related to women scientists and the media and suggests some things that can be done to get more accurate portrayals.…
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2007I know I promised you all that tomorrow, Tuesday the 27th would be the second day of the Joy of Science class - and I may still get the reading summaries posted by tomorrow. But there will be a bit of a delay in getting the discussion posts up. I've just been out of commission too much in the past week with migraines and with neck and shoulder pain from the migraines. I hope I will have everything up by Wednesday. Stay tuned!
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2007So, you've probably heard about this by now: the sorority at DePauw University where 23 members were asked to vacate the house because they weren't "sufficiently dedicated to recruitment". It just so happens that the cadre of insufficiently dedicated members included all the sorority's black, Korean, and Vietnamese members. It included all the members who were overweight, we are told. Seemingly, it also included a large number of women who were math and science majors as well.
...the chapter appears to have been home to a diverse community over the years, partly because it has attracted…
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…