Blogging about Women in Science

Here's a roundup of recent blog posts from women in the sciences:

At Cosmic Variance, astronomer Julianne Dalcanton explains what it's like to be a woman in a mostly male profession using a simple analogy in "Knitting is a Guy Thing".

Female Science Professor describes what it feels like to be an Invisible Woman within her department when older male Distinguished Visitor comes to visit.

Technology and venture capital news site Venture Beat has a two-part essay by co-founder of Renkoo, Joyce Park, The Hidden Engineering Gender Gap and A Modest Proposal:

With all love and respect to our sisters in product management, marketing, sales, finance, HR, and G&A, 50 years of Silicon Valley history strongly suggest that technology companies will ever continue to be founded by entrepreneurs from engineering backgrounds; and if women never become engineers in sufficient numbers, they will disproportionately fail to experience the upper end of the range of Silicon Valley outcomes.

Read the essays for Park's proposed solutions.

On the Fairer Science weblog is an article explaining "What is stereotype threat and why do researchers care?"

Stereotype threat is the fear that one's behavior will support an existing group stereotype, and the result of that fear is that the subject will unconsciously underperform as a result of the threat. That is to say, if I am in a group that is stereotyped to be less good at something, for example, being a woman in mathematics, if that stereotype is triggered just before I take a challenging math test, I will perform less well than I would if that stereotype were not activated.

Finally, at the Science Creative Quarterly, Peter Eugster has an article about the Perception of Scientists, and stereotypical scientists shown on television and in the movies.

Tags: women in science, gender gap