Sexy Tattoo Back Women: April 2008

The Story of Stuff

A few weeks ago my friend Nassim sent a link around to The Story of Stuff. It's a twenty minute animated video about stuff, from extraction to production to market to home to disposal. It's well made and fun to watch but I'll be honest I thought 'doesn't everyone know this?", followed quickly by the discouraging thought that life ain't that simple.

But perhaps people don't know or rather don't think about it at all. Maybe if we did we wouldn't be so easily taken in by advertising and campaigns. There's an ad on Turkish television at the moment featuring an annoying girl in a stripy top posing as a doctor. Her patient sits in a gown looking worried while she looks at his x-ray. He has 10 ytl worth of points lodged in his chest, a situation brought about by buying lots of petrol from a particular petrol station on a particular credit card. So how can he be cured? 'Spend it and it'll pass' says the chirpy girl.

So having bought the most expensive petrol in the world (3.30 ytl/1.56 Euro/2.48 USD per litre!) the poor lad now has to go and spend even more money! It's all feeding back into the golden arrow. Perhaps he can spend his 10 ytl buying rice before the shortage hits in.

The Story of Stuff

How to Think About Science: Eveyln Fox Keller

Evelyn Fox Keller is an emeritus professor of the History and the Philosophy of Science at MIT. She originally trained as a theoretical physicist, receiving her PhD from Harvard in 1963. Her interests shifted, though, towards mathematical biology and the young field of molecular biology. In the mid-1970s she began to talk and write about her painful experiences as graduate student and the relationship between gender and science. This article about her in The Guardian has more about her background.

On the CBC Radio show "How to Think about Science" Evelyn Fox Keller talks about her career, how language and gender roles shape how science is done, and "science studies".

Science, according to its first practitioners, was a masculine pursuit. Francis Bacon writing in the early 17th century invited “the sons of knowledge” to pass through “the outer courts of nature” and on into “her inner chambers.” Science was male, nature female. And, according to Evelyn Fox Keller, this was no mere figure of speech – it had a shaping influence through the centuries on how science was imagined and how it was done. Evelyn Fox is emeritus professor of the philosophy and history of science at MIT, and a keen observer of the ways in which models and metaphors condition our understandings. In recent years she has been particular critical of the ways in which simplistic models of the all-powerful gene mislead public understanding of genetics and developmental biology. And her proposal with regard to what she calls “gene talk” is the same one she made in her pioneering Reflections on Gender and Science in the 1980’s: “change the terms of the discussion.” Evelyn Fox Keller shares some of her story and some of her thoughts on how gender, language, model and metaphor have coloured the practice of science.

I find her discussion of the role of language on public perception of what a "gene" is particularly interesting. Listen to the program (requires RealPlayer).

Evelyn Fox Keller's books mentioned on the show:

Tags: Evelyn Fox Keller, women in science, Making Sense of Life, Century of the Gene

AWIS Coaching Program

The Association for Women in Science (AWIS) has launched a new coaching program for women in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Coaching is an individualized approach to your personal and professional development that works best when you can see a gap between where you are now and where you want to be. There are as many reasons to work with a coach as there are people!

It's not free (details and prices), but it certainly could be a worthwhile investment if you feel like your career needs some direction. And now you can get a sample of what the coaching is like: there will be free live coaching demo teleconferences on Thursday, April 10 and Tuesday, April 15. Check out Zuska's blog for details.

Tags: AWIS, career coaching

Big Think: Shirley Tilghman on Women in Science

Big Think is a video site which launched in January, which features interviews with experts talking about big ideas. One of their "thinkers" is molecular biologist Shirley Tilghman, the first woman President of Princeton University. The videos are short, but interesting. Here is Tilghman talking about women in science:

Other Tilghman videos feature her talking about The Next Scientific Frontier, The Future of Cancer Research, Science in America, Teaching Science in America, Equal Opportunity in Education, and a number of non-science topics.

Of course the Big Think site has Web 2.0 interactivity - you can make an account, ask a question, leave a comment or make a video response. And there's more than just science - there are experts in business, politics, the arts and more. It looks like it has the potential to be a big time waster (in a good way).

Tags: Big Think, Shirley Tilghman, women in science

Additions to the Blogroll

Here are some recent additions to the blogroll in the sidebar. The "highlight post" is one that I found interesting; YMMV as they say on the internets.

As always, if you think your blog is listed in the wrong category or you would rather not be listed in the blogroll, please drop me an email and I'll change it. I'd also appreciate any suggestions for blogs to be added, particularly in the physical sciences and engineering, since my own science blog reading leans more heavily towards biology.

Physical Sciences

Twinkle twinkle YSO: Hannah is a PhD astronomer who blogs about astronomy and women in science.
Highlight post: Impressing Impressionable Girl Scouts

AstroPixie: Amanda Bauer is an astronomer in the middle (end?) of writing her dissertation. She writes about "things and stuff, astronomy and life"
Highlight post: 50 Years of Space Science

i postdoc, therefore i am: Schlupp is "Yet another postdoc in the physical sciences, in condensed matter theory. Originally from My Country / Europe, with a PhD from MyCountry Provincial Tech, I did a two-year postdoc in Germany and have just started another one in the US."
Highlight post: On the Existance of Deadwood

Rising to the Occasion: saxifraga is "a Postdoc in earth science at a research institute in Scandinavia and teach at University above the Arctic Circle. I am also a wife, a daughter, a sister and hopefully still a friend to some awesome people I spend way too little time with. The blog is an outlet for my personal thoughts and a way to engage in discussion with others about academic life and work. I appreciate my readers and your opinions."
Highlight post: When there's more than one side to the story

Life Sciences

Mind the Gap: Jennifer Rohn is "a post-doctoral cell biologist at University College London, having returned last year to science after a four-year sabbatical as a journal editor. In my spare time, I am also a freelance science writer, editor and journalist; novelist; biotechnology consultant and the founder and editor of LabLit.com magazine"
Highlight post: In which I marvel at bureaucratic insanity

rENNISance woman: Cath Ennis of VWXY Not? has a second blog on the Nature Network that is more directly focused on science. Her description: "I blog about current genetics, genomics, virology and evolution research. I'll also include posts about grant writing and any other ideas that take my fancy."
Highlight post: Leaving labs and losing labmates

Missives From the Frontal Lobe: KL Dickson is currently studying neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her blog is about "neuroscience, atheism, philosophy, neurotheology, transhumanism, and lots of things."
Highlight post: On transhumanism

Everything and more: Makita is "a full-time graduate student, carpenter, cleaning lady, gardener, electrician, and probably a few other things that are required to keep my household running." Her blog is about her "adventures in life, and an outlet for my thoughts."
Highlight post: Oral exam .... again (congrats on passing!)

Blue Lab Coats: This blog is written by a "female w/kids balancing academic science & home". "I am a veterinarian and biologist, and I have a tenure track junior faculty position. I come to work every day because there are certain biological questions that I find fascinating and I can’t stop thinking about. I hope that what I do in my job (and in my life) makes a difference for others."
Highlight posts: Unsolicited Advice: Job Search Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde: "I'm a postdoc in the biological sciences. I can't decide if I work too much or not enough. I'm married to Dr. Hyde, a fabulous scientist himself, and we're trying, despite some obstacles, to fulfill our Darwinian mandate by having a child or two. The title and pseudonym? One name at work, another at home."
Highlight post: What's in my name

Candidate Models: Stepwise Girl writes about "-my adventures as a young academic - I guess I'm something along the lines of a tenure-track professor although that's not what I'm called here where I am; -as a subset of that, partly, how being a woman is inflecting the trajectory; -I guess there might be some questions related to the environment"
Highlight post: Déjà vu

Science Sisters: This blog is written by Jena & Mary, who are "both pre-pharmacy students, sisters, best friends." The tone is breezy and I'll admit that I'm not particularly keen on being addressed by "Hey Girls" at the beginning of every post, but that's probably because their target audience is 20 years (or more) my junior. You can't beat their enthusiasm.
Highlight post: Lost In Space

Guadalupe Storm-Petrel: barn owl is a "cancer and developmental neurobiology researcher, medical educator, and frustrated natural historian; long-limbed, long digits, Northern European peasant and barbarian stock, lots of wild hair and prone to intellectual wild hares. Interests wander incessantly. Strong Luddite tendencies. Congenitally incapable of silence and acceptance in the face of social or environmental injustice." Her blog is mostly hard biology, rather than commentary.
Highlight post: Don't You Step on My Blue Sulid Shoes

The Grad Life: A Southern Girl's Affair in Boston: Southern Grad Girl is "a life-long Southern girl who left the South for grad school in the life sciences in Boston. I have a wonderful non-scientist husband who happily (well, sort of happily) followed me across the country. I'm a second-year student, still in the honeymoon stage."
Highlight post: No news is not good news

Still Evolving: Farne is "in my mid-40's in a same-sex relationship, with 2 grown kids, lots of Italian Greyhounds and an interesting job in training with the development side of a pharmaceutical company. And an ex-husband who complicates my life..."
Highlight post: A question for 2008: Where have all the older women gone?

Dirt and Rocks: Brigindo is "a behavioral scientist fascinated by life's daily minutiae. if
it's seemingly inconsequential and repetitive, our girl's on it."
Highlight post: On the Fragility of Students

Mathematics and Computer Science

Keet Blog: Maria Keet is "an Assistant Professor (Ricercatore a Tempo Determinato) at the KRDB Research Centre for Knowledge and Data, Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy." She often writes about ontology, bioinfomatics, and science in general.
Highlight post: From the marketing department - or: blogging by science journalists vs. scientists who are blogging?

Engineering

Journeys of an Academic: Academic is "a quirky engineer who actually wants to try making a difference in the world."
Highlight post: Emails that Make our Heart Pound

Candid Engineer in Academia: Candid Engineer is an "engineer-scientist trying to find my way as a postdoctoral researcher at Brilliant University. My new academic home is flush with cash- but the abundance of funding comes with a price: pompous and secretive colleagues. Tune in regularly as I offer my perspective on random academic topics and chronicle my experiences as a researcher at Brilliant U."
Highlight post: Flatter Me Silly

It's not really a new blog, but Alice Pawley, an assistant professor of engineering education at Purdue, has joined ScienceWoman at the newly renamed ScienceWomen blog (formerly "On Being a Scientist and a Woman").

Engineering Education: This new blog has two authors - Alice Pawley and Gina Navoa Svarovsky, who is "finishing up my PhD in Educational Psychology while also being a faculty member at a two-year masters program. My dissertation work focuses on engineering education in the K-12 arena, and in particular, engaging girls in meaningful and empowering engineering activity during their precollege years."

General

Thesis - With Children: AcmeGirl is a "PhD student at an Ivy League University. I'm a woman of color in one of those (white)male-dominated fields. I also have two children and am trying to have some kind of healthy relationship with my long suffering husband. Basically, I'm as close as a single point can come to being a complete data set." (Note: I've filed this under "general" since AcmeGirl doesn't specify if her ology is in the physical or biological sciences.)
Highlight post: Maintaining Decorum

Tags: blogs, women in science, women in engineering

Scientiae Carnival: Fools and Foolishness

So it's time again to round up some of the best posts about women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I've been looking forward to being a host, especially in light of the recent announcement that this year more women than men will earn advanced degrees in physics, chemistry and electrical engineering for the first time.

"I thought that my LEGO spaceship-building hobby and high scores in World of Warcraft were signs of my natural aptitude for the sciences, but I was just fooling myself," said I. M. Acho, who recently switched his major from physics to women's studies. "It turns out that physical science is really a chick thing. I only hope that I can learn the secret to their success."

On with this month's Carnival!

Fooling Ourselves?

EcoGeoFemme tells a story about her first experience working in a lab in college and her own bias against a woman doing science.

I shudder now to admit those thoughts even crossed my mind! I would never think such a thing now. There’s no job a woman can’t do with the right tools. But knowing that someone like me could have had those thoughts once upon a time makes me realize that lots of people still have them. I think that’s why I’m drawn to women-in-science issues even though I rarely feel bias myself. Hopefully, women doing great work and speaking out about these issues will shown the remaining fools just how foolish they are.

ScienceWoman asks whether she's a fool to think she can take a summer break from daycare for her adorable Minnow. There is a good discussion in the comments about the positives and negatives of making that choice in terms of both her career and her desire to lead a "balanced" life.

Jenny F. Scientist writes about women putting up with harassment and discrimination and accepting extra work as part of "playing the game" to become an academic professor.

If being an academic professor is really more important than anything to these women, then they have the right to make the choices they want. But what happens a lot- what I see- is that they make choices and then they are utterly miserable because they have given up too much. They feel exploited, degraded, used. Because they are. And they're buying into The Crazy.

She points out that the culture of academic science is unlikely to change if people aren't willing to complain. She also has a rant about her experience that working hard is not enough to get ahead since she doesn't "put on a good enough show."

Flicka Mawa writes about her first experience as the only woman in a small class.

I’m not saying that this is a big deal, and certainly in this class I have never witnessed any discrimination, but it does make one think about the subtler aspects of …bias. The part where a person’s mental conversation is occupied with thoughts of how they are different. It makes me think of what it might be like to be part of a smaller minority, and thus feel more…alone.

Her biggest concern was the difficulty of the course material, but she realized that she could indeed handle the course work, something she reminds herself when she has a crisis in confidence. Also check out her post about less traditional options in academic research: having a lab at a small college and doing research part time.

Mad Hatter wonders whether academic scientists have foolish expectations about their own research.

Miss Prism writes about the the issue of sexism in peer review and women not using their first name if it identifies them as female. She suggests that that might actually harm women in the long run:

If a few of us go by our initials, we benefit from sexism rather than doing anything to stop it. If all of us do it, it stops benefiting anyone. Initials will soon be interpreted as female names, and if we all sound or dress less girlie we narrow the range of what’s acceptable, and before we know it we’re wearing false moustaches and the world’s no fairer.

ScienceMama writes about being a senior in college and foolishly spending too little time weighing whether grad school was right for her. It turned out not to be.

We likely all fool ourselves to some extent about the biases we harbor. At Sciencewomen Alice Pawley shares some resources for understanding and working against your own implicit biases.

Playing the Fool

Addy N. writes about foolishly causing herself stress by making overambitious conference plans.

Hannah writes about the conflict between the pressure on women to be humble and meek and not appear too knowledgeable, while at the same time not really wanting to play the fool.

They are impulses I constantly have to fight against in order to succeed. No matter how lofty and noble the study of science may seem to outsiders, landing and keeping a tenure-track position seems to be as much about networking and self-promotion and politicking as much as it is about doing good science. So I need to put myself forward, and stop playing the fool. I need to go out on a limb at times, at the risk of looking like a fool. I am gradually getting better at it both of these things.

As a counterpoint to Hannah's post, check out Alice Pawley's post about playing the fool in academia, both in the role of a jester, or "someone of miniscule rank who asks pointed questions of someone in considerable power in order to goad or trick them into reflecting on the potential truism" and as a buffoon, or someone who is memorable due to their kookiness.

Jenn at Fairer Science writes about feeling and sounding foolish as a non-scientist in the company of scientists.

The Foolishness of Others

Postdoc Dr. Jekyll/Mrs. Hyde writes about grad students who foolishly failed to heed her advice, and found out the hard way about their poor choice in labs.

Liz Henry writes about a sexist story about female tech recruiters making the rounds of a conference.

Because the technical recruiters are female, they are sluts, or "call girls"; definitely sexually available and exploitable. Because they are female, they are assumed in the story to be ignorant of computers, technology, sys adminning, and programming; any knowledge they DO have is "fake" because it is is artificial "training" given to them as a thin veneer just to mask their real goal which is sexual predation on the sys admins, run by mythical "big company" pimps.

She also writes about the sexist framing of a story in SF Magazine about Google engineer Marissa Mayer, who is described as "surprisingly pretty" and "girly".

But the end! The end was the worst! "Does Mayer ever see herself going completely low-tech and focusing (professionally or otherwise) on art, entertaining, baking, or fashion? " You know, what would have to be wrong in an interviewer's head for them to ask that question? What the hell? Why would anyone ask that question of one of the most powerful engineers at an extremely successful company, a person with a couple of degrees in computer science and many years of experience in the industry? "Oh... just wondering... have you ever thought of forgetting about this lil' ol' computer thing and sticking to cupcakes?"

Just ew. She points out that this kind of talk likely discourages women who are interested in programming and engineering from entering those fields.

Female Science Professor has observed women actively hindering the careers of other women and suggests what professors can do to not "pull up the ladder" unintentionally. She also advises women students who are having problems with their advisors:

If you love what you are doing but just hate the environment, don't give up. The academic culture has long selected for the personality type of your advisor, but it need not always be this way. Graduate and get a job and be part of the positive change.

Mind Hacks writes about an article in the new journal Neuroethics, which takes on "'neurosexism', the increasing trend to portray sex differences as 'hard wired' into the brain." In a related post, Podblack Cat writes about the assumptions about gender differences in the brain and education.

Kimm Hannula writes about her experiences as a women in geoscience.

It feels to me like I'm constantly having to disprove the same flawed hypotheses, over and over again. (I'm the first woman professor in any of the small schools in western Colorado - there were others on the Front Range, but in the triangle bounded by Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, and the greater Salt Lake City area, I was the first.) No, I am not the department secretary. Yes, I can identify rocks. Believe me, it gets old after a while.

Those of you who have heard of Vox Day won't be surprised that he believes women are a terrible threat to science. He doesn't think women are even competent to vote, after all. Mark Chu-Carroll has posted his own experiences with women in science that clearly demonstrate what a moronic fool Day is.

Absinthe reports that in the sexual harassment case of Kay Weber, a judge has granted summary judgment to Fermilab, and that the case has had a negative impact on other senior women who are working there. She also gives an address to send Weber letters of condolence or support.

Dr. Shellie writes about a male colleague who admits to being unlikely to admit female students.

Undergrad Katharine Dickson plans to suffer no fools on the internet, at least when it comes to writing about neuroscience. She also has a plea for pharmacy student Tope Awe, who is in danger of being deported to her native Nigeria, despite having lived in the US for 20 years.

Academic at Journeys of an Academic lists the Genres of Fools.

Miscellaneous Foolishness

Cath Ennis writes about a great bio lab April Fools prank - and her commenters add their own suggestions.

Mrs. Whatsit ponders what it actually means to "have the balls" to do something, and rounds up a bunch of suggestions for less masculine substitutes.

At Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer has discovered that she shares the name of DC superhero The Atom, a scientific prodigy who graduated from MIT at the age of 8 and turned to using her skills of manipulating matter towards costumed superheroing at the age of 18. Now that is an alternative science career!

Neatorama posts about an article in New Scientist about James Barry, who served 46 years as a British Army doctor. It was only discovered upon her death in 1865 that Barry was, in fact, a woman.

Daring Tales has a tale about the youthful Liz Claiborne. No, she's not a scientist. But she did dive into a career despite the discouragement of her father, who didn't even think women needed to finish high school. Few women (or men for that matter) are willing to give up everything - including their parents - to pursue their dream job. And I thank Claiborne for her focus on producing clothes meant specifically for professional women.

Podblack Cat writes about experiments that show the eye can be fooled - and how a foolish advertising firm borrowed the work without credit or comment.

No Fooling

Last, but not least, are some women who deserve recognition for their achievements.

Zuska writes about the women on the Mars Exploration Rover tactical operations team.

Abel Pharmboy writes about the accomplishments of Intel Science talent Search winner Shivani Sud.

The Urban Scientist has started a new meme: Can you name 5 women scientists from each scientific discipline? Some responses:

If you know of other posts on this meme, let me know and I'll update the link list.

Thanks everybody for your submissions!

The May Scientiae Carnival will be hosted by Flicka Mawa at A Cat Nap. Learn how you can submit a blog post here.

ETA: I've discovered a couple of posts I neglected to add, so I've added them. Sorry about that.

Tags: Scientiae Carnival, women in science