Women in Science Link Roundup: June 21 edition

Here are some women in science and engineering news bits and blog posts from the past couple of weeks (in no particular order):

First off some shameless self-promotion: you might be interested in my posts @ Biology in Science fiction about Isabella Rossellini's short film series Green Porno (which, other than the title, is totally SFW), and a discussion of "Hard Science Fiction, Biology and Women (again)"

At Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog: "You feminists just want to tell women to do what you want, instead of letting them CHOOSE (and we all know girls *choose* the girly stuff)"

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon writes about "Defending the Feminine" in response to the Nerd Girls video.

Vanessa Richmond at AlterNet writes that Nerdy Girls Have Attained Sexy Status. I think she sums up my ambivalence about the whole "Nerd Girls" phenomenon pretty well:

Let's hope there's something to the new sex appeal of nerdy women, who love nothing more than a hard equation, have a penchant for gadgets, and spend their free time looking for bugs in new software applications -- and happen to like girly things as well. [. . .]

Then again, if we're all just being reminded, once again, that smart women get more male attention and career success if they wear high heels and makeup, then, please, call me when you've changed the channel from Mary Tyler Moore.

Alice at Sciencewomen liveblogged the Inclusive Science Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The OC Register has an article about a report (“Gender Equity in Academia: Bad News From the Trenches, and Some Possible Solutions” ) based on interviews with UC Irvine faculty members.

In the interviews, women frequently said that their work was often considered less valuable than similar work by men, and that they were pressured to take on service jobs that took time away from their research duties. One woman said she never wore pink clothes or talked about children at work, because of an unspoken stigma.

UCI's vice chancellor for research, Susan V. Bryant, was (not surprisingly) critical of the report:

"It's a very one-sided view of what's been happening over the last eight years," said Bryant. "We've been trying very hard to change things, but there's still more to be done."

There's a more detailed article and discussion about the report at Inside Higher Education. (Surprisingly, there is a commenter there who believes that professors get "3-month summer vacations." That person is definitely not a faculty member.)

The 8th Annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing will be held October 1-4 at the Keystone Resort in Keystone, Colorado. Keynote speakers will be Fran Allen, IBM Fellow Emerita and Mary Lou Jepsen, founder and CTO of One Laptop per Child. Registration is now open.

The 2008 British Computer Society Lovelace Medal lecture was a tribute to Karen Spärck Jones, who was the first women to receive Lovelace Medal. She received the award just weeks before she died last year. Watch the video of the lecture.

A Babe in the Universe has an obit of Janet Christine Dietrich, one of the "Mercury 13" women who trained as astronauts but were disbanded before being allowed to go into pace. There's another obit for Dietrich at io9.

At Blue Lab Coats drdrA writes about faculty who are at a loss when talented women they are training drop out of the academic science pipeline. Her suggestion: "Don't just cry about it, DO SOMETHING!"

The University of Texas at San Antonio profiles Floretta Jones:

She is the first African-American woman to earn a biology doctorate at UTSA and one of only 100 African-American women across the country to have earned the degree. She credits much of her success to the funding of her doctorate by the MBRS-RISE (Minority Biomedical Research Support - Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement) program.

Fabio at orgtheory.net "asked female scholars and graduate students to share their thoughts for the benefit of women working their way through the academic system". He summarized their responses as "grad skool rulz #19: words for women"

Scientific American writes about Hedy Lamarr and the new play Frequency Hopping.

Medical resident Dr. Signout writes about the significance of being "Dr. Signout" instead of "Trixie."

Geeky Mom on Women and Science Again

Jake at Pure Pedantry onMore Gender Equal Countries have Smaller Gender Gaps for Math Performance

In the LA Times: Women vs. Men: Who's Better At Business? Short answer: neither.

Suzie at Echidne of the Snakes asks whether "Just add women and stir?" is sufficient to increase the representation of women in male-dominated fields.

Daisy Grewal writes about Explaining the Math Gender Gap for the Psychology Today Sexual Stereotypes blog.

While this blog is pretty USA-focused, there is a gender gap in Europe too. TMCnet writes about the gender gap in science the Netherlands and Technika 10, a Dutch network of science and technology clubs for girls.

Green Gabro has Advice for the Mathphobe who wants to go into geoscience.

Just for fun: easternblot points out buffalonerdproject's very cool Laboratory Rockstar embellished lab coat at Etsy.

Tags: women in science