Women in Science Link Roundup: August 2 Edition

Here's a bit of what I've been reading the past few weeks, in no particular order:

Martin @ The Lay Scientist is starting a new blog carnival tentatively titled "Carnival of Scientific Life". He wants feedback, so go check out his post. (via Coturnix)

Jake Young at Pure Pedantry looks the variance in boys and girls' math scores in the recent report by Hyde and colleagues. Janet Stemwenel @ Adventures in Ethics and Science also takes a look the latest news about girls, boys and math. There's a discussion of the topic at the NY Times Freakonomics blog (thanks Abby the hacker chick). And don't miss the Onion's "man on the street" look at the news.

NIH has a research supplement grant "to promote re-entry into biomedical and behavioral research careers"

The Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), participating Institutes and Centers (ICs) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) announce a continuing program for administrative supplements to research grants to support individuals with high potential to re-enter an active research career after a qualifying interruption for family or other responsibilities.

Google has announced their 2008 European Anita Borg Scholars, who received a a scholarship awarded to female students studying computer science, computer engineering, infomatics or related subjects.

The Society of Women Engineers honored Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX0 with the SWE President's Award.

SWE selected Congresswoman Johnson as its first-ever recipient for her efforts to implement the recommendations of the 2006 National Academies report, “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering,” and promote gender equity in academic science and engineering.

At Crooked Timber Eszter relates an anecdote about a woman professor who wanted the chair of her department to sign off on two students entering her lab. The chair responded that he wasn't sure he could sign off because "how do I know you are not going to meet a man and run off and be with him?" Some people (men?) in the comments are defending the chair because, you know, some women do get married and quit their careers, doncha know.

eduwonkette writes about Gender and Stereotype Threat in Math and Science

GrrlScientists looks at Women, Science, and Publishing Revisited

At Simostronomy Mike Simonsen writes about 19th century astronomer Maria Mitchell.

PhysioProf exposes a sinister conspiracy at the heart of a major scientific society: all four Presidential Special Lecturers at this year's meeting of the Society for Neuroscience are women (Carol A. Barnes, Allison J. Doupe, Catherine G. Dulac, and Leslie C. Griffith). The conspiracy? The president of the Society is Eve Marder, who is (you guessed it!) a woman.

And on a more serious note, PhysioProf also writes about Gender Inequity in Science: Why Legal Remidies are Grossly Inadequate. Be sure to read the discussion in the comments.

Mike Brotherton points to a pretty depressing essay by Phillip Greenspun about why there are fewer women in science than men. His thesis is that there are fewer women in science because women find better jobs.

Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation for men going into science is the following:

1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group
2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask the question "is this peer group worth impressing?"

Reading his essay makes me wonder why anyone would ever consider going into science at all.

Drug Monkey posts about the women of MDMA Research.

Dr. Medusa has done a little poking into the statistics about the salaries of women in the US. A woman professor who earns $50,000 per year puts her in the top 13% of income for women in the US, while a $75,000 salary puts a woman in the top 5%.

So assuming the US census bureau knows that they are doing in their Current Population Survey, women science professors are another odd minority: we’re in the top 3-13% of earnings by US women. We work, and we’re wealthy.

FemaleScienceProfessor has some funny answers to the stupid and sexist questions commonly asked of Female Science Professors.

Finally, if you are interested in stories with a heavy dose of science, check out the works of Andrea Barrett. Says commenter Isabel at Feministe:

Andrea Barrett, who is doubly awesome cuz she’s a female fiction writer who writes a lot about science (her undergrad degree was in bio). Check out Ship’s Fever(National Book Award winner, FWIW) for 9 of the cleanest, most elegantly-crafted short stories about naturalists, biologists, and chemists you will ever read.

Tags: women in science