Dr. Isis offers advice to a reader who gets ogled by a professor.
Numerous commenters chime in with their own experiences of being ogled, groped, and otherwise harassed by professors, classmates, bosses, colleagues, and random guys.
Category Archives: Women and science
Letters to Our Daughters.
Dr. Isis asked me to write a letter for her most excellent Letters to Our Daughters project, which she describes as follows:
When I was a graduate student, I took a physiology class in which I was given the assignment to recreate my scientific family tree. When I did, I found that my family tree is composed some brilliant scientists. But, my family tree is also composed entirely of men, plus me. The same is true of the tree from my postdoc. I have scientific fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, but no aunts, grandmothers, or mothers. As I considered my career path in science, I found myself wanting and needing the perspective of more senior women scientists.
The inspiration for my Letters to Our Daughters Project comes from my hope that we can recreate our family tree here, creating a forum where the mothers and aunts in our fields (which I hope to not limit to physiology, but that’s where I’ll start because that’s who I know) can share their wisdom with us. I think there is a wealth of information among these successful women and I hope to use this forum to share it with young scientists who are yearning for that knowledge.
I’m actually in a somewhat weird position, in that my scientific pedigree (at least as I see it) includes quite a number of foremothers in college (and two in graduate school). And, I am blessed to have a mother whose own example inspired me as I looked toward advanced studies in chemistry.
Also, at least by the standard reckoning, I leaked out of the pipeline when I left chemistry to become a philosopher of science. So it’s possible you’ll want to take my advice with a grain of sodium chloride. However, philosopher or no, the fact remains that I love science.
Math and science versus femininity.
Dr. Isis has some rollicking good discussions going on at her pad about who might care about blogs, and what role they might play in scientific education, training, and interactions. (Part one, part two.)
On the second of these posts, a comment from Pascale lodged itself in my brain:
I think a lot of impressionable girls, especially in that middle-school age group, get the idea that they can’t be good at science or math if they like clothes, makeup, and boys. Is it the science/math sterotype that is the problem, or is it that girls make other choices to pursue these alternate interests? “I want to be pretty, so I don’t want to be a scientist, etc” or is it “I’m bad at math and science, so I should be pretty and study art.”
Girls’ test scores and grades don’t fall behind boys in these subjects until that age, and I find it hard to believe that girls suddenly lose the ability to do math and science. If more positive role models were present, then girls might see that they can study science and be feminine as well. I think that may be the real issue to closing the gender gap in the sciences.
This has me wondering.
Book review: Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science.
Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics
by Renée Bergland
Boston: Beacon Press
2008
What is it like to be a woman scientist? In a society where being a woman is somehow a distinct experience from being an ordinary human being, the answer to this question can be complicated. And, in a time and place where being a scientist, being a professional — indeed, even being American — was still being worked out, the complexities of the answer can add up to a biography of that time, that place, that swirl of intellectual and cultural ferment, as well as of that woman scientist.
The astronomer Maria Mitchell was not only a pioneering woman scientist in the early history of the United States, but she was one of the nation’s first professional scientists. Renée Bergland’s biography of Mitchell illuminates a confluence of circumstances that made it possible for Mitchell to make her scientific contributions — to be a scientist at all. At the same time, it tracks a retrograde cultural swing of which Mitchell herself was aware: a loss, during Mitchell’s lifetime, of educational and career opportunities for women in the sciences.
A tremendous Luddite celebrates Ada Lovelace Day.
Today is Ada Lovelace Day.
Regular readers of this blog may recall that I am a tremendous Luddite. Obviously, this should not be taken to mean I am against all technological advances across the board (as here I am, typing on a computer, preparing a post that will be published using blogging software on the internet). Rather, I am suspicious of technological advances that seem to arise without much thought about how they influence the experience of the humans interacting with them, and of “improvements” that would require me to sink a bunch of time into learning new commands or operating instructions while producing at best a marginal improvement over the outcome I get from the technology I already know.
That is to say, my own inclination is to view technologies not as ends in themselves but as tools which, depending on how they are deployed, can enhance our lives or can make them harder.
The original Luddites were part of a workers’ movement in England in the early 19th century. The technologies these Luddites were against included the mechanical knitting machines and looms that shifted textile production from the hands of skilled knitters and weavers to a relatively unskilled labor force tending to the machines. In the current economic climate, it’s not too hard to see what the Luddites were worried about: even if the Industrial Revolution technologies didn’t result in an overall decrease in jobs (since you’d need workers to tend the machines), there would be no reason to assume that the owners of textile factories would be interested in retraining the skilled knitters and weavers already in existence to be the machine-tenders. And net stability (even increase) in the number of jobs can be cold comfort when your job goes away.
Honorifics, credentials, and respect.
There’s a lively discussion raging at the pad of Dr. Isis (here and here) about whether there isn’t something inherently obnoxious and snooty about identifying oneself as having earned an advanced degree of any sort. Commenter Becca makes the case thusly:
“Why are people threatened by the idea that a profession ought to have professional standards, anyway?”
1) It gives the gatekeepers even more power than they already have. Given a world where professional credentials are denied to certain groups, it can get a bit ugly. I think the worst part is that people who are traditionally trodden upon, because they fought so hard to get the darn credential, end up being the ones most viciously fighting against respect for people without the credentials.
2) I’m not horribly opposed to professional standards in general, I just don’t think they should necesarily apply to researchers. If an MD doesn’t know what she’s doing, she kills people. If a scientist doesn’t know what she’s doing, she can change the status quo by doing something incredibly novel that others couldn’t imagine (not that it’s the most likely scenario; the most likely scenario is she will fall flat on her face… but there is an important distinction nonetheless). Heck, a kid in a science fair can discover something new (ocassionally, at the highest levels like Westinghouse, even something that academics should recognize- something publishable).
Ultimately, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we didn’t take “Dr.” as a proxy for respect. No one will ever earn my respect by spending X years in school. Plenty of people without PhDs will earn it.
I’ve met very few PhDs who have unearned my respect for their hard work and intelligence that got them that degree (note the distinction between symbol = degree and reality = character). But there have been a few. I feel no obligation to call them “Dr.”.
“Seriously, what is the problem with recognizing expertise, hardwork, perseverence, and yes, intelligence? Why is that not progressive?”
There’s nothing wrong with it, and a great deal right!
But the relationship between schooling, expertise, hardwork, perserverence and intelligence and the number of letters displayed after your name is not a one to one function. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something (most likely a diploma).
“Ms. Manners would suggest that the polite thing to do would be to inquire of Dr. Biden which she would prefer, and (so long as the preference is for an honorific she has earned) use that.”
Did you mean Miss Manners? On the original discussion I posted her commentary on this. It can be summed up as: if someone wants to use a title, give it to them. If you are thinking of your own title, however, it’s a tad crude to draw excessive attention to your need for status.
I’m sympathetic to Becca’s points here, so I want to explore why it is I find myself leaning in the other direction on the appropriateness of “Dr.” as an honorific.
ScienceOnline’09: Diversity in science, online and off.
There were some really good discussions of ally work in the gender in science session led by Zuska, Alice, and Abel and in the race in science session led by Danielle Lee and AcmeGirl.
One of the issues that has become clearer to me is that there is an inescapable asymmetry in the relationship between allies and those (like scientists of color or women scientists) they are trying to support. (I think the discussion at Samia’s blog helped me feel like I got it well enough to put into words.) An ally is someone who wouldn’t have to care about the difficulties faced by members of the group s/he is trying to support; not being part of that group, the ally doesn’t face those challenges first hand. This means the ally is choosing to care — making an effort to take the issues of others seriously.
Women, scientists, and ordinary human beings.
So, at the end of the PSA I was so sick that I took to my overpriced hotel bed, forgoing interesting papers and the prospect of catching up with geographically dispersed friends in my field who I can only count on seeing every two years at the PSA. I managed to get myself back home and then needed another eight days to return to a “functional” baseline.
Checking in with the internets again, I feel like maybe I was in a coma for six months.
In particular, I was totally sidelined when Isis the Scientist issued her manifesto and when Zuska weighed in on the various reactions to Isis and her manifesto. Both posts are must-reads, and if my head were not still swimming in mucus I might be able to add something substantive to advance the discussion.
However, since my head is still swimming in mucus, I’m afraid you’ll be getting something rather more stream-of-consciousness.
Prizes for women. Progress for women?
2008 is the tenth year of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards to remarkable female scientists from around the world. Indeed, our sister-site, ScienceBlogs.de, covered this year’s award ceremony and is celebrating women in science more generally with a For Women in Science blog. (It, like the rest of ScienceBlogs.de, is in German. Just so you know.)
In addition to the global contest, three further scholarships are given to women scientists in Germany. But, the only women eligible for these awards are women with kids. (The rationale for this is that childcare options in Germany are not as good as they should be for working mothers, so women scientists with kids need special support.)