Posted by barb on Mar 3, 2005 in
Science Musings Salon has an article about innate differences between men and women — this time pertaining to how ethical men and women are. Of course, they mention the whole Summers’ debacle, saying:
Rosener’s statements barely caused a ripple, and women generally nodded in agreement. In contrast, all hell broke loose when Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, said that one reason women don’t ascend to the highest positions in science might be due to the “intrinsic aptitude” of men in this area. Incidentally, Summers also listed old-fashioned gender discrimination and the lower likelihood that women will take jobs requiring incredibly long hours as other reasons women do not get the top jobs in the sciences, which has been largely overlooked in the firestorm following his comments.
No, Salon, Summers’ comments on “old-fashioned gender discrimination and the lower likelihood that women will take jobs requiring incredibly long hours” were not overlooked — most of us commenting on Summers mentioned them. What infuriated us is that he proposed that innate differences were the primary cause, listing the other two as less important causes for women entering (and continuing in) the science fields. If we look at data already available, his prioritization of the reasons that women don’t enter science are exactly wrong. We’re pissed because he didn’t bother looking at the available data, and just ran his mouth.
Tags: science, women in science
Posted by barb on Feb 28, 2005 in
Random Thoughts Things are likely to be quiet around here for the next week or so. I’ll probably post a few silly, inane things, but don’t really have time for any “intelligent” posts. I’m working on two presentations for a teacher focus group next week, and I don’t know much about one of the topics that I’m presenting (all of the presenters would have needed to do some serious brushing-up on the topic, so I volunteered). It’s coming along, but I need to find some good pictures or make some of my own, which is time consuming.
In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves.
Tags: admin
Posted by barb on Feb 25, 2005 in
Movies 2.5/5 stars
I’ll confess that I added this to our Netflix queue because it starred Sting. No, he’s not the best actor, but he’s pretty to look at. I didn’t really know much about the story except that it was vaguely related to Frankenstein and involved his creation of a female companion for his “monster”.
In the end it was a “not bad, not great” retelling of the story of Dr. Frankenstein. In this version, Frankenstein constructs a bride for his monster, but she scares the monster away and becomes a ward of Frankenstein. He decides to mold her into an independent woman, contrary to the standards for women of the day. But when she becomes too independent, Dr. Frankenstein resents her.
I probably wouldn’t watch it again, but was a decent distraction for an evening.
Tags: reviews
Posted by barb on Feb 25, 2005 in
Memes, Etc. bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /
[via Geeky Mom]
Tags: dumb fun
I gave the talk last night at the UMD Observatory, titled X-ray Astronomy: Frequently Asked Questions.
The forecast called for snow and icy conditions, which probably kept a lot of people from the observatory. The group was small — about ten people were there for the talk. I had planned for several children to be in the audience, and feared that with only the one there, my talk might be at too low a level. However, at the end, three people asked questions, which suggests that it was at an accessible level. Overall a good experience for me, and hopefully for the attendees as well.
Felicia came with, and gave her talk, too, as shown in the picture below.
She also went down to the telescopes, and adjusted the pointing on one:
And checked out some of the astronomy posters there:
Tags: build-a-bear, grad life, science
Posted by barb on Feb 18, 2005 in
Science Musings,
Thesis/Grad Life Andrew announced this weeks ago, but I forgot. I’m giving the talk on Sunday at the University of Maryland’s observatory open house. The talk is titled “X-ray Astronomy: An FAQ” (contrary to what it’s listed as at the observatory site…I wasn’t certain what the talk was going to be when I signed on). Basically, it’s a broad overview of what X-ray astronomy is and why we do it. So, if you’re in the DC area this weekend, come join us.
Tags: grad life, science
Posted by barb on Feb 18, 2005 in
Random Thoughts Proof that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work at NASA:
Building Management Service Desk Worker: Service desk, how can I help you?
Me: I called earlier this morning about the heat in my office.
BMSDW: What building are you calling from?
Me: Trailer 6
BMSDW: And what room?
Me: 13
BMSDW: Is it still cold in there?
No, I’m calling again because I’m happy as pie that the thermostat seemed to have fixed itself.
No, my teeth always chatter when I’m warm.
No, these bricks of ice I used to call hands accidentally dialled this number.
Yes, you freaking moron. Why else would I be calling?
Me: Uh, yeah. (very sarcastically)
BMSDW: Well, sometimes it takes a while for the temperature to rise.
That’s only if you send guys out to deal with the problem.
Me: The thermostat display is still dim and says ‘replace battery’.
BMSDW: Is says what?
Me: REPLACE BATTERY.
BMSDW: Oh. I’ll check to see the status.
Tags: suckitude, work
Posted by barb on Feb 18, 2005 in
Science Musings The transcript of Summers’ speech from a few weeks ago is now available on-line. You know the one — the one that pissed everyone off, where he dismisses discrimination as a factor for the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering. I bitched about it and then tried to react more calmly. The more fool, I. Summers is a dick (as Bitch Ph.D. has so eloquently pointed out). Read the transcript for yourself.
There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities that this conference’s papers document and have been documented before with respect to the presence of women in high-end scientific professions. One is what I would call the-I’ll explain each of these in a few moments and comment on how important I think they are-the first is what I call the high-powered job hypothesis. The second is what I would call different availability of aptitude at the high end, and the third is what I would call different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search. And in my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described.
So, discrimination and socialization might be a factor, but they are really secondary to innate differences? That’s contrary to other findings (thanks to Sean at Preposterous Universe for posting that plot).
When there were no girls majoring in chemistry, when there were no girls majoring in biology, it was much easier to blame parental socialization. Then, as we are increasingly finding today, the problem is what’s happening when people are twenty, or when people are twenty-five, in terms of their patterns, with which they drop out.
Yeah, and what’s happening is that at 20 or 25 they are finding that there is a lot of discrimination; there are barriers that are built either by society as a whole or the science community itself that are difficult for women to break through. Just because people are dropping out later in their career is not “evidence” of an innate deficiency. It just means that the pressures against continuing in that career appear later rather than sooner.
So my best guess, to provoke you, of what’s behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people’s legitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.
So here he says outright that aptitude is the problem, followed distantly by socialization and discrimination.
He actually has a few reasonable points, unfortunately it takes too long to get to them. It’s not until the second-to-last paragraph, just before he opens up for questions, which is frankly too late, because I’m already pissed off and seething.
I’ve been struck at Harvard that there’s something unfortunate and ironic about the fact that if you’re a faculty member and you have a kid who’s 18 who goes to college, we in effect, through an interest-free loan, give you about $9,000. If you have a six-year-old, we give you nothing. And I don’t think we’re very different from most other universities in this regard, but there is something odd about that strategic choice, if the goal is to recruit people to come to the university.
He actually addresses one of the root problems — the problem of childcare and encouraging younger qualified applicants who might be just starting a family.
We would like to believe that you can take a year off, or two years off, or three years off, or be half-time for five years, and it affects your productivity during the time, but that it really doesn’t have any fundamental effect on the career path. And a whole set of conclusions would follow from that in terms of flexible work arrangements and so forth….But it would be useful to explore a variety of kinds of natural interruption experiments, to see what actual difference it makes, and to see whether it’s actually true, and to see in what ways interruptions can be managed, and in what fields it makes a difference.
This is exactly what the sociologist at the AAS in Denver last summer was discovering. For anyone to make it to a tenure-track position, they need a “straight trajectory” — taking time off for anything (starting a family, caring for a sick parent, burnout) seemed to be a near kiss-of-death for a student’s career.
Perhaps the last few questions that Summers raised, buried at the end of an infuriating speech, would have been a better jumping-off point for his talk, rather than “provoking” us with idiotic statements that innate differences are the primary cause for the unequal representation of women in science.
[via Bitch Ph.D.]
Tags: science, women in science
Posted by barb on Feb 16, 2005 in
Random Thoughts Don’t wear my clogs on days that I’m going to be walking much!
They are very comfortable for shuffling about the office, but I just got back from walking first from the office to the main gate, then from building 26 back to my office, and I’ve got the beginnings of blisters. Ugh.
Tags: mental note
Posted by barb on Feb 15, 2005 in
Random Thoughts,
Travels A couple weeks ago I was perusing the Astronomical Society of the Pacific website for information on their upcoming meeting in September and I stumbled upon this page. It’s an announcement of a tour of Egypt next spring (2006) that will coincide with the solar eclipse.
Solar Eclipse? And a tour of Egypt? Drool!
The tour includes visits to the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx, Alexandria, Luxor, and 4 nights cruising the Nile. Originally Andrew and I had planned on taking a trip to New Mexico this fall as a first anniversary celebration, but this is just too good to pass up. So, we’ve decided to postpone the New Mexico trip and put all our time, effort, and (especially) savings into this Egypt trip.
We were a bit concerned about the safety of travelling to Egypt, but according to the US State Department’s travel advisories, Egypt is relatively safe, except for a few select areas (like up near the Gaza strip), which the tour will be avoiding. If anything changes before the tour, we’ll re-evaluate the risks.
Now to scrimp and save… oh, and read up on Egypt!