Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Zuska on 11/16/2006 at 12:35 PM
Perhaps Rosa Prigosen said it best when she said “This is an age of science…Science as a career for women is practically the same as it is for men. Although the supervision of scientific research is still largely in the hands of men, many of the actual experiments are done by women.”

Of course, she said it in 1916.

Rachel, you think the struggle for women’s access to science and engineering careers is something that took place – what? In the 1970s? Or last decade? And it’s all over and done with? Because you, a data point of one, have no personal stories of discrimination, in all your infinite wisdom of 18 or 19 years you conclude that you know more than the esteemed panelists of the NSF report who spent months gathering, compiling, and analyzing data? It’s great that you have not felt discriminated against so far – but you are very young. And studies show that discrimination against women increases as they move up the career ladder, so be forewarned.

If all it took was a panel’s imbalanced gender composition to invalidate the conclusions of the report it issues, then we cannot trust the results of nearly everything that is put forth from the NSF, the NIH, the government, industry, the medical establishment, you name it. Because by and large, most panels are dominated by men. No new information in the report? That’s what a compilation of data is – it compiles existing data. Welcome to report world. The report “strayed” from the topic of gender to deal with race? What, women are all of one race, so you don’t need to talk about race to deal with gender???? I can only conclude that you are white, because a non-white woman could hardly be expected to make such a silly kind of statement.

The more things change…Rachel, I still have a copy of a freshman composition essay I wrote in response to an article in the student newspaper on sexual harassment on campus. That couldn’t possibly be happening in 1980! I exclaimed. Discrimination is over! We burned our bras in the 1970s and all that. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Indeed, it’s depressing as hell to think that over 20 years later, things have not changed more than they have. I would not have imagined back then that progress would be so staggeringly slow. But I think I am in a better position than you are to evaluate the difference between then and now.

It is frightening to admit that there might be something to all this. To admit that there might be something that is going to affect your career that is completely outside of your control and that has nothing whatsoever to do with how talented and accomplished you are, that does not respect how hard or how long you work. It sucks. It is much more comforting to pretend that such things do not exist. In that sense, your near-hysterical sense of denial is completely understandable.

What is really sad, however, is the hatred of women and consequent self-loathing it implies that comes across so strongly in your article. You say that the women who wrote the report must hate young women like you, but you are the one who makes remarks like
”it was reported that the lone man on the committee stumbled out of each meeting covered with whip marks and had to sprint to an emergency estrogen removal station to keep his testosterone level in check”. It would take a week to explain to you all the woman-hating packed into that one sentence: that women are a threat to men, that too-many women will emasculate a man, that women want to keep men pussy-whipped, that women want to control men, that women are, in general, evil. Or how about “Maybe if there were more men on the committee the incorporated technology would actually work”. Is that what you are going to tell your interviewers come job search time? That, in general, you can’t trust technology designed by women to function properly? Do you really believe such nonsense? Do you really hate yourself and other women so much?

You have exposed your own insecurities and self-loathing so pitilessly in this article, it makes me wince. You scoff at the report's focus on the difficulties for women of combining marriage, family, and a career that men don’t face – but you clearly recognize those difficulties for yourself. We don’t hear anything about your future hubby’s needs to stay home with the kids. Only how you’ll have to set aside your career once the kids come along, despite the fact that you do seem to love what you are doing right now very much (“excited about my two engineering math prelims”).

But you seem to be perfectly happy with your pink icing. Enjoy your cake, if it seems good to you. If all you want is cake, eat cake. Just don’t bitch at women who’d rather have something more nutritious.


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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Richard Barrett on 10/24/2006 at 7:00 PM
I am not surprised. As a white male engineer at NASA, I feel that I was passed over for promotion when an official memo came through to managers stating, "Managers are to look for ways to promote females and minorities." Shortly afterward, the Center Assistant Director put out an e-mail to management which stated, "Being a minority member is as important as qualifications." I feel that I was victimized by the Clinton policies of advancing females and minorities at the expense of white males.
I'm retired now, so I don't have to put up with this bias any more.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Mackenzie Gans on 10/25/2006 at 8:56 PM
I too read the Cornell American, and enjoyed this excellent article. There is no male bias, unfortunately, and it's about time someone proved it.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Beth Huetter on 10/27/2006 at 1:56 PM
First off you could have read the entire report online for free at the National Academy of Sciences website.
Secondly, this report is not the first of it's kind. A 1999 MIT report (of which there were equal parts men and women) found that women faculty members of equal professorship and time at MIT had less office space, less pay, and less research funding. Reports from the EU, the Netherlands, and the U.K. have found similar results.
Yes there is reverse bias. Women are placed on more committees than they should, which takes time away and distracts them from their actual job.
That's fine that you want to become a full-time mother some day, but what about those who want to continue in their careers after having children? Why should they be penalized? It does not seem fair that women should have to choose between having a career and having children, since men generally don't.
I work for a scientific society and see this bias in action even with the scientists we work with, so I am very saddened by your reaction to this report.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: femaleengineer on 11/6/2006 at 2:20 PM
What Beth is trying to say is that most people (such as Rachel) seem to think having children should remove a woman from the workforce, and such a decision does not apply to a man. It is not true that men do not have the choice of being a stay at home dad--being a parent involves so much more than being pregnant and bringing them into the world. A man can stay at home and take care of the kids and let his wife go to work (I do know at least two people who chose this option). But an overwhelming majority of men (certainly all who work for this paper) won't do that, and choose to enjoy both their work and having children. According to Rachel, women do not (or should not) have this luxury and have to choose between work and having babies. This is very old fashioned thinking, removing a woman's financial freedom and not allowing her intellectual growth past a certain level. I am quite surprised that it has appeared in an Ivy League newspaper--I would like to know why anyone would get an education here (at great financial cost) if they do not intend to use it for their job afterwards.

I am a female engineer working in industry and a mother of two. Having children was a joint decision; my husband definitely wanted them, even more than I did. However, this decision has affected me significantly more than it affected him. My career had to be put on the back burner for quite a while and it took me a great deal of pain to put it back on track. It seems like the choice is much easier for the man than for the woman, given how much less a man has to sacrifice from his career for the same goal of continuing the human race.

A final remark, the comment about giving birth on your office table was uncalled for. I admire the women who come to work on Friday and have their baby on Saturday. You (or I) may not be as tough as them, but it's that kind of will that got you the vote, and it's that kind of mentality which will make sure that women will have the strength to pull themselves out of hardship.




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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Alison Grant on 11/17/2006 at 4:17 PM
Well Rachel, at some point in your life you will join the real world. The world where women and other minorities have fought long and hard to give you the rights you luxuriate in so obviously. It is fantastic to hear that you have never been told you couldn't do something because of your gender. Just great because it means that the feminist thing you slate so blatantly is working.
The fact that you now have a choice - career or children or both is a testament to the work of the feminist and women’s rights movement.
You use completely inappropriate language in this article as mentioned above: it is neither smart nor clever to exaggerate for dramatic effect, as a trainee scientist/engineer you should appreciate that. Your tone is offensive, derisive and ignorant. If this typifies your attitude in life I'm sure it will be that rather than your gender holding you back. Your comments regarding the 'sole man' on the committee speak to a naive and childlike perspective on life. I'm glad that you have learned to use big words in your privileged education, now learn their meaning and how to wield them in an appropriate manner.
So when you can't find that dream husband who wants to breed with you, and you find yourself reliant on your own career, don't come complaining to the senior women around you who have fought long and hard to gain status and recognition. Just go back and read this article that you wrote when you were young and deluded. You made your bed, now lie in it.


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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: absinthe on 11/17/2006 at 8:44 PM
Dear Rachel,

For a dose of reality for what it is like to be a real live female scientist with a PhD who was in the top tier of her field, but was dumb enough to think that a "mythical" maternal wall couldn't stop her from having kids while also continuing to be outstanding in her chosen career path, read http://radio.weblogs.com/0151290/

That scientist is me, and just because you (a female only in the first semester of a science degree for chrissakes) haven't experienced gender discrimination doesn't mean it isn't epidemic for those a little further along in their life's experiences.


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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Leslie Madsen-Brooks on 11/17/2006 at 10:29 PM
Seriously, I can't believe this article was written by a woman in science. I'm not as articulate as Zuska or the other women who have responded negatively to this article, but they speak my mind.

As a mother and a Ph.D., I can tell you it's hard as hell to both be a mother and work as an academic. I don't appreciate you belittling anyone who tries to balance teaching, research, and parenting. Try it yourself.

In fact, I'd like to be a fly on the wall when you decide you want to pursue an intellectual career and raise children. Good luck balancing those "maternal tendencies" with the perfect "equality" of the academy.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Jarvis on 11/18/2006 at 3:23 AM
So... for all of you people bashing this article and the author....
I noticed I don't see anyone debating her facts? Just her ideas?

And because she has these ideas, you're calling her names and insulting her...like 5th graders. Do you see that? Like little kids.
I can't believe it. People claiming to have PhDs calling her a twit, an idiot, etc...
What is wrong with you people?

Yes there was a lot of sarcasm... for those of you who failed to see this, read it again.
When did she ever bash balancing work and children? She was basically saying that having children is a poor excuse for doing badly in a career. Is it hard? Yes. Of course it is. Do most men have to try to deal with something like that? No, of course not. They can't bear children. Is it fair? Is life fair? Is it fair that you have certain bodily functions due to nature?
It doesn't matter, because that's life.

Read the facts. If you have a problem with them, dispute them. Otherwise, don't act like children and start calling names.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: JoeMamma on 11/20/2006 at 9:42 PM

Wow, how many PhDs does it take to figure out a simple point? Apparently, the 4 or 5 "working PhD" moms think that Brenc don't get it. "You try raising kids and having a career as a PhD scientist, you naive little brat!"

But see, my PhDs, you've missed her point entirely. In fact, she has said outright that she would leave science to be a mom.

What she has so maturely, so providently grasped already - Lo! at such young age! - is that the concept of "PhD scientist" and "mom" are mutually exclusive. She has already come to understand that working 60 hours a week and properly raising children are incompatible.

You PhdMoms, or Phoms, haven't, and probably won't ever, figure that out. Sure sure, you're there for the occassional soccer game or to take the baby from the nanny for the "candid" shot as you run in the door late for the birthday, kept at the office by that extra long meeting, but you're not reall raising your kids, are you? Not any more than the once a month golfer is pursuing a career as a golf pro.

So this Brenc appears to have figured out that to attempt to do both is a guarantee to fail at both. On the one side, the Phoms can have their gnawing conscience assuaged by the roar of the left - "it's OK, you CAN be a Mom for just 20 hours a week! You go girl!" - and on the other side they can cry "discrimination" when the ascension of Phoms into the ranks of the CEOs are precariously short of 50%.

Great comments. Here's a young lady who is willing to dedicate herself entirely to her studies and her science now, but, when the time comes, is willing to dedicate herself entirely to her children - who will be more important than any corporation that exists now or will ever exist.

And for this, in come the irate Phoms - who is this young naive ass to question all we do. Because that's it, right? What it's really about for you is Brenc's indirect calling out of your decision to abdicate your responsbility as primary care giver so that you can pursue a career.

Her attitude seems to be, "I want no handouts - I want no exceptions - I will not cry unfair - and, when the time comes, I will be a full time mother rather than try to demand more from the system than that to which my male counterparts are entitled." For this you bash her?

Insecure and juvenile is what you are.

And no responses to her comments?

She critiqued the original article by pointing out several glaring flaws. Flaws that are so obvious and so egregious that if you were scientists, and not neofeminists who happen to be scientists, you would start your rants with "first, good job Brenc on the analysis of the article - it is garbage and does not withstand even minor peer review."

But you charade as scientists. You are more interested in your pet cause than in truth. You are the Jesse Jacksons of science - it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, it's all about the pursuit of what's best for "us", with the "us" in this case being those in clear possession of a vagina.


Hopefully Brenc represents a new generation of women who are willing to play on a level playing field.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Zuska on 11/21/2006 at 2:57 PM
For the jackass who wrote about "Phoms" - why the hell do your remarks apply only to women? What about all the fricking Phads? When the men procreate they feel no compunction whatsoever about going right back to the lab and working those 60 hour weeks. That's because they think they can just leave all the child care duties with the woman at home. THAT is what is inherently unfair and what makes it so difficult for a "Phom" to cope with the demands of the workplace - she's competing with Phads who have a built-in full-time baby-sitter. Give every Phom a wife and she can compete with any man. Or maybe it would make more sense to change the fucked up system that says PhD's should have no life outside the lab and should have to work 60 hours a week. Women AND men would benefit if they could have a full integrated life as well as a career.



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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Zuska on 11/21/2006 at 2:58 PM
I'm going to repost here comments I posted over at Adventures in Ethics and Science http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2006/11/college_freshman_proclaims_bia.php because it's useful for visitors here to see that Rachel is not only flippant, sarcastic, and deluded about the actual state of things for women in science, she also is not capable of reading and interpreting text and figures. Here's what I wrote elsewhere:

Well, Rachel is a freshman, and so perhaps she has not yet had a lot of experience with complicated graphics. Her analysis of Figure 3.6 on page 105 of the report is mistaken. Nowhere on the figure is there a three-year differential between men and women in age at assistant professor in any category. Data are for all faculty, married, single or parents. I could find nothing in the discussion of Figure 3.6 that attributes the difference in age at assistant professor to childbirth. In all STEM fields, average age at assistant professor is 34 for women, 32 for men. This might more likely reflect a longer time in the postdoc pool for women - but whatever, let's ignore the age difference. How long till from assistant to associate? Average time is 5.5 years for women compared to 4.7 years for men. Then, time to full professor: 5.6 years for women, 5 years for men. Time to full professor step 6: 8.9 years for women, 8 years for men. From the time they become assistant professors, it takes women on average 2.3 extra years to traverse the entire tenure pathway. This has nothing to do with them starting the tenure pathway two years older on average than men. Rachel has taken 2.3 years, subtracted "1-3 years", and gotten ".1 years". I hope she did okay on her engineering math tests. Rachel also does not mention that Figure 3.6 is comprised of data from one institution, UC Berkeley, though the report notes that similar patterns were shown at other universities including Duke and MIT.

Regarding the CAREER and PECASE awards: Rachel laments that she cannot find out about these awards because of links in the report that don't work, and castigates the incompetent women for leaving her ignorant. If Rachel had actually read the report, she would have found a description of both awards in the paragraph preceding Figure 3.2 which she purports to discuss. There she would also have found the authors stating that it is "notable that the proportion of women CAREER and PECASE awardees in the last 10 years meets or exceeds the proportion of women in the PhD pool (Figure 3.2)." The authors refer to these awards in the context of a discussion as to whether or not early prestigious career awards have a differential effect on career outcome. Not, as Rachel would have it, to demonstrate that women receive fewer awards than men do. So once again, Rachel merely shows herself incapable of interpreting a graph AND written material correctly. Or is it Rachel who is taking a figure and interpreting it selectively for her own purposes, as she accuses the report's authors of doing?

As for the salary issue, Rachel sets up a straw woman and then declares that there is no existing information that could convince her otherwise than her stated position. Even if I produced a man and a woman who were paid differently, I'm not sure that Rachel would agree that they were equally qualified because the woman, after all, would have ovaries and lack a penis. Salary discrepancies cannot be proven or disproven on individual bases; it takes statistical studies and patterns over time to look at what is happening, especially in fields like STEM where women are so sparsely represented. If a woman is the only member of her department, it can be argued that she is "unique" and that she cannot be directly compared to her colleagues in the department. Statistical studies will often tell a different story than individual comparisons. Which is why they are used in lawsuits.

Nevertheless, look at the example of the MIT report, http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html, where it was shown that women faculty at MIT received less lab space and other types of research support than men faculty - and these were senior research faculty women. Salary is not the only, or even, perhaps, the most important, resource issue that matters in science.

Rachel still has an awful lot to learn, the least of which is how to read and interpret figures and text. I wish her luck on the painful journey in front of her.



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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Daniel on 11/21/2006 at 3:05 PM
Joe,
What you miss is that no one is criticizing Rachel for being interested in becoming a career housewife one day. It is Rachel who is criticizing the choices of other women, who either want to (or more likely have to) have both a family and their own income.

Your argument (and Rachel's) reflects exactly what the radical Right wants you to think - that it's perfectly OK to force your views about someone else's behaviors, place in society, etc., on others.

Grow up and lose the mysogyny.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Daniel on 11/21/2006 at 3:23 PM
Joe,
What you miss is that no one is criticizing Rachel for being interested in becoming a career housewife one day. It is Rachel who is criticizing the choices of other women, who either want to (or more likely have to) have both a family and their own income.

Your argument (and Rachel's) reflects exactly what the radical Right wants you to think - that it's perfectly OK to force your views about someone else's behaviors, place in society, etc., on others.

Grow up and lose the mysogyny.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Renee on 11/21/2006 at 3:30 PM
With regards to Rachel's alleged inability to subtract, I believe you are wrong. If you take the white bars in the category "all science" which represent the period of time to get from "full professor" to "full professor step 6," you'll notice that 8.5-8.4 = .1, which is exactly what she said. I'm guessing she did just fine on her math prelims.

Does the context of the awards matter? Isn't it simply an issue of women getting more than their fair share? Maybe she wanted to find out more about the awards than the little 5 sentence blurb that came before the chart?

For an interesting table, check out Table 3-4 on page 82, "reasons for switching to non-SEM major." It says a lot right there, especially with the high proportion of women listing "rejection of SEM careers and associated lifestyles." Also notice that 26% of men listed "morale undermined by competition" when only 4% of women listed it as a reason for leaving the field.


Let's read up on Zuska, here. I find it hard to take seriously anyone who describes herself as such:
Zuska, Goddess of Science, Empress of Engineering, and Avenging Angel of Angry Women, will tell you what everyone is thinking but is afraid to say.
I offer the web's most excellent and informative rants on the intransigent refusal of engineering and science to open their doors to anyone but white males. I verbally bludgeon morons, celebrate the fabulousness of techie women, and encourage every female to release her Inner Pissed-Off Woman.
I have done hard time as an engineer and a scientist, in academia and industry, at the bench and in administration. I am a certified feminist.
I am chronically educated, with many engineering degrees from fancy universities. You can read all the exciting details here.

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: JoeMamma on 11/21/2006 at 4:17 PM
Zuska.
I see that you finally got around to actually reading the article. That's good. The “attacking Brenc for having a divergent opinion” thing was pretty lame for a Phd.

Before I get going on the easy response to your arguments, please note the following main idea of Brenc’s article . . .

"There is no significant discrimination against women - if anything there is a discrimination against men."

Let's stop trying to move her thesis away from that point.

With regard to your (Zuska’s) points, I address some of them here . . .

You wrote “For the jackass who wrote about "Phoms" - why the hell do your remarks apply only to women?”

I didn’t say they only apply to women. That’s your “find discrimination wherever I look” glasses in operation.

Zuska - “That's because they [Phads] think they can just leave all the child care duties with the woman at home.”

Probably true, but irrelevant to our discussion, which is about the alleged ongoing discrimination of women in science.

Zuska - “THAT [the last Zuska quote] is what is inherently unfair and what makes it so difficult for a "Phom" to cope with the demands of the workplace - she's competing with Phads who have a built-in full-time baby-sitter.”

Well now this last sentence really sums you up as a person and as a neofeminist, Zuska. I know that you probably are unwilling to learn at this stage in life, but if you commit to some introspection, you’ll, perhaps, see that your anger is not derived from the place that you think it is.

Think about this.

What you are saying is “inherently unfair” is that Phads have a full time babysitter. In other words, your real complaint is not with the men against whom you “compete”, but rather with the idiot women who sit at home as “babysitters”.

Is everyone following this? This is critical to understanding what motivates Zuska.

As a first matter, your complaint is with the lifestyle choice of couples that choose the mom stay at home route. I think that is very illiberal and petty of you. I think people should be able to make their own choices.

As a second matter, you call full time moms “babysitters”, which is illiberal, insulting, and mean. You allege to be a representative of the interest of women Zuska, but that is a lie. Your words clearly demonstrate an animosity toward women who willingly choose a route with which you do not agree.

Think about that. Better yet, read it again.

Zuska - “Or maybe it would make more sense to change the fucked up system that says PhD's should have no life outside the lab and should have to work 60 hours a week.”

This is just plain silly. If you are smart as you seem to imply you are, you should have been able to see this result well before you were embedded in your PhD program.

I sure did. I heard 4-6 years of “research” with no wage or little wage and then 2-4 years of post doc for 20 K out in Boise and then what? Associate assistant adjunct professor? Intro level job at Phizer making 50k. I said “no thanks” to that, and I reckon I’m not as smart as you, Zuska.

Life is about choices. You seem unhappy with yours. You seem unhappy that you don’t (or didn’t) have a wife at home, that you are (or were) working too much, and so on.


Zuska -“Women AND men would benefit if they could have a full integrated life as well as a career.”

This is your opinion, but you don’t seem to recognize it as such. Even without getting into the silliness of terms such as “fully integrated life”, it’s clear that is Zuska’s world, people are incomplete if they don’t work.

Here’s an alternative perspective for you. I’m sure you consider yourself a liberal, so try to live what you preach and consider this perspective.

I don’t want a “fully integrated life”. I want to work at “work” as little as possible in the years I have left. Conversely, I really enjoy spending time with my kids. I love teaching them about the world. I work to pay the bills. I don’t value material stuff much, so I find that I don’t need to work much to pay the bills. I also don’t have many financial obligations, like student loans, mortgage loans, and so on, that require me to work. Working 60 hours a week in a lab? Only if I was working on something I loved, I could spend the rest of my time with my kids, and I had a partner watching the kids during those 60 hours.

Reminds me of a professor I once knew. The guy was famous on campus for having 90+ publications – the guy is world famous. You could see the PhD’s all green with envy at this guy. Then it comes out that his 25 year old son is running a prostitution ring on campus.

I’m sure that one could argue that the 90+ publications and the pimping are unrelated. Heck, I’m sure that you could probably find a PhD paper somewhere to back you on that.

But people like me, and I assume Ms. Brenc, we know better.

We know that raising children is the most difficult, challenging, and rewarding job you could have.

Much tougher than any of the many jobs I have worked or the many degrees I have acquired along the way.

But those jobs and those degrees were not intrinsically valuable to me; they were only valuable as a means to an end.

My kids, on the other hand, are all that matters.




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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: JoeMamma on 11/21/2006 at 6:17 PM

Geez, all of your math is crap.

The original article by Brenc is wrong - the difference in the "All Science" category is the difference in the sum of associate/full/full "Step 6". The first bar, which is black, is irrelevant and should have been left off the chart (by the way Zuska, your discrimination glasses told you "longer in post doc". How about maybe just women decide to return to grad school later? or some have kids and take 2 or 3 years off? Or enter the work force).

I posted the chart here . . . http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/7079/uurk3.png

So the correct number for "All Science" Female is 5.1+4.3+8.5=17.9 and Male is 4.4+4.3+8.4=17.1. The difference is 0.8 years, or about 9 months. I don't know why, but I find that result quite ironic.

As for Doctor Zuska's math, well let's check it, shall we?

Zuska wrote:
"How long till from assistant to associate? Average time is 5.5 years for women compared to 4.7 years for men. Then, time to full professor: 5.6 years for women, 5 years for men. Time to full professor step 6: 8.9 years for women, 8 years for men. From the time they become assistant professors, it takes women on average 2.3 extra years to traverse the entire tenure pathway."

But wait, the mighty Doctor Zuska, so filled with vitriole for young Ms. Brenc and so ready to attack Ms. Brenc for her errors (Zuzka - "So once again, Rachel merely shows herself incapable of interpreting a graph AND written material correctly"), the mighty Zuska has struck out, because she has incorrectly used "8" as the number of years to full professor:step 6 for men, while in fact the number is clearly 8.5. This means that the difference between STEM men and women is not 2.3, as the caustic Doctor has claimed, but rather it is 1.7.

How pathetic, symbolic, and hilarious, all at once.


Zuska - how about a big apology for Ms. Brenc for being so degrading and abrasive when you yourself, with all your degrees and experience, have screwed up so royally and so obviously in the exact same post that you write: "Rachel still has an awful lot to learn, the least of which is how to read and interpret figures and text. I wish her luck on the painful journey in front of her."

You are so freaking condescending. Geez, what a great reminder why I didn't choose to get a PhD.

The worst thing is, I don't picture any pain in her journey coming from gender discrimination - she seems to have an internal locus of control, and she isn't looking around trying to find discrimination in every corner.

I see more pain in her future from having to attend sensitivity and diversity training run by people like you, who see discrimination in every nook and cranny.

You, on the other hand, seem very pained. It must be tough to have to constantly look for boogeymen.

Here's one for you . . .

Males made up less than 44% of incoming college freshmen this fall. And that number will keep declining.

Wow, we had better get right on that, surely they're being discriminated against.

At least, that's what I'd claim if I wore your glasses.

On the other hand, folks like me and Ms. Brenc would see that number as a reflection of just how even the playing field is and of just how pathetically immature the young males are in the USA.









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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: A Stranger on 12/7/2006 at 4:40 PM
JoeMamma,

"What she has so maturely, so providently grasped already - Lo! at such young age! - is that the concept of "PhD scientist" and "mom" are mutually exclusive. She has already come to understand that working 60 hours a week and properly raising children are incompatible."

I believe that much of what Zuska and others are arguing is based on the double standard implicit in this comment. Should no PhD scientists have children? Or are "PhD scientist" and "dad" less mutually exclusive from your perspective?

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: A Stranger on 12/7/2006 at 7:05 PM
JoeMamma,

"What she has so maturely, so providently grasped already - Lo! at such young age! - is that the concept of "PhD scientist" and "mom" are mutually exclusive. She has already come to understand that working 60 hours a week and properly raising children are incompatible."

I believe that much of what Zuska and others are arguing is based on the double standard implicit in this comment. Should no PhD scientists have children? Or are "PhD scientist" and "dad" less mutually exclusive from your perspective?

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: Elenor on 12/17/2006 at 9:37 AM
First, I disagree with what Rachel is saying. I think that it is a sad day when a female is agreeing with what a Patriarchal society is trying to do: decrease the number of females in the scientific workplace.

Now, I do agree that more males would like to work in science than females, but I think that this has been imposed by our living. From primary school onwards, particularly in high school, females are expected to hate science and math. Females who don't follow this expectation are branded 'geeks' and 'nerds', and I can say from experience that it is hard to live with such a reputation.

As for having children, this is another major issue in the workplace. Females must be able to receive maternity leave, while this is not an issue for males. It is therefore, in some ways, better to hire male workers because you are not required to give them that extra vacation. In addition, being a mother and a scientist would be very difficult. Scientists keep extremely strange hours and being at home with children when you are supposed to be would be early impossible. I know families who want children quite alot, but cannot because the female is a scientist.

Also, I find it interesting that the males in this discussion are mostly just saying 'I agree' to the article and calling all the disaggreeing females 'bitches'. It is the females who are putting forth a rational discussion, without the name calling.

I really hope that our society can reach beyond these sexist positions. This might strike you as amazing, but females, just like males, are interested in math and science!!

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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: A Parent on 12/17/2006 at 4:03 PM
"While women make up 9% of the pool of eligible recipients for the “CAREER” and “PECASE” awards..."

Rachel is cherry-picking around the fact that human society is still giving the male hunters the front seat around the fire.

We humans have just barely begun to understand how we work, and yet we have already found ways to transcend organic life, to avoid the nastiness of life in the jungle. Things like bills of rights, and stuff.

So what if some neocons or libertarians fantasize about being back in the jungle. That's history, as long as progressive-minded folks keep progressing.

So stop reading crap on neocon websites from Ann Coulter wannabees, and get busy supporting the good efforts being done elsewhere.


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Re: Swapping Skirts for Genes

By: You're a GENIUS... for a woman on 06/15/2007 at 1:13 AM
While having a "fully integrated life" is different for different people, I will say that there is little reason to work 60-80 hours a week at a lab, and if you are, your efficiency is probably very poor and your experiments probably suffer from significant fuck-ups. I only work 40 hours a week, but my experiments WORK, my grants are accepted, and my papers are published. I could be outtahere in 3 years (though I think I'll stay a year longer just to drive up the publication number). The other people in my lab never seem to leave, because they're there when I arrive at 9 and still there when I leave at 6, and yes, they are insanely jealous that I'm my PI's number 1 protégée.

I'll let the Phoms and Phads make the arguments about children and career, because I'm sure children are much more mentally draining than lab-work, and I'm young and undecided on the matter, but I am making the point that lab-work does not necessarily need to take up more of one's time or life than any other full-time job in order to be any good at it.

Just to leave you with a final anecdote on the matter:
A colleague and good friend of mine praised me as “the smartest WOMAN” he had ever met, “especially in matters of pure abstraction”. He later made a quip about women having poor spatial reasoning ability when I waited for a car to pass before crossing the street. This is the name of the game. This is what we’re up against. Glass ceiling? Try diamond.


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