This interview with a Stanford professor (of neurobiology) about his experience as a woman in science is an interesting read (via Angry Physics.)
O brave new quantum world!
O brave new quantum world!
This interview with a Stanford professor (of neurobiology) about his experience as a woman in science is an interesting read (via Angry Physics.)
Hmmm…it’s amazing how quickly something like this gets around! I had 5 people email it to me today. I think that’s a very good thing, that so many people in about my stage of the game are aware of and interested by these sorts of comments. Also got some articles on how boys are doing poorly in high school and early college.
I still feel like I’m in some strange dream now that I’m back at Tech…
Some would call it a nightmare being back at Tech 😉 (of course, they aren’t multigenerational Techers like some of us 🙂 ) I actually really liked coming back the second time. Although it did give me a ton of deja vu moments (and multiple times when I was introduced to people I knew I’d met before but couldn’t recall where.)
Fascinating article. At first, when I read your description of the article, I thought it was some blowhard guy who claimed he “knew” what it was like to be a woman in science, ie talking out of his ass. I was pleasantly surprised. I especially like that he pointed out that he never thought what was happening to him was sexism. I think that happens all the time – we’re too afraid of calling it out because we don’t want to be troublemakers, and make all sorts of excuses.
I still remember Prof. Fuller saying to my face that he understood I didn’t get the 3-D integral stuff because “women just weren’t very good at visualizing those sorts of problems”. Since I sucked at it, I had no idea what to say to him. But I knew it wasn’t a female thing. 🙁
“Visualize this, sucka,” does occur as a possibility – but then again, thoughts of immediate resort to violence may be more in the male province. 😉
Just a note to say that the article about Barres, as well as his piece in Nature, is being passed around in my circles too! There are a couple people interested in bringing him to Boston to speak.
Unsurprisingly some of his detractors are resorting to first-grade and very passé, bigoted comments, like calling him the “fruitcake of science.”
Prof. Fuller pull that little stunt on more than one female student. What a disgrace.
Thanks for the article. I admit to having the same initial thoughts as An, especially after glancing at the first picture. Just shows that I’ve got big prejudices to work on too.
I didn’t have particular negative experiences as a woman at Tech but did feel pressure to never act in any way ditsy or silly in order to prove that I didn’t get in by some fluke, because I was always overhearing people judge women this way or that based on their behavior. Being a phys major helped just ’cause there weren’t too many girls doing that and phys was seen as a harder degree than bio. Maybe the atmosphere wasn’t the most supportive there, but bottom line is that like lots of Techers, I also just wasn’t comfortable enough with myself back then to stand up against peer pressure and just be who I wanted to be.
I didn’t continue with physics because I don’t have the passion for it, and I never thought much about whether it had to do with being a woman. On the other hand, I’ll never forget (or really forgive) female math and science teachers at my all-girls high school telling me not to bother applying to Tech because they said I’d ultimately fail and end up at U of Tennessee. That alone drove me to complete at Tech come hell or high water.