On Sunday afternoon, I did two things that I haven't done in longer than I care to admit. I cleaned the kitchen with the latest two episodes of Galactic Suburbia (one-and-a-half episodes, if you insist on accuracy). I used to listen very, very regularly to the GS podcast while I still commuted to school, or walked around campus. Since I've been on a break, however, not so much.
Oh wait... I've gushed on about this podcast before.
My "Culture to Consume" list grows dramatically after I listen to the podcast. My SF/F news comes from there. But most of all, I love, love, love that they bring up things that are always thought-provoking - even for someone who isn't interested in genre.
In listening, I thought of at least two things that I wanted to blog about (re-blog, okay! okay.)
I had the lofty idea of saving these wonderful Galactic-Suburbia inspired posts for later.
But then, I just saw this from "I Fucking Love Science" on facebook. (Friend that page. Seriously. Friend it.) And the post that appears after the jump just had to be written.
"Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know."
~ Jeremy Knowles
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a truly extraordinary woman.
Oh come on. You did not know that.
Shamefully, neither did I.
The inequality of women in the workplace (to keep with the topic, in the Sciences) is not a new thing. Even when it does not seem like it exists.
You're familiar with the stereotypes of women in science - the geeky, socially awkward, dorky and dowdy - think Amy Farrah Fowler from Big Bang Theory (played by the Neuroscience-Ph.D.-holding Mayim Bialik)*.
There are worse ones IRL.
For instance, I was talking to a friend (you know, the same one who got lectured by the doctor about her moral responsibility to stay home with her baby instead of choosing a career). She has a doctorate in Neurobiology. She is also pointedly not dowdy - her wardrobe is always (has always been) painstakingly put together. At a conference where she was presenting a paper, she got told, "Honey, you're too well dressed! Nobody is going to take you seriously!" She brushed it off, presented a fantabulous, well-received paper that eventually got published.
The same friend, while on an internship, also heard from her male supervisor. "Go home and change and come, your shirt is distracting me."
(And if you're thinking "maybe her shirt was too _________________", you need to go back and re-think the whole victim-blaming thing.)
The IFLS meme made me think of her. And of the politics of gender everywhere.
There is, apparently, no winning this without a penis.
I've been asking myself what the point is of talking about this - and I think the answer is that discussion is the first step to reform of any kind.
More along these lines, tomorrow.
*(With apologies - a footnote.) I know. This is a rooted in a specific culture. So help me here, what's the Indian stereotype of the Science Woman? Sibling? S.B.? Anyone else reading? )
Oh wait... I've gushed on about this podcast before.
My "Culture to Consume" list grows dramatically after I listen to the podcast. My SF/F news comes from there. But most of all, I love, love, love that they bring up things that are always thought-provoking - even for someone who isn't interested in genre.
In listening, I thought of at least two things that I wanted to blog about (re-blog, okay! okay.)
I had the lofty idea of saving these wonderful Galactic-Suburbia inspired posts for later.
But then, I just saw this from "I Fucking Love Science" on facebook. (Friend that page. Seriously. Friend it.) And the post that appears after the jump just had to be written.
~ Jeremy Knowles
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a truly extraordinary woman.
Oh come on. You did not know that.
Shamefully, neither did I.
The inequality of women in the workplace (to keep with the topic, in the Sciences) is not a new thing. Even when it does not seem like it exists.
You're familiar with the stereotypes of women in science - the geeky, socially awkward, dorky and dowdy - think Amy Farrah Fowler from Big Bang Theory (played by the Neuroscience-Ph.D.-holding Mayim Bialik)*.
There are worse ones IRL.
For instance, I was talking to a friend (you know, the same one who got lectured by the doctor about her moral responsibility to stay home with her baby instead of choosing a career). She has a doctorate in Neurobiology. She is also pointedly not dowdy - her wardrobe is always (has always been) painstakingly put together. At a conference where she was presenting a paper, she got told, "Honey, you're too well dressed! Nobody is going to take you seriously!" She brushed it off, presented a fantabulous, well-received paper that eventually got published.
The same friend, while on an internship, also heard from her male supervisor. "Go home and change and come, your shirt is distracting me."
(And if you're thinking "maybe her shirt was too _________________", you need to go back and re-think the whole victim-blaming thing.)
The IFLS meme made me think of her. And of the politics of gender everywhere.
There is, apparently, no winning this without a penis.
I've been asking myself what the point is of talking about this - and I think the answer is that discussion is the first step to reform of any kind.
More along these lines, tomorrow.
*(With apologies - a footnote.) I know. This is a rooted in a specific culture. So help me here, what's the Indian stereotype of the Science Woman? Sibling? S.B.? Anyone else reading? )
1 comment:
I suppose we could think about the Indian stereotype of the woman who doesn't do science. Of the many things that would come to mind, some of them are 'didn't get an engineering seat' and 'fast-u' (i don't know how to explain that non-colloquially).
But even as I think about it, it seems so much more complex. Especially because I think the same stereotypes would apply to any career-oriented woman in India regardless of discipline. (Of course, the money would help if the woman were a doctor or something; but we're still talking in-laws and dowry harassment, curfews and rules and dress-codes in colleges and professional spaces, segregated work spaces and so on).
There's actually an interesting article in the EPW by Veena Poonacha here which talks about women in Science and higher education at all in India.
Phew.
Okay. Done. :)
PS. If you need a password, email me. :P
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