Why, oh why can’t I just keep my big mouth shut? I have yet to fully recover from the stress ulcer I developed following my PubMed post, yet I go off and do it all over again. At least I delivered the burn on someone else’s doorstop. Aaron Rowe, a friend and most excellent blogger for WIRED Science, asked me to write a post on the disproportionately low numbers of women in academic science. My immediate reaction was, “NFW.” I don’t need another avalanche. It’s a loaded subject, people like to come out and yell on both sides of the issue, and talking about it in a public forum is often seen as inciting as opposed to insightful.
And yet, off I went. I just couldn’t resist. I presented (what I thought were) moderate opinions/viewpoints and was careful to note that I was describing only my own experiences and not those of the world as a whole. I proposed a few specific small changes (nothing earth-shattering, nothing inventive), which could potentially affect a woman’s decision to stay or leave academic science. I had hoped that people would actually read the post before giving in to the knee-jerk reaction of labeling me a conspiracy theory-loving, man-hating bimbo who was awarded a PhD simply for being a woman.
Well, I guess I gave away the punch line. The responses to the post have been shocking. Borderline offensive, hurtful, occasionally ridiculous, and sometimes hilarious (“Shut up and go make dinner, you dumb b*&#%,” ranking in the top ten favorite).
So, go have a read. Let me know what you think of both the post and the responses to it. I like to think that that people on NN are on my side, my blog buddies. I could use some buddies.
Anna, I’m sorry to see all those stereotypical cheuvanist comments. It seemed obvious to the small proportion I read (maybe a third) that most of them were knee-jerk reaction… very likely from guys who need to compensate for something (anything… unhappy marraige, going bald, too short, too fat etc.). You meet people like this all the time, and I guess everyone can have strong feelings one way or another that the anonymity of teh interch00bs allows them to vocalise.
Another way of looking at it though, and one I fear is more likely, is that there are a great number of hairy-knuckle dragging, mouthbreathing, fucktards who swarm to comment sections because it empowers them. Especially when they can verbally bully a woman. Doubtless they all celebrated their defence of masculinity by immediately going off to the darker corners of the ’net to take advantage of the one resource the internet was really created for.
The comments on the WIRED blog are alarming and a sobering reminder that the world is filled with whackjobs. Keep writing, Anna!
Thank you both! I needed to hear that. I was prepared for a backlash to the post, but I didn’t expect it to be this vicious. Ok. I am done. Going to grow up now and not care what mean things random people say when they only want an opportunity to yell.
I am appalled by some the comments to your post and I had to weigh in there with my own. There were a few good ones in there with the ill-informed rants, though.
Reading that lot is a good way of developing a healthy contempt for your fellow man, isn’t it? I’m not sure there’s much more to be said about some of those comments.
Nina – Absolutely. There were some really nice, constructive, and thoughtful additions to the discussion. Vicky had some really interesting things to say. Thank you for weighing in! I liked your comment. I also liked that you kept it gender neutral by not giving your full name. I think people read it differently when they see the comment is from a woman.
Bob- Yea, pretty much. I am seething right now. This has been an eye-opening experience, if nothing else. I don’t think I am at all radical in my views, but the comments are definitely pushing me in that direction. Now that I know what the opposition is like…
Hi Anna,
The comments over there are really awful, where do all these weirdos come from and why do they think they have something to say? But to be honest, though I am sympathetic to the problem in general, your post indeed does not have much content. Best,
B.
Remember I said that we should actually listen to and respects the arguments of people we disagreed with?
I’ve changed my mind. Ian, Jeff, Bob: grab your cluebats. We’re going redneck-hunting.
Anna, I thought your post was fine, well reasoned and not at all whiney, complainey or blaming of anyone. Some of the responses were inappropriate and quite conclusively prove that the problems you allude to are real, they need to be addressed and that there are many who are completely unwilling to do so.
It isn’t just women that have this problem; it is anyone who wants to balance having a family or even a life with doing advanced work. Women do have it harder because of pregnancy and lactation and the very real discrimination against them.
I think this is a major problem that derives from making Science too competitive. People who can compete by working more hours beat out those who spend time having a life or a family.
I did post a reply, somewhat tongue in cheek. It is a little racy, but I don’t think it is too racy for NN, so I will post it again here in the next post, ready for instant moderation if the NN
prudescensors deem it to be beyond the pale.The only way I can think to respond is by the quote from Gandhi, Be the change you want to see in the World.
My experience has always been that every woman I have ever met or known has been excellent at math. I understand that many men don’t have that experience.
My understanding of how that happens is that once women become adults and romantically involved with men, there are some men who insist on telling them that something 2 inches long is actually 6 inches long. Women value the feelings of their romantic partners so they humor these men. Over time women learn to recognize which men need to be humored in this way, even men they have never been romantically involved with. Women then confabulate the lengths of things when talking with these men, so these men develop the idea that women are bad at math.
My conclusion is that the men who think women are bad at math are the men that women feel need to be humored about the length of things. My experience has always been that every woman I have ever met has been excellent at math. Men who experience that women are bad at math must be doing something to bring that out in women. Telling women they are bad at math does make them worse at it,
supporting my hypothesis.
I’m afraid that this is what happens when you venture out onto the Web at large, as opposed to those niches of the Web where you feel comfortable, supported and surrounded by like-minded individuals. Just be glad that you didn’t submit your piece as a YouTube video.
My understanding of how that happens is that once women become adults and romantically involved with men, there are some men who insist on telling them that something 2 inches long is actually 6 inches long.
Haha, that’s quotable :-) Looks like there got a factor of about Pi lost. More seriously, I’ve had to notice on various occasions that many men become immediately insecure if they notice a women knows more about maths or physics than they do. I guess computer science and engineering also falls into that category, but here I can’t come up with personal experience. Speaking of niches, that’s probably one of the reasons I feel more comfortable among men with a similar education like I have. These then however are usually convinced they are much more intelligent than I am.
(And sure, there are the nice and sensible men, like you guys and my husband etc – just that the world could need some more of that sort.)
I never thought Wired readers were such idiots. I considered leaving a helpful comment over there, but I’ll probably not be understood either.
I’m generally really tired of the whole “why no women in science” discussion. I’m not entirely convinced that it’s necessary to have a fair distribution of men/women. I’d like to see the best and most suitable person, who really wants the job, at any position. (But I am kind of glad that I’m a girl so I can get away with saying this without being misunderstood for misogynist)
Right now it doesn’t seem clear (to me, and probably to most people who haven’t read all the statistics) whether women are really being turned away: do they need to apply to more jobs before they finally get one? Do they not end up in the top two even if they were the best applicant? How do you even check this?
If women drop off earlier (if they just don’t apply to faculty jobs in the first place) then who’s to blame? Maybe nobody.
I guess this kind of unclarity in general (not of your article in particular, at all!) makes people react strangely to articles about the topic.
Anyway, your article was way more balanced than most in that it actually mentioned that it could be a choice, so it was weird that most commenters thought it was a typical complaining article. But I blame the fact that they have seen too many over the top articles on the gender imbalance and can’t see yours for what it’s worth, but just lumped it in the category of “women whining” out of habit.
There does seem to be bias against women in peer review of journals.
Which Maxine blogged about. but which has no comments yet.
If a journal purports to be a “scientific journal” and has a peer review system that is biased, in my opinion that journal has the obligation to the scientific community to take action to remove that bias.
Unless an experimental study is blinded, there is a legitimate assumption of bias; especially when the observations are subjective. Why should peer review be any different? I don’t think there is any legitimate justification that it is. Certainly no justification that would legitimize a non-blinded study of something subjective for publication. Why are journals allowed to be so lax in their methods?
This is not a close call.
Anna –
That response was appalling, especially to such a well-phrased, non-controversial post.
I’m going to have to resort to stereotypes here. Just as people in the US seem to think everyone in the UK is either a cockney or a toff, looking at those (I suspect mostly US) responses from a UK viewpoint, it’s hard not to feel that this parallels the enthusiasm for creationism in the US (i.e. bible literally true, so women should know their place. How come these people never notice the bible is totally inconsistent on the matter, and only pick the bits that support their hypothesis?)
There are, I think, two legitimate opposing contributions to gender balance in science that are worth considering. One is subject – I’m not sure if your 7:1 ratio would apply typically among postgrads in physics, for instance. (I’m guessing you’re not, as most people on NN seem to be loosely classifiable as biologists for some reason.)
There’s also the age issue, as one of the less rabid posts points out. I’m probably a similar age to many professors, and in my final year degree photograph, out of about 200 people, maybe 9 to 12 are women. (It’s difficult to be certain; long hair is pretty uniform.)
I’m not suggesting there isn’t a negative effect, but that there are several variables involved.
David: The Trends in Ecological Evolution (TREE)study by Budden et al. that demonstrated a gender bias in peer-review in an ecology journal has been shown to be flawed by Freckelton et al. (Bob O’Hara is a coauthor – their study is published ahead-of-print in TREE now). Budden et al. showed that the number of female authors increased when the journal Behavioural Ecology switched to a double-blind peer-review system. That result is not in dispute, but what the authors did not do was to normalise against the comparable journals operating the single-blind system: in fact, the number of female authors increased in all of them. The Nature leader-writers and I have gone back to reanalyse other publications and we have concluded that there is no demonstrated gender bias in peer-review. Nature will be publishing a formal, referenced correction to the editorial, and we thank Bob O’Hara and Rob Freckelton for their work on this.
That having been said, I believe there is a strong gender bias in the scientific profession that has nothing to do with whether women’s brains on average analyse problems in some other way to men’s brains. It isn’t limited to science, either, as the Wired readers so aptly demonstrate.
Jennifer Rohn featured a pertinent discussion on her blog, Mind the Gap, recently, and in that thread I drew attention to some shocking (to me) statistics, for example as published in a “Nature correspondence by Professor Annette Dolphin":http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7105/full/442868a.html.
Also discussed in Jennifer’s comment thread is this Nature news story on sexism in physics research. There are some deplorable comments in the thread to that story, including one person who uses the dearth of women Nobel laureates in physics to say that women aren’t very good at physics. As well as this awful point, there are some insulting remarks along the lines of the Wired readers described here (my sympathies for your experience, Anna). Anyone reading my comment here who feels moved to go and add a comment to the Nature news story comments, please do.
I agree with the people here who have written that there are several variables involved. Because there are fewer of them, women who are prominent scientists already probably get asked to do a disproportionate amount of “additional tasks” such as writing articles, peer-reviewing, sitting on award and tenure committees and so on. So on average more women may decline to do these things, perpetuating the situation.
That is just one of many aspects. Of course we all want the best person to get any job or grant, but at the same time, we need to encourage younger people to embark on scientific careers whatever their gender, race etc. We need to be especially sure that there is not systematic bias in the professional systems used to assess scientists. I personally do not believe in special pleading such as the “domestic help to women only” award initiated by Christaine Nusslein-Volhard, as I think this perpetuates the view that domestic issues are women’s responsibility (whereas they are parents’ responsibility). There are some men who “get” this point, but plenty who don’t, who carry on living just the same lifestyle after having children as they did before – late nights at work, conferences, etc. Someone has to carry that can, but why “should” it be the female parent? There are lots of social issues like this that, multiplied up, hold women back. EMBO Reports has recently published some studies on this topic, referred to in my Nautilus careers archive here, among other gender-related matters.
Although I do not think we should have quota systems, I do think that anyone organising conferences, committees, job shortlists, commissioning prestigious review articles, choosing who gets awards, and so on needs to go the extra mile to be sure that all scientists are represented, not just a subset, and that they are not unintentionally or unthinkingly perpetuating a biased status quo.
Anna
I know it’s hard, but I would recommending just ignoring the Neaderthals (both emotionally and in your responses to comments) and focusing on the constructive ones.
As any dog trainer will tell you, giving attention to any bad behavior, even negative attention like scolding or anger, only reinforces it. But if you ignore it, it is neatly – shall we say – emasculated.
Before one meets one’s handsome prince, one has to kiss an awful lot of toads.
Better than kissing a lot of awful toads.
I heart the English language.
Anna.
Your opinions/viewpoints were indeed moderate and not just by your own standards. I didn’t waste my time reading in details the comments since I knew what to expect from the above.
I think Jenny’s comment is spot on.
What about kissing an awful lot of awful toads?
Henry and Richard, speaking from personal experience? ;)
Of course! We’re scientists, aren’t we? One shouldn’t like to pass on secondhand, unsubstantiated tittle-tattle, now, would we?
I couldn’t speak for Richard, obviously, but when kissing a toad, decorum forbids the use of tongues.
Not for the follically challenged.
Could not resist posting Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again vid
Wow. Those comments are so totally out of proportion to your actual article that I have to wonder whether any of them actually read it, rather than copying and pasting some kind of standard anti-feminist rant they have on file somewhere.
Any BBC Have Your Say readers out there? You’ll know what I mean… see here for an automated alternative.
Maxine, thank you for the clarification. I haven’t read the Freckelton et al. paper so I must reserve judgment. There can still be bias even if the numbers increased. In any case that is a small study of only a single journal in a single field.
Looking for bias after the fact is probably problematic. Much like the comment Bob O’Hara left. You have to stop it before it happens. That is more important in real life than in experiments. An experiment can always be repeated, a career or lifetime can’t be.
Anna,
Thanks for posting the Wired thing. As I alluded to over there, I’d say the experiment yielded solid data. Don’t let the comments get to you. Having your hypothesis backed up by that data isn’t a bad thing, as I understand this whole ‘science’ thing. (grins)
Stunning (to me, at least) as that data may be.
You’ve definitely brought me, however incidentally it may have been, to a less tolerant place when this topic comes up amongst guys, and to a much more, shall we say, harmonious place when this conversation comes up with my girlfriend.
In short, you done a good thing.
To respect my SO’s position as a woman in academia, I’m gonna post this anonymously. Hope that’s acceptable.
Just this guy.
PS I have it on good authority that Pepto-Bismol can do wonders when applied to the odd cold sore. At least, from the ‘DAMN that hurts’ perspective. Positively nukes a canker sore, but those poor guys don’t have all the viral support troops backing ’em up.
Anna – keep up the good work and don’t let the so-and-sos get you down. Interesting that no females were invited to join Richard’s posse; I guess he was being a gentleman! ;-)
Stephen,
Perhaps some latent Xena-phobia on his part?
Har har.
Nope. There is a serious point there. Much of the fight against sexism has to be waged by men. Simply because many Neanderthals will not listen to women. I think that sexism is mostly learned behaviour, too, so you have to consider ways of breaking the chain. Men demonstrating that they will not tolerate sexism is a powerful weapon (he hopes).
Any BBC Have Your Say readers out there? You’ll know what I mean…
BBC Have Your Say? Load of pussies. If you want the hard stuff, read the comments on opinion pieces in the Daily Telegraph.
Just this guy – Thank you SO much. I am sorry to have missed your comments in the WIRED thread (until now). I couldn’t make my way through all the comments without doing physical harm to my laptop (or to myself). This whole experience has been hugely educational, lots of data collected!
I think that the readership of WIRED is far more representative of society as a whole than the hallowed academic-like halls of ScienceBlogs and NN. The reactions of the WIRED readers showed me what I don’t often see when looking out from behind a university’s walls. Disturbing and fascinating all at the same time. With all its problems, I would almost rather stay in academia than face that crap-ton of preconceived notions out in the real world.
I know that my post was an opinion piece. It was reflective of my own experiences and my own thoughts. That’s how I blog and have done for years. That was my bad. I really didn’t know what I was getting in to with WIRED. Perhaps a more scientific, data-heavy post would have done more good in showing people that there is a real disparity as opposed to appealing to their compassion/reason? Either way, as I said, this has been educational.
I think quite a few people didn’t bother reading the post at all, but still yelled in protest. And the discussion was horribly one-sided. As Richard and Cath talked about, the comments posted by women (and in some cases, the whole post) were very poorly responded to, dismissed as though they all contained the same “feminist crap”. That sort of careless (and not little disrespectful) reaction truly boggles my mind.
[Afraid I don’t have any data on the Pepto-HSV link. I have copious experience/data with internal Pepto applications, never external though. You might be on to something here.]
Anna,
The thing I find most disturbing about the whole thing is, as you mention, the obvious lack of attention paid to your actual article. It’s a wonder to me how anyone can put themselves out there on such a metaphorical limb without checking that the thing is actually attached to some sort of tree. Or to mix my metaphors, that folks’ll happily chase towards the cliff simply because the lemming butt in front of them is headed that way.
Of this grouping, I think my favorite is the guy who labels your article misandrist. When challenged, he responds:
“I will concede that it is much more of an inference than it is a direct statement. …
Perhaps I may be speculating to the remote, but based on some of the opinions voiced here it may not be too remote.”
Good logic, that. Perhaps I’m an idiot, but based on the massed concentration of invalid data put forward by other idiots, maybe I should publish anyway.
“I know that my post was an opinion piece. It was reflective of my own experiences and my own thoughts. That’s how I blog and have done for years. That was my bad. I really didn’t know what I was getting in to with WIRED.”
Please, please don’t walk away from this with that lesson in your head. Despite the negative response, the overall result is an illustration of the validity of your article. Anyone who accepts the comments as valid is already unapproachable. Folks on the fence, as I have been, will read those comments and immediately begin leaning, to varying degrees perhaps, towards your side. I’d argue that this sort of thing has more immediate, and a more visceral, impact than any amount of science. It’s an easy target for motivated folks to dismiss a study, to challenge the underlying methods of statistical representations, to confuse and muddy the waters surrounding results, at least in a sociological arena. It’s more effective, IMHO, to simply demonstrate your point. The Feynman Effect. Let ‘em throw pseudo-science back and forth all they want, and bureaucratize and emotionalize ’til they’re blue in the face. It’s hard to argue with an O-Ring in ice water.
The other bit that I find a bit unsettling, and here I wander dangerously near sexist waters myself, is the very one-sidedness of the thing. My girlfriend made an offhand comment the other day, regarding male/female differences in style, to which my own experiences lend some credence. That being, when confronted by aggression and obstinancy, or with a refusal to accept multiple perspectives, many women will take the stance that nothing is served by fueling the dispute, and move on, rather than continue the conflict.
I wonder if that isn’t taking place in the comments, allowing one side to dominate the dialogue. Of course, it’s tricky, because the apparent response to women taking the stand is to point a finger at the “unreasonable, misandrist bitches” and claim victory. But it would be heartening to see more calm, considered responses from the female perspective contradicting the expectations of an emotional response. It’s a tough thing, though, I recognize, for emotions to remain checked, by anyone, regardless of gender, in the face of attack. That said, however, no onslaught, of any strength, it is my strong belief, can withstand the unmitigated power of calm, calculated response. It’s too bad there aren’t any lunch counters in the blogosphere.
Please understand that the above is in no way meant as a criticism or reflection on you or your article. Just idle speculation regarding the one-sided comments.
And once again, thank you for taking the time to post your article. And you’re welcome. As the great man said, “The something something for something is for, um, some folks, to do nothing.”
[That’ll teach me to ignore the actual timeline of blog posts. I tossed the pepto-postscript in thinking that this was current news.
-cha-grin-]@Richard
Yeah. I’m with you on that one. Just couldn’t resist the cheap pun. It’s a curse.
I found your post on Wired by accident and was thrilled to see someone making a simple observation that speaks a great deal of truth. Remember this: folks that say it like it is are the first ones to get shot at. What you said needed saying, and the way your phrased your observations made it clear to me that you were not trying to incite anything except action.
I was stunned to see the response you’ve gotten. (What f&&&ing year is this?) It never ceases to amaze me that for as far as we’ve come as women, as scientists or engineers, there’s always some &&&&head who wants to belittle our achievements, but my first response – just before the righteous anger kicks in – is to laugh. Have fun eating pork skins and watching NASCAR while I go back to actually achieving something.
(Okay, end snarkiness.)
All that said, I was very glad to see your post, and hope that you’ll continue to speak the truth. The things you said are the things that motivate me (and perhaps other women) to keep pushing forward, to keep asking for changes, to keep on keeping on.
But on the weekends, I’m signing on with the guys who are going redneck-hunting.
Thanks for standing up. You’ve got yourself another supporter.
Cool, Maria. Got your own cluebat?
@ Jtg – it was terribly bad, I was only sad I didn’t think of it myself.
@Richard: going shopping for a Louisville Slugger (which I’ve always wanted for just this purpose; gee, wonder why I never thought of baseball?) into which I will Dremel “Cluebat For Rednecks”. Though, in defense of rednecks I know and love, perhaps we should change that to Neanderthals.
Also agree that fighting sexism is substantially a man’s job, for precisely the reason you stated. Sexists won’t listen to women – and frankly, you guys can explain to them how stupid they are, because it just hurts my head to try.
Oh, and I’m still snickering about Xena-phobia.
Anna, still reading through the Wired comments. Yeesh. You are far, far braver than I said before.
Anna-
The comments over at Wired are just horrifying. The leaky pipeline is a fact. That the scientific culture is inhospitable to women is a huge contributing factor… There are several posts here that talk about these issues:
here
and here
and here again
and finally….
For actual ##s you can look at the NSF report: ‘Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the potential of women in science and engineering.’
Hi Anna,
I found your article intriguing and I agree with you. In fact, I am the “Snow White” of my class in a department that currently has 36 men and 13 women faculty members. Anyone who cannot see that there is sexism in academia is turning a blind eye. However, I also have met a lot more women who want to be stay at home moms than men who are looking for a similar occupation. I know that you addressed the issue of women choosing on their own to put family over career in your posting, but you never really related this reality to the skewed numbers we see between women and men in academia. I see a combination of sexism and women’s views on family contributing to the disproportion.
I appreciate your article and hope to see more controversial articles soon.
The problem, Benjamin, is that we are in far too deep to discern how much of women’s views on family is coming from ‘within’ and how much is because that’s what’s socially acceptable, if not expected or encouraged.
How do you know that more men are not looking for a ‘similar’ occupation but who, let’s be frank, are too damned scared to say so?
Anna – thanks for looking for comfort among friends, as it were, because I wouldn’t have seen your Wired article otherwise, and this comment thread has been a very interesting complement to the other comment thread.
I also wonder why the trolls haven’t followed you to this blog? perhaps because they have to register to comment? Well, that’s a relief.
The overall result is an illustration of the validity of your article. Anyone who accepts the comments as valid is already unapproachable. Folks on the fence, as I have been, will read those comments and immediately begin leaning, to varying degrees perhaps, towards your side. I’d argue that this sort of thing has more immediate, and a more visceral, impact than any amount of science.
What’s the point of writing an opinion piece? To state your opinion, and eventually, convince other people to share it with you. It seems to have worked for at least one person, so more power to you. We can all provide plenty more personal anecdotes of this particular brand of unfairness if needed, but we don’t all go out and write high-profile opinion pieces. So, thanks.
I have perhaps seen more persuasive arguments, but I think you did a fine job in stating your opinion about gender imbalance.
I also agree with Richard’s assessment that both male and female scientists should show by example. Take anyone up on even mild sexist or racist comments related to the workplace (elsewhere, pick your battles) and try to break the self-perpetuating cycle of male-dominated faculties. Go out of your way to encourage any unusual students or postdocs with whom you cross paths with concrete measures: sponsor their internships, use your connections and help them find other labs, send them to speak at conferences, encourage their visibility. Let them represent you.
Everyone deserves this treatment, after all, but some get it more easily and earlier than others. These are the ones that continue on, that fight to have and be what is important to them.
I just read your piece on Wired and I loved it. I’ve added your blog to my reader. I’m a clinical psychologist/researcher and while clinical psychology practitioners are almost all (now) women, the researchers are overwhelmingly men (along with university professors). The psychotherapy research crowd are about the most male supremacist group I can think of. Its not quite as bad in social psychology, but if we look at overall numbers, still it is appalling. Women are subtly driven out of research by being rejected on what feels like the most personal level. Its stereotype threat (as studied by Claude Steele) applied to the whole female population in regards to “science.” In psychology where the male cronies already feel inadequate compared to physical scientists, they become holier than thou and mystify science, turning it into something it isn’t. We lose some of our most creative and scientific minds in psychology due to the ostracism of women. Thank you for writing the great piece about women in science, and keep it up.
Lynn E. O’Connor
I can’t stand to read the comments even though I am a guy. It just so offends my sense of justice and what is right. I think this is exactly a form of bullying. I was bullied as a child which is why I have such a strong aversion to it and why it gets me upset.
One of the things I am thinking about in my NO research is epigenetic programming due to low NO. Stress is a low NO state, and many of the adverse effects of stress are mediated through low NO. I think there are NO pathways involved in the physiology behind the long term effects of bullying such as the cycle of violence and PTSD.
Many men are completely oblivious to the sexism that is going on. I was at a Gordon Conference on NO a few years back and a very senior researcher was presenting some stuff on the history of NO research and showed a slide from about 20 years ago with everyone in the lab wearing tee shirts that said “what part of NO don’t you understand?” and it was a big joke that everyone got a big yuk out of (except me, I was incredulous than anyone could think this was funny). I turned to woman sitting next to me (who also wasn’t laughing) and asked her “didn’t they realize that it was about rape?” She mumbled something about some older men just not getting it.
I disagree with Maria, fighting sexism (and all other -isms) is everyone’s job. If all women had a zero tolerance for sexism, men would very quickly change their behavior (I think). Like in the story of Lysistrata.
Another group of like-minded individuals are the skepchicks Not limited to just science and labs, but there are a lot of scientists there. They have local get together, called drinking skeptically (an alternative to the NN pub nights that seem to have gone the way of all things?). The last 2 in Boston were on Scientology (from an ex Scientologist) and the Ig Nobel awards.
Men have louder and deeper voices, which are often quite pleasant to listen to. They are also taller so that allows them to talk to each other over the heads of shorter people (i.e. women). So my theory is that men get listened to more than woman, are generally more memorable and so get the better jobs.
PS your post was fine. I liked it. The ranters were just ranting. They probably had a bad day and didnt want to think about women and science
Wow. I can’t believe how incredibly vitriolic many of those comments were. Who are these people? Do we work with them, socialize with them and not even know it? Perhaps Wired serves as a therapy option for these frustrated individuals? Save the medical system a few quid. Face to face, people are so much more diplomatic, but in the blogosphere anonymous age, we can say what we like, without recompense. I think it might be best to stick with blogs that don’t allow anonymous comments. What do you think?
Awesome. I’ve never seen so many mean-spirited bibbles get quite as riled up as in that comments section since… well, ever. You seem to have inadvertently ruined the collective day of a sizeable part of Wired’s “bitter male in tech sector job” demographic by simply asking a few relatively innocuous questions. This is a stunning achievement, and I hope you are awarded a trophy shaped like a scale replica of the blogosphere in recognition of your efforts.
Keep up the good work!
When you get nasty comments, an important thing to remember is that the internet combines distance and intimacy in a way that sociopaths really enjoy.
(Paraphrasing Merlin Mann)
It’s like road rage, only it leaves a permanent record.
Ritchie – Am considering mounting your comment on some form of plaque or trophy and keeping it on my desk. Thanks :)
Gwen – This was a bit of a drive-by, wasn’t it… It’s easy to be mean to someone you can’t see. Well, easy for others, it appears. Don’t think I could do it. Am not a sociopath.