Engineering/Science/Gender Equity
This category deals with issues relating to gender equity in engineering and science education and in the engineering and science workforce. Broadly speaking, anything relating to recruitment, retention, and the culture of the workplace or the learning environment is fair game here.











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Tuesday, August 23, 2005
 

Dr. Chuck reminded me that Inside Higher Ed had made a mention of my blog (which is how he found me) and so I just want to say a little thanks to the folks at Inside Higher Ed for chatting up Thus Spake Zuska

Interesting story on Inside Higher Ed today about Stress and the Female Faculty Member.  VERY interesting in light of the whole "greatness" discussion we've been having.  It's hard to be great when you are teaching more classes than the men, teaching more of the introductory classes, and experiencing higher stress levels in general from all sorts of sources. 

Or, it could just be that greatness is streaky and unpredictable. 

Okay, I'm really not trying to be pissy (or, not TOO pissy).  I'm just saying, this whole greatness concept has been glossed over a little too much.  Greatness does not just spring up out of nowhere.  There are conditions necessary to its production, as Nochlin says. Being stressed out from heavy teaching loads, I would submit, is not one of those conditions. 

I am so sorry if this upsets people, but it helps if you can be white and male.  It really does.  Consider this pair of essays on dressing like a professor by James M. Lang, "Looking Like a Professor" and Pamela Johnston, "Dressing the Part".  I hope you can read these, and don't need a subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education to access these essays.  The long and short of it - he can wear jeans and a golf shirt and still be "the professor" in the classroom.  He is granted an authority by the students that comes with his maleness that she will never have, that she has to work to achieve - and dressing a particular way is one of the necessary steps towards achieving it.  There is a type of "guy casual" dress that is neutral for men, says Johnston - but there is no neutral form of dress for women.  No matter what we wear, it is subject to speculation - and turns up on student evaluation forms at semester's end. 

Which gets back to stress.  And that pesky issue of greatness.  Which, I think, is easier to achieve when you don't have to read, at semester's end, a student's evaluation of you stating he could learn nothing in your class because, he claimed, you didn't wear a bra. 

I never once speculated on an evalution form about the underclothing of my male professors, nor, if I had, would have used such speculation as an excuse for my inability to learn in their classrooms.  But that is because Zuska has a BRAIN.  And she USES it.  Though I sometimes wonder if I don't have all these migraines from months and years and decades worth of stories and experiences like The Evaluation By the Moronic Bra-Obssessed College Student.         


4:38:38 PM    comment []

Lively comments on the 8/19/05 post on "why are there no great women scientists?" 

I appreciate Dr. Chuck's mention of Barbara McClintock, and yes, do go read A Feeling for the Organism by Evelyn Fox Keller if you haven't done so already.   And then might I suggest you look into some of Keller's other writings, such as Reflections on Gender and Science

Regarding Andy Franks's comments on the topic of greatness:  greatness is streaky, rare, and fairly unpredictable, he claims. 

This is where we must beg to differ.  And where, if my readers will be patient with me, I will redirect your attention once more to what Linda Nochlin has to say on this topic: 

...the Great Artist is conceived of as one who has genius; genius, in turn, is thought to be an atemporal and mysterious power somehow embedded in the person of the Great Artist...It is no accident that the whole crucial question of the conditions generally productive of great art has so rarely been investigated, or that attempts to investigate such general problems have, until fairly recently, been dismissed as unscholarly, too broad, or the province of some other discipline like sociology.  (from "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?" in Woman in Sexist Society ed. V. Gornick & B. K. Moran 1971)

The way that Andy Franks describes the appearance of "greatness" in science - streaky, rare, unpredictable - would seem to agree with this notion of genius as atemporal, a mysterious power that we cannot control or generate.  It is this pernicious belief that, carried to its extreme, leads individuals like Lawrence Summers to shake his head sadly and proclaim that women are just mathematically inferior to men. 

I contend that we do, indeed, have the ability to identify, nurture, and develop promising young individuals into great contributors in science and engineering.  Out of this general program of development and nurturing will appear some truly outstanding individuals.  We've been doing this for decades already.  Unfortunately, we've only been doing it mostly for white men, mostly for middle- to upper-class individuals.  The results, however, have been spectacular for the members of that tiny elite.  U. S. science and engineering programs have yielded amazing individuals and amazing results.

Andy Franks claims that we are "as likely to get a few really great guys as a few really great gals over a span of a decade or so. Greatness is just that unpredictable. "  Sadly, this is not the case.  Greatness, at least as defined in the U. S. scientific establishment, has been so darn predictable for decades that it's disgusting.  Look at the annual elections to the National Academy of Sciences or National Academy of Engineering.  White men, white men, white men, all mentored and promoted and rewarded by each other in a cozy, clubby, old-boys network.  I'm telling you, the system works, they have figured out how to take the raw talent and produce skilled researchers.  It's just that they only do it for the ones who look most like themselves. 

The great women out there - Barbara McClintock included, as Dr. Chuck noted - have to battle their way through with less support, less encouragement, less mentoring, less advice, fewer introductions to influential connections, less lab space, smaller startup packages, less of every damn thing it takes to become great.  And if you're not white, but a woman of color - just double or triple all the hardships and barriers.

Finally, in wondering why Zuska chose to mention Marie Curie rather than Barbara McClintock (or, Zuska might add, any of dozens and dozens of fabulous women scientists I could have mentioned), Andy Franks asked: "Whassamadduh? Dr. McClintock's science not "hard" enough?

All Zuska can say is:  Giggle.  Giggle, giggle.  Tee hee hee.   "Hard enough"?

Now, is that "hard" as in "difficult" and in opposition to "easy"...or would that be "hard" as in "rigid" and in opposition to "soft"?  Ah....don't bother. 

 


3:25:26 PM    comment []


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