Engineering/Science/Gender Equity
This category deals with gender equity in engineering and science education and in the workforce - issues of access, climate, and culture. This category also deals with feminist science theory and analyses being developed by those doing gender equity work in engineering & science. I discuss what might be missing from an adequate feminist theory of science and engineering, and what feminist insights might be missing from the "gender equity" analyses.


Need More Zuska? Read Here





CATEGORIES





BLOGROLL




















Subscribe to "Engineering/Science/Gender Equity" in Radio UserLand.

Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


Monday, July 24, 2006
 

Last night I had one of those dreams where everything seems familiar but strange, where time seems scrambled and you don't know if it's the past, present, or some dystopian future.  I was in my car, and Culture Club was on my car radio, with pretty Boy George singing "Karma Chameleon".  I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction...But then it seemed like one of those weird rap remixes because I thought I could hear a man in the background saying over and over something like "Do it, do it, do it to Julia!  Do it to Julia!"  There was a newspaper on the passenger seat and the headline said something like "Party Denies Rat-Caging Allegations". 

Anyway, I'm in my car, driving...somewhere...the Ministry of Science and Culture?  I was on my way to a press conference, I'm sure of that.  Then, you know how it is in dreams, the scene changes, and there I am at the Ministry.  A Mr. Meyerburger steps to the podium and begins fielding questions.  This is what I heard.

Q.  Sixty prominent scientists issued a report saying there is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Party appointees, and that these actions have consequences for human health, public safety, and community well-being.  What is the Party doing to address this?  

A. This malreport is a partisan attack, the work of conspiracy theorists.  The Party has been proactive in challenging the work of scientists that appeared flawed to the Party.   

Q.  Why does the Party continue to deny the existence of global warming? 

A.  The Party does not question the existence of climate changeThe reality of climate change does not imply a unique Party responseRegulations and incentives have ungood implications.  The Party believes climate change is an issue that must be addressed by the world.* 

At this point in the dream I couldn't tell if I was really dreaming or if I was awake.  I tried to wake myself up from the dream but I couldn't.  It was just like this movie I recently watched, Waking Life.  Anyway, the questioning went on.

Q.  Is the FDA pressuring scientists to alter their work for nonscientific reasons and provide misleading information to the public?

A.  Information presented to the public by the FDA is FDA approved.  FDA wants all its scientists to present FDA approved information when speaking to the public.  The Union of Concerned Scientists is a known leftist organization.       

Q.  What are we to make of this web site on the failure to approve Plan B for over-the-counter use despite what the data showed, and what its own advisory committees recommended?

A.  The recommendations of FDA advisory committees are advisory in nature.*  FDA has put together a doubleplusgood website to answer all your questions about Plan B, currently classified as ungood by the FDA for over-the-counter use following sexcrime. 

Q.  Is there a larger pattern of the Party suppressing scientific information that clashes with political or religious views the Party favors?

A.  The Party believes that science is about the search for knowledge and we should teach the debate and we can never have enough information about the world around us and we must keep gathering data and asking questions, even about the very definition of science itself. 

Q.  But isn't it true that federally-funded pregnancy resource centers, often affiliated with antiabortion religious groups, are incorrectly telling women that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, infertility, and deep psychological trauma, meanwhile denying them vital health information

A.  This is a routine attack by shrill harpy leftist commie latte-sipping east-coast kneejerk baby-killing liberals that is nothing new.  The Party agrees with* pregnancy counselors who tell women abortion, which results from sexcrime, will increase their risk of breast cancer and infertility

Q.  Is the Party allowing religious belief rather than science to influence its decision whether to make a cervical cancer vaccine available to poor girls?

A.  You can't catch the virus, you have to go out and get it with sexcrime.  Poor girls can prevent it by having the best public health method, and that's not having sexcrimeMaking cancer vaccines readily available might actually encourage sexcrime.  Then they will want abortions, which will increase their risk of breast cancer and infertility.  Not that we mind if poor girls are infertile.  They breed like flies. 

Q.  The Party's recent appointee to the No Child Left Out of Math Classes Task Force has devoted her career to proving that men are innately better at math than women.  Doesn't this send exactly the wrong message for the Task Force?

A.  The Party believes no child should be left out of math classes.  The Party believes that male and female children should be given the kinds of math instruction that are appropriate to them, just as we do for white and nonwhite children, and rich and non-rich children. 

Q.  Doesn't all this signal not only the Party's general disdain for science, but hostility to women, their health issues, and career aspirations?

A.  The Party venerates Womanhood most highly.  The Party wishes to protect Woman by keeping Her safe from sexcrime, from the ugliness of a cruel and competitive business world, and from our vile enemies overseas.  Sacred Woman, at home, nurturing our young - it makes the Party want to weep with joy.  No further questions. 

 

Text in dark blue is directly quoted from news articles or documents on web sites that are linked to within the question or answer containing the text.  In some cases the link text itself is a direct quote from the linked source; these links are followed by an asterisk, "*".  Thanks, of course, to George Orwell's"1984" and to the Newspeak language he created.  A dictionary of Newspeak can be found here.   


5:31:33 PM    comment []

Skookumchick over at Rants of a Feminist Engineer is keeping a racial diary as part of a project:

A friend of mine asked me to be on a panel she was organizing at an interesting sounding conference, to be held in September. She and a postdoc wrote an abstract which proposed that 4 people - including two white people, one of whom is me - would keep a "racial diary" for a month and then use it to talk about unearned privilege and prejudice, particularly all the little things that we White people tend to overlook.

What a nifty idea for a conference panel!  What a nifty idea in general.  If you are a white person who would like to start keeping your own racial diary as a means of becoming a more sensitive person and better colleague, but you aren't quite sure how to begin, you could start by reading Peggy McIntosh's classic White Privilege:  Unpacking the Invisible Backpack and then just writing down your thoughts and reactions to the article. 

In the article, McIntosh offers a list of unearned white privileges.  It's a pretty dandy list.  Here are just a few:

  1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time. 
  2. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
  3. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
  4. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
  5. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
  6. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.  
  7. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones. 

That last one is a real zinger, isn't it?  Think of the luxury of all that time and energy I don't have to spend worrying whether people are reacting to me in a certain way based upon my race.  Whiteness is like having an Airport EZ Pass for everything in life. 


2:59:15 PM    comment []


Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website. © Copyright 2006 Suzanne E. Franks.
Last update: 8/1/2006; 9:59:04 PM.
July 2006
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          
Jun   Aug