Women in Science Roundup: November 15

Some interesting links I've collected over the past month or so:

ScienceWoman chronicles a day in her life as a 2nd year assistant professor with "an almost 2 year old": Part 1 (midnight - 8:39am), Part 2 (9:10am-5pm), Part 3 (5:20pm-midnight). ScienceWoman does not get much sleep!

There's a discussion at Dr. Isis's blog about whether (and how) women scientists should be allowed to "express their femininity". There are lots of comments (including mine), representing a wide range of opinions, from "I can't take feminine women seriously" to "I love being a girly girl" and lots in-between. And there is more discussion at ScientistMother, Candid Engineer, Professor Chaos, and Zuska's.

Asparagirl has a nice post at Metafilter about the women of ENIAC

James at The Island of Doubt writes about Alexandra Morton, who has made significant contributions to marine biology without a PhD.

Jane Goodall was one of two winners of the Leakey Prize in human evolutionary science. She was also named a Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year.

Alice of Sciencewomen reported back from a day long Association of Women in Science workshop on "what works"

Nancy Jane Moore at Ambling Along the Aqueduct points to an essay in Bitch Magazine aon women and ambition.

ScienceWoman writes about pseudonymity in the "women in science" blogging community:

Also, the I think issue of trust is different in our community than in other parts of the science blog universe. Most of us are not using women-in-science blogs as a way of increasing our scientific knowledge. They are certainly no substitute for reading journal articles or time at the bench, field, or model. We are using women-in-science blogs to to learn from others, get tips on career development, cooking, paper-writing, and child-rearing. We are using women-in-science blogs to participate in a community of people who work in scientific/engineering fields and are interested in combining our demanding career with *some* sort of life outside the lab. And in this sort of community, it seems to be less important whether the blogger is Ariel, an astronomer in Arizona, than whether the blogger can provide insight into how to reach for the stars while keeping your feet on the ground. (And commenters too have such an important role in this community when you provide support, constructive criticism, sympathy, and encouragement).

Janet Stemwedel (aka Dr. Free-Ride) has some good reasons to blog under a pseudonym.

An article in Salon about "the momification" of Michelle Obama has inspired a great post by Kate about how family friendly workplaces are not only a woman's issue:

But here's the thing: making a workplace more family friendly is a fight that cannot be one by women alone. Women cannot be the only ones making a ruckus in the workplace and fighting with themselves, their peers and their bosses to effect change. If we make a nurturant woman's workplace more friendly but not her partner's, it means the woman is always being flexible, always ceding her own wishes, because it is more permissive in her workplace.

There's also discussion of the article at Geeky Mom.

A study of western anatomy textbooks used at European, American, and Canadian universities has shown - not surprisingly - that the "universal model" is a white male.

The researcher also points out that using female bodies to illustrate body parts that are identical in both sexes is a recent development. “Up until virtually the 1990s, male Caucasians were used exclusively to represent anatomical bodies, with female bodies appearing only in fragments to represent their sexual organs.”

Barral points out that these biased views persist, with an image appearing in the popular science magazine Mente y Cerebro as late as 2003 that made the female brain appear to come between that of a child and an adult male in the evolutionary process.

Lisa at Sociological Images shows a set of books for kids for sale at the NASA John Glenn Research Center that imply that "women scientists" are a separate category from simply "scientists". Would you buy a book for your daughter titled You Can Be a Woman Zoologist?

Valleywag notes that a recently touted milestone - more than half of Silicon Valley companies have at least one woman on the their board of directors - isn't really so great. That's actually still far less than the 89% of S&P 500 companies include at least one woman on their boards.

Tags: women in science, gender gap, stereotypes