Suzanne E. Franks: Why Aren't You Reading This?

Thus Spake Zuska Has Moved!

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:15:48 GMT

Thus Spake Zuska has moved to a new site!

Zuska is now blogging at http://www.scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/.

Thanks to the folks at Seed Media Group and Scienceblogs.com for inviting Zuska to join the family!

And apologies for the long delay in announcing this...I started this post on August 7 but some family emergencies intervened. At the new blog, I'll pick up some loose threads from this site, including a follow-up on the post about Rollins President Lewis Duncan's remarks, and a response to a comment by a young woman on one of the Screen Goddess IT Calendar posts. Hope to see you over at the new site!

If you've subscribed to Thus Spake Zuska via RSS, you can continue to do so via Scienceblogs.com's RSS feed.

How to Start a Racial Diary

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:59:15 GMT

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:

I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
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.
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.

Women Should Boycott Fermilab

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:27:47 GMT

I am serious about this.

First, there's the embarrassingly shoddy way they dealt with Sherry Towers, who discovered a goddam particle, for Christ's sake. Then, there's their willingness to exploit the unpaid labor of female physicists with children and then plaster their pictures all over their propaganda rags as if they are the #1 happy workplace for women (see the Elizabeth Freeland story).

But now, we have The Last Straw. Katherine Weber v. Fermilab Thanks to Absinthe for providing that link.

Katherine Weber was a mechanical engineer at Fermilab. Katherine had jock straps and condoms placed in her mailbox. Yes, dear readers, condoms and jock straps. And when she complained about it, she was told that she should "be good", "ignore it", or "make a joke out of it". And later she was demoted, and finally she was fired. She says it was because she complained. Naturally, her employer says it was not. I would just like to go on record as saying that even if she loses her case - NO WOMAN SHOULD HAVE TO GO TO WORK AND FIND JOCKSTRAPS IN HER MAILBOX.

I am so, so very tired of writing about things like condoms and jock straps and pornographic screen savers and research assistants who get raped for years on end. (Must be how those folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center feel when they are stuffing envelopes - you know, same old frickin' neo-Nazi racist skinhead Klan-wannabes, same old tired Aryan nations rhetoric, only the venue changes.) This week it's jockstraps in the mailboxes; last week we were simulating ejaculation in the lunchroom; next week we'll just feel her up in the instrument room. What's the matter, can't you take a joke? Don't be so serious! We're just kidding around! Uptight bitch.

The things that happen to women in science and engineering are ugly things. They are not pleasant to talk about. But as Audre Lorde has told us, in The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action:

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.

They'll tell you to make a joke out of it. But you should go to the EEO officer anyway.

My silences have not protected me. Your silence will not protect you...What are the words that you do not have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies that you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?...[O]f course I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger...

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definitions, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

Women are choking to death in America's national laboratories and university research labs. And as they drop to the floor, men around them pick up the research findings that fall from their listless hands and say, "Thank you! This is just what I was looking for." Then they step over the bodies and walk on.

So, women: Don't apply to Fermilab. Don't accept job offers there. Don't send your students there. Don't actively recruit from there. If you aren't a physicist but you live in the vicinity of Fermilab and want to do something, put a little sign in your car window that says "Women: Boycott Fermilab". Because we should not sell the fruits of our labor so cheaply to those so unworthy.

Book Project Call For Interviewees: Women in STEMM

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:33:02 GMT

Many thanks to Science Woman for alerting me to this very interesting call for interviewees for a book project titled "Where the Girls Aren't", over at a blog called Green Gabbro. Finding this new blog (new to me) is also cool! I'm sure I've seen Yami's presence elsewhere on the web; why have I not been to her blog before? Go forth and read, for she is good. Here's about the book project:

[A] science and tech writer in my extended social network just landed a book deal on women’s experiences in science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM). She’s looking to interview women and girls from all walks of sciencehood; if this sounds interesting to you, details are below the fold.

Two similar works are Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences by Elaine Seymour and Nancy Hewitt, and Leaving Science: Occupational Exit From Scientific Careers by Anne Preston.

Seymour and Hewitt's book may be more well known. Elaine Seymour was a recipient of WEPAN's Betty Vetter Award for Research in 2000. Talking About Leaving documented that the shameful attrition rates in engineering and the sciences were not the result of separating the wheat from the chaff. The fleeing students were among the most highly qualified, and, I know this will come as a huge shock to you, but - well - just guess which groups had disproportionately high loss rates. I'll give you a hint. It wasn't the white males.

Preston analyzed data from 1700 men and women who received degrees in the natural sciences or engineering between 1965 and 1990 and placed this data in context with federal funding and market force pressures on scientific career trajectories during this period, finding differences in male and female exit patterns for the 49% of those who left science.

I'm much more familiar with Seymour and Hewitt's work. However, from what I know of both, it sounds like the project that generated the call for interviewees above might dovetail nicely with both these books. Seymour and Hewitt's book is rich in anecdotes, data analysis, research summary, and theory, but it focuses at the undergraduate level. Preston's work looks at postgraduate workforce issues, and includes an analysis of how common factors have a differential impact on men and women's decisions to stay or leave. It provides statistical analysis along with illustrative anecdotes. However it doesn't necessarily look deeply at the experiences unique to postgraduate women in academia that affect the decision to stay or leave. Not the "will my proposal get funded?" or "should I take that industry job for double my current salary and half the hours I work now?" worries or dilemmas. No, I mean, the stuff like

There are only two women in this WeAreTooRealMen Engineering department. At the departmental retreat, the schedule shows at the end of the first day "Let's all gather at the hotel pool for an hour of swimming and relaxing!" We don't want to seem uncollegial, but we don't want to appear in our swimsuits in front of 17 men we have to work with. Will they talk about us if we don't go? Will they talk about us if we do? (A true story, some details slightly altered.)
I've just defended my PhD and I'm getting interviews but no offers. I finally found out why. I got an anonymous letter from someone after my last interview, just signed "A Friend", letting me know MY THESIS ADVISOR was writing to the places I'd interviewed and telling them I was no good. (This one had a reasonably happy ending. She sued his ass. He lost his job at Ivy Envy U. She's a full professor at Prestige Public U. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, you may want to consult with Absinthe.)
I am the only woman of color in the entire college of engineering. They want me to serve on everything that even sounds like it has the word diversity somewhere connected to it. They want me to mentor every student of color. They want to trot me out at every fundraising event to show how they are "working their diversity plan". They say things like, "I hope you don't feel like you got your job just because of your race." They say things to me like, "Well, I'm glad we were finally able to hire a woman of color." Why can't they say things like "Well, I'm glad we were finally able to attract one of MIT's best electrical engineering PhD's to our university"? I just had my three-year review and they told me I'm not publishing enough and not bringing in enough research money.
I'm a physicist working at a national lab. Last year I discovered a new particle! This year I'm going to give birth to a baby! I'd like to take the maternity leave that the written policy says I'm entitled to. I have a meeting with my supervisor in a few minutes. I'm going to let him know. I'm sure it will be fine because the baby won't be coming for six months yet and that gives us plenty of time to plan and schedule things. It's not like I'm sick or anything; that, you can't plan for. You know, like when men have heart attacks.
At hiring time I was told that publications and research were the most important things for tenure. I have 12 papers in Science and NSF has opened their coffers and told me to take whatever I want. Six engineering firms are fighting to license my incredible patented gadgets. I just had my three-year review. My undergraduate students write remarks on their course evaluations about my clothing. They say my breasts interfere with their learning. My department chair said that teaching is one of the core missions of a land-grant university and I need to improve my course evals or start thinking about places where I might find a "better fit" for my priorities.

Okay, I may have exaggerated just a tiny bit on that last one. Everybody knows funding is tighter than a botoxed socialite.

Ethics in Physics-Land

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:33:42 GMT

Lest you think Absinthe and I are shrill, hysterical harpies, may I direct you to this Physics Today article from 2004 titled "Ethics and the Welfare of the Physics Profession". An APS task force undertook a survey on ethics. Here's the good stuff:

The 1987 APS statement on integrity in physics reads, in part, "The physics community has traditionally enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for maintenance of high ethical standards and integrity in its scientific activities. Indeed, the American Physical Society is one of the few professional societies which has not felt the need for a formal code of ethics." Hee!
The task force reported that "By far the highest response rate and the most extensive and heart-felt answers to the open-ended survey questions came from the junior members of APS-that is, physicists within the first three years after getting the PhD." Nearly half of them responded, a lot of them within hours via the web.
"In contrast to the high response rate among junior members, only a quarter of physics department chairs responded to the survey they were sent. "
"Particularly shocking to the task force was how often the words 'abuse' and 'exploitation' were used to describe the treatment of graduate students. A number of junior members suggested that ethics training should first be made mandatory for professors, so that they could 'learn how to treat their students and postdocs in a humane way.' Several wrote of the 'powerlessness' of graduate students and postdocs, who depend on their supervisor for letters of recommendation and therefore cannot afford to blow the whistle on instances of mistreatment."

Dear readers, please note that the vast majority of physicists are white males. Therefore we can assume that the vast majority of the junior members describing abuse and exploitation are white males. And that's what it's like to be one of the privileged ones in physics.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, another article published in 2004 in the Chronicle of Higher Education asked the question "Is Graduate School a Cult?" (no subscription needed). Author Thomas Benton was talking about the humanities, and was half tongue-in-cheek, half serious, but I think his remarks are chillingly relevant for women - hell, for any decent human - in science and engineering.

For all its claims to the contrary, graduate education does not seem to enhance the mental freedom of many students, some of whom are psychologically damaged by the experience...[graduate school seems] to have a lot in common with mind-control cults. It's not difficult for a casual researcher to gain entry into the bizarre world of cults and anti-cult activists. A quick Internet search will inevitably lead one to...Freedom of Mind Center. [Steven Alan] Hassan was a member of the Unification Church...[he is] "America's leading expert on cults." For anyone who has been in graduate school, numerous portions of Hassan's outline of the mind-control practices of cults will seem weirdly familiar...[and] mildly disturbing. Hassan calls his outline the "BITE Model," which stands for behavior, information, thought, and emotional control. Let's review a few of the traits of each category and see if any of them sound familiar.

Behavior control: "major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals"; "need to ask permission for major decisions"; "need to report thoughts, feelings, and activities to superiors."
Information control: "access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged (keep members so busy they don't have time to think)" and "extensive use of cult-generated information (newsletters, magazines, journals, audio tapes, videotapes, etc.)."
Thought control: "need to internalize the group's doctrine as 'Truth' (black and white thinking; good vs. evi;; us vs. them, inside vs. outside)" and "no critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate."

Emotional control: "excessive use of guilt (identity guilt: not living up to your potential; social guilt; historical guilt)"; "phobia indoctrination (irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority; cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group; shunning of leave takers; never a legitimate reason to leave"; and "from the group's perspective, people who leave are 'weak,' 'undisciplined. ' "

Are you experiencing some shock of recognition? I was particularly startled when I learned that recent college graduates are one of the groups most frequently targeted by cult recruiters.

Women scientists, say goodbye to your identity guilt. Visualize positive, fulfilling futures for yourselves, devoid of pinhead control freaks who desperately cling to power by sucking the life force of younger, more talented individuals. Do not shun those who have left academia as if they are diseased and proximity might infect you with their plague. Vacation on Planet Zorn as needed. Slap on your anger tiara and read Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography. Photocopy and blow up good parts and leave them lying around the physics lounge, just for grins. Hey, if they're still putting up the girlie calendars in the labs and pornographic screen savers on their computers and riding lactating mothers out of national labs on a rail, then I think we can offer up some top-notch science-writing about the exquisitely designed clitoris and its 8,000 nerve endings, which need no man to make a woman happy.

A Simple Method for Women to Improve the Quality of Their Work

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 03:02:02 GMT

Today's Philadelphia Inquirer had a nifty little story about Ben Barres, who used to be Barbara Barres. Ben/Barbara is a neurobiologist. Here is my very favorite quote from the article:

After he undertook a sex change nine years ago at the age of 42, Barres recalled, another scientist who was unaware of it was heard to say, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's."

There's nothing in the world like objective peer review, I always say. Nothing in the world.

Apparently, Ben has not had nice things to say about Lawrence Summers, Steven Pinker, or Peter Lawrence, standard-bearers for the Penis-Is-Mightier-Than-the-Brain Club. Has Ben Barres been accused of being a shrill, hysterical harpy as a result? Well, try this exercise: Google "Ben Barres hysterical". Then Google "Nancy Hopkins hysterical".

Larry refused to comment for the Inquirer. (Probably just as well, dude - you've gotten yourself into enough trouble with your mouth already.) Curly and Moe, I mean, Steve and Pete whined that Ben had "misrepresented their views and unfairly tarred those who disagree with crude assertions of racism and sexism ". Pete had this to say:

Lawrence said it was a "utopian" idea that "one fine day, there will be an equal number of men and women in all jobs, including those in scientific research."

Here's another utopian idea: one fine day, I won't have to read this dreck anymore.

Lawrence also tells us

females on average are innately designed to empathise, to communicate, and to care for others. Males tend to think narrowly and obsess, while females think broadly, taking into account balancing arguments.

Awwwww....that is so sweet. We're all kind and nurturing, except for when we are enraged, castrating feminists, or shrill hysterical harpies. Well, I guess that's what happens when you go against nature and try to become a scientist - you start secreting those lesbo harpy hormones. Which interfere with your ability to do math anyway, even as they destroy your femininity. Or something like that.

Personally, I do not care for others who make these kinds of stupid assertions. I would like to communicate to them that I do not feel much empathy for their desire to keep women down, and even if they don't recognize their all-encompassing, societally broad obsession with keeping women down, of which science's sorry-ass state of affairs is but one manifestation, I do.

I encourage everyone to read Cynthia Burack's The Problem of the Passions and Mary R. Jackman's The Velvet Glove. Women are angry as much as they are nurturing. I think we ought to be even angrier, more often. Certainly stubborn sexism disguised as "I just want to help the ladies" ladled out by the likes of Peter Lawrence and his ilk ought to at least make you angry enough to feel like horking up your breakfast on his shoes next time you see him.

In an earlier post, I ended by encouraging my readers to imagine themselves as the princess of the planet Zorn (you'll just have to read it to learn why). One of my commenters wrote to say that zorn means anger in German and therefore he/she would not want to be princess of Zorn. I say: even better. Zorn is exactly the planet women scientists need to take up residence on and rule, dammit.

Empathy, communication, and caring are HUMAN traits available to all of us; most men choose or are trained not to practice them. Labelling them innately female, labelling mathematical prowess innately male, devaluing one and over-valuing the other, is one of the crudest forms of sexism there is. Well, aside from raping your research assistant.

p.s. Thank you, Ben, for remembering the ladies.

Homophobia is Not Permitted Here

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:46:01 GMT

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote a post entitled Why Don't They Hear What I Say?

Picture a scene some years ago: I'm in the kitchen at my older brother's house along with him, my sister-in-law, and niece. Brother is talking about his calculus class - he's recently returned to college to get his degree while working full time in the coal mine. No shabby feat - takes a lot of determination and energy. His wife has pushed and supported him in this effort. Brother is annoyed by his younger classmates who seem more cavalier about their college studies than he is - they are young, they don't have kids, they don't work in a coal mine, they goof off, they don't know how easy they have it. He chooses to vent his frustration in the form of a story making fun of a young woman in his calculus class, depicting her as a hopeless airhead who just can't cope with math.

I listen for awhile, but I am pissed. I am pissed because he is describing this young woman as incapable of calculus because she is a woman, and as an airhead because she is a woman. Finally I interrupt and point out that of all the people currently in the room, his wife and I are the only two with college degrees. And mine is in engineering. And presumably he will want his daughter to someday get a college degree. And that maybe he does not really want to give his wife, daughter, and sister the impression that he thinks women are constitutionally incapable of math, or that women are in general brainless bimbos undeserving of respect. I ask him if there aren't, perhaps, any men in the calculus class who are having problems with the material. Does their difficulty stem from the essential fact that they are men? He hems and haws a bit but the message seems to have gotten through.

Now we move forward in time to the initiation of this blog. Early on, I discussed the issue of the production of genius and the eternal straw-woman question, why are there no great women scientists? My brother weighed in on this debate, and displayed a remarkable resistance to understanding the ways in which his view of genius as something "streaky, rare, and unpredictable" supports the myth of the "great man", the lie that women can't do science, and the fallacy that there is some kind of inherent, magical math genius that can't be taught or nurtured into existence. Great scientists are great because they are made, they are shaped and formed and trained. They do not just spring forth from the womb. And despite the fact that my brother has had to crawl through, over, and around all kinds of obstacles to obtain his education and a better standard of living than our parents had, despite the fact that his off-the-charts genius level IQ and intense fascination with science and computers from an early age did not automatically translate into his becoming a Bill Gates-equivalent, he would prefer to believe in streaky, rare genius. I am sure that if Bill Gates had been one of six children of a coal miner in western Pennsylvania, attending some of the worst public schools in the state, he would have gone on to found Microsoft just the same. Being one of three children of an attorney in Seattle, attending private school and Harvard, had little to do with it, because Bill Gates is a genius. Genius, being streaky and rare, hardly ever visits coal mining villages.

And now we come to the present. My brother has read what I wrote about the Duke lacrosse players mess, and commented on it. And all I can say is, this kind of support, I can do without. I don't know what planet you are living on, brother, but whoever told you that you could score points with me by mocking the Duke lacrosse players with homophobic slurs was sorely mistaken. What on this blog has ever given you the idea that I would condone this kind of behavior without a public scolding? Do you not understand that homophobia is one of the weapons the fundamentalist right uses to advance its agenda, which includes keeping women home and out of the science and engineering professions? Did you not read my post about Bitches, Faggots, and Real Men? If you haven't, go read it. If you have, go re-read it till you understand why and how homophobia contributes to the oppression of women and why the policing of masculinity is bad for all men. In the meantime, stop waving your Real Man dick around in the vicinity of this blog.

"We Mountaineers never had to pay women to come to our parties..." says my brother. Please remember that when you speak, you do not speak for all Mountaineers. Some of them are women. And some of the men are gay. In fact, one of the most wonderful Mountaineers I know is Jeff Mann, and all of you ought to read everything he's ever written, because he writes prose and poetry like nobody's business. (Allow me to especially recommend Edge to straight women, as I did in my review on Amazon. Brother, you should read it, too.) His latest book is Loving Mountains, Loving Men. When you gay-bash, brother, you are contributing to the societal attitudes that endanger my friend Jeff and that would force him back into the closet.

And, incidentally, when you gay-bash you find yourself in some interesting company. One of the three Duke lacrosse players who was indicted in the rape case has a prior arrest for an incident in Washington, DC that included taunting the victim with a homophobic slur.

Now. When I say that Zuska is, among other things, the Avenging Angel of Angry Women, and that she will say what others are already thinking but afraid to say, I hope you will now believe me if you didn't before. Women need to get in touch with their anger and let it show to the men in their lives. No exemptions for blood relatives, spouses, significant others, or friends.

Three solid wallops with the virtual Homophobia is Tied to Women's Oppression Coal Shovel of Justice on my brother's ass.

How to Speak Academese

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:19:34 GMT

Have no fear, grad students and postdocs. Soon you'll be slinging that academic jargon around just like the professors, if you'll just read this piece from the Chronicle (no subscription needed, I believe). Lots of nifty links within the article, too, including links to two previous jargon-deciphering articles. Scientists and engineers will find much that is specifically useful for them in these articles.

Why Don't They Hear What I Say?

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:29:45 GMT

Any website about gender and science that has this as a header certainly seems promising. And when you find it's associated with Patricia Campbell, well, then you just start salivating...my friends, you must go visit FairerScience.org

FairerScience is a joint project of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc. It is funded by the National Science Foundation's Research on Gender in Science and Engineering Program and lead by Dr. Susan Bailey, executive director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Dr. Patricia Campbell, president of Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc.

If nothing else, you should just check out the FREE resources on this website.

FairerScience has a blog. There you will find Richard Petty speaking in a very Petty manner about women racecar drivers.

...NASCAR king Richard Petty still doesn't think that women belong on the race track. "I just don't think it's a sport for women," Petty said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hmmm. Richard, men don't belong in the newspapers being quoted as to what women should not be doing. "I just don't think circumscribing women's opportunities is a (very attractive) sport for men," said Zuska.

In a new feature of Thus Spake Zuska, I will occasionally be prescribing virtual gender justice alignments where necessary. Mr. Petty: one sound wallop to the side of the head with a 3/4 inch gender-equity socket wrench. Repeat as necessary.

Topa-Haze All 'Round My Brain

Thu, 18 May 2006 15:26:04 GMT

This started out as a normal post but quickly got too long...so now it's a Story. It's the story...of a lovely Zuska...who was bringing up a very lovely blog. (sorry...too much Brady Bunch in my formative years.) Anyway, it's the story of why this post has been edited, and why it needed to be edited in the first place. And there's a very nice moral at the end of it, so it might be worth your while to read it. Here's a little tease to make you go read it...

I am an unusual engineer in many respects. And not just because I'm a goddess. My earliest ambition in life was to be a writer and indeed, by age 11, I had produced a "novel" entitled Visitors From Earth in which the heroine - named after the most popular girl in my class, but really me - manages to avert interplanetary warfare, discovers she is the princess of a distant planet, and acquires two boyfriends, but refuses, for the time-being, to marry either of them, unlike her two friends who settle right in to marriage at story's end. All in 6 pages. I have not yet averted interplanetary warfare, but I have indeed discovered my goddess- and empress-hood, not to mention the avenging angel sideline, which I think is just as good as princess of a distant planet. And I'm on my second husband. Hmmm... (read more)

That's Just Good Design!

Tue, 16 May 2006 23:07:16 GMT

Friends who know me well, know that I am not shy about pronouncing judgment on bad design when I encounter it. Bad design is, well, really bad. The engineer's job - the engineer's responsibility - is to reduce or eliminate bad design wherever it exists, and to create and nurture new, good design in any and all venues.

Good design: Washington's Metro system. Especially at stations like Metro Center, where different lines meet, and you get those gorgeous intersecting arching tunnels...so nice.

Bad design: Childproof caps on pill bottles that my mother cannot open with her arthritic hands. Actually, pretty much anything that isn't designed keeping in mind the needs of the elderly and disabled. Grrrrrrr....

Here is a lovely collection of really bad design.

Last Friday's Philadelphia Inquirer had a review of a book - set of books, really - called Phaidon Design Classics. This is where you go to see really good design! I am pleased to know that Tupperware made it into the book. Also the clothes peg. Household technology doesn't get near enough the kind of attention it should.

Too bad these books are so expensive. They would be a great resource for high school teachers who wanted to illustrate the engineer's ubiquitous influence in our lives. Perhaps you are feeling philanthropic, and would like to donate a set of these books to your local middle school or high school library! That is really wonderful. Zuska approves.

It's Nature, Baby; Don't Try to Fight It

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:37:50 GMT

That's the line a nice young man used on me my first year in college, while he was holding me down and trying to rip my clothes off me so as to rape me. I mean, as he attempted to pursue his genetically developed evolutionary strategy which generated his biologically produced desire to forcibly copulate with any available female. (You can read what Zuska thinks about that theory here, chapter titled "They Blinded Me With Science".)

Take this little quiz and see how you score: what do rape apologists, misogynists, and gay-bashers have in common?

If you answered: They misuse biological science to maintain patriarchy and the subordination of women, you may go to the front of Zuska's class!

We hear "it's nature baby" sung by a veritable chorus of scientists when the subject is women's access to science and engineering careers. Some time back, a friend sent me this link to an article in The Onion (which is in every way a fantabulous publication). The article, titled "Study: Dolphins Not so Intelligent On Land" is hilarious enough on its own merits as a satire of scientific investigation gone awry through the failure to ask the right questions in a meaningful context for a moral and useful purpose. But I like to think of it as an allegory for the tireless efforts of the many scientists who, almost daily it seems, bring us proof of women's innate biological inferiority. Craniologists and Harvard physicians in the 19th century, psychologists and endocrinologists (see also Ruth Bleier, "Science and Gender", Ch. 4) in the 20th, and evolutionary psychologists, neuroscientists, modern craniologists, and, of course, Harvard economists/presidents in the 21st.

The women-in-engineering & science community, however, is less aware of another group singing to us about our true nature. The conservative religious right, in its own tireless battle against homosexuality, also wants us to know that males are biologically superior to females at math, geometry, and gross motor movements, and that testosterone makes them fight and play with trucks (ah, the playing-with-trucks example, beloved by pundits as varied as religious gay-bashers and Harvard presidents). Mr. Frank York reassures us:

Contrary to the wishful thinking of feminists, bisexuals, and transsexuals, there are profound differences between males and females--and those differences are programmed within the DNA from the moment of conception. The brains of females and males are clearly "sexed," and testosterone and estrogen are the juices that augment maleness and femaleness.

To be sure, gender-distorting prenatal abnormalities do affect some individuals, and may increase the likelihood that such an afflicted person will later self-identify as transgendered or transsexual (and in some cases, homosexual).
But barring such unfortunate developmental errors--- which we should not normalize as if they were not disruptions in normal growth and development--the simple truth remains: maleness and femaleness are innate and integral parts of our human design.

Take home message from the "it's nature baby" crowd:

You should stay home and dress modestly to reduce your chances of being raped (boys will be boys).
And why not stay home, since you aren't capable of the demands a career in science or engineering would make?
Besides, it's what God wants you to do.

Or, to paraphrase Garrison Keilor, all the engineers are men, all the women are home, and all the children are straight.

AWEsome Resources

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:36:48 GMT

Sorry, could not resist the lame pun for the title.

Some news bits from AWE (Assessing Women in Engineering):

(1) This report describes results of the "Extraordinary Women Engineers" study. One astonishing discovery made:

The common understanding among all audiences is that engineering is perceived to be a man's profession and there is little to no encouragement for girls to consider engineering.

Not surprisingly, the report calls for a "fundamental shift in the way engineering is portrayed". Downplay process and challenge of becoming an engineer, beef up focus on benefits and rewards of being an engineer. I predict this report will go over like a lead balloon. There are plenty of helpful recommendations in the report. And if they were really attended to, engineering would become a girly place to be. Which I think would be a good thing. But I am pretty sure that the gate-keepers who depend upon the "only the few, the proud, the engineers" approach to engineering education as means of defining their manhood will not be inclined towards substantive changes.

Think about it. Suppose we did redefine engineering as a desirable career option for young girls. Just what would that look like? For starters, we'd have to get all the engineering leadership to stop talking and acting as if engineering were a man's profession. Where, hey, we'd be happy to have a few more girls, if only we knew where to find them. Because, you know, having women around brightens up the place. Oh, crap, I could go on, but you know it as well as I do. Read the report and dream of utopia.

(2) Virginia Valian, author of "Why So Slow?" and patron saint of women storming the engineering barricades across the nation, has a nifty website with learning tutorials. Kidnap your department head, dean, or provost, strap him/her to an office chair with a head brace that directs attention to the computer screen, and launch Tutorial 1: Sex Disparities in Rank and Salary.

(3) Have you been looking for a searchable list of K-12 outreach programs so you could get some ideas for the SWE middle school event or the high school girls tour your dean foisted off upon you? or just want to borrow someone's cool program acronym? (you didn't hear that here) Check out ASEE's database.

(4) If you register at the AWE website, you'll have access to their forms and survey instruments. Nice!

(5) Contact AWE or get on their mailing list by emailing: awe AT engr DOT psu DOT edu.

Now Ranting in Your Neighborhood: Dr. Shellie and Feminist Engineer

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 18:48:46 GMT

Dr. Shellie gives us the lowdown on the dreaded faculty search. Dr. Shellie, this is really funny, and it would be even funnier if it weren't, alas, all too true.

On the bright side, you all might like to go read Dr. Shellie's blog. And also take a peek at Rants of a Feminist Engineer. Dr. Shellie, Feminist Engineer, may I just say: welcome to my part of the blogosphere! Or is that our part, now that you're here? Or I'm there? Whatever, just glad to know about you!

Shakespeare's Sister in the 21st Century

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:51:11 GMT

Hello again, Zuskateers. These last few weeks I've been struggling with malware. You know, the usual malware in my head (migraines) but this time, also, malware on my laptop. Those malware assholes - if they would use 5% of their creativity in doing something good for humankind, rather than figuring out how to redirect my browser to Adult Women Nude!!! Bastards. They aren't even kind enough to send me to Adult Men Nude!!!

I finally gave up trying to remove the malware since I didn't have enough time before taxes were due to obtain the MCSD certification that might have allowed me to begin to understand Microsoft's labyrinthine instructions for things like making a backup of my registry when Windows XP comes pre-installed without the Backup Utility. So I bravely got out the cd-rom that says something like "Never insert this flaming ball of death into your computer unless you are content to wipe it clean of everything ever done since the last time the Dead played 'Jack Straw' ".

As part of the resurrection of my computer, I went through the setup process wherein Microsoft's friendly software prompts you to name and describe your computer. There were examples offered to help with the decision: "David" or "The Ortez Family" for a name; "David's game machine" or "Ortez family office computer" for a description. I named mine after my cats. And I described it as the eyes of the world.

Then my wireless internet didn't work, so I made a call to Verizon's customer support. A service rep who gave her name as Beth was very helpful. It was pretty clear that English was not Beth's first language. I am also pretty sure that Beth's real name was not Beth. Most likely it's something much more difficult for U.S. Americans to pronounce. No doubt Verizon kindly suppled her with a list of more congenial names to choose from; I hope, at least, that it wasn't assigned to her.

In the end, I got everything back to whatever passes as normal for me and I finally got the taxes done. But as I reflected upon my malware melee, I thought "Now there's a perfect concatenation of gender and IT issues."

Me: I'm a reasonably well-educated individual. Yet I still experienced a non-negligible amount of anxiety about using the recovery disk. I mean, I knew my computer would not blow up or fall into thousands of tiny pieces at my feet, but still...one never knows...
Beth: a reasonably well-educated woman on a distant shore, being paying paid much less to do her job than I would be paid if I were doing it here in the U.S.
Judith: a reasonably...who's Judith? She's Bill Gates's imaginary sister, who was not included in Microsoft's list of example computer names and descriptions.

Judith, you may recall, is the name Virginia Woolf gave to Shakespeare's imaginary sister in A Room of One's Own. Microsoft is well aware of "David" and his "gaming machine" interests. The "Ortez family" with its home office computer has entered its database as well. But Judith? Everybody knows girls don't like computers.

It was for Judith's sake that I was so annoyed with myself for being anxious about using the recovery disk and re-installing software on my computer. It was on Judith's behalf that I felt pissed off at Microsoft for not even imagining her as a computer user. It was through Judith's eyes that I saw Beth, forced to deny her name while pleasantly serving cranky U.S. customers who resent the fact that she has a job that should "belong" to an American.

I like to think that Beth's real name is Jayashri, which if I can trust a quick web search, means "Goddess of Victory". Jayashri's issues, my concerns - they may not be identical, but they sure are interconnected. There is a little piece of Judith, a little bit of Jayashri, in every woman. We want women to have access to science, engineering, and technological careers; but we also don't want them to be paid a pittance for their work, no matter where they labor. When you really start digging deep into questions of access and equity, what you will find at the core is the question of economic and social justice for all the women of the world.

Servants of the Map

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:10:21 GMT

Servants of the Map is the title of an excellent collection of short stories by Andrea Barrett. The title story is about a young man mapping high mountain peaks in the Himalayas...but it's about more than that...and then a later story connecting to this first one gives us a view of the wife and daughters who were left back home during his journeys. Barrett is an exceptionally good writer (and I can recommend just about anything she's ever written) whose works generally deal with the intertwining of lives and scientific pursuits.

It makes great companion reading to a piece in another wonderful volume, Journeys of Women in Science and Engineering: No Universal Constants. This one is worth owning if only because the title is so very lovely. Seriously, though, it's a great collection of personal essays by women in science, and there you will find Margaret (Peg) Rees (mentioned in my previous post) talking about her journey into geology and the journeys geology has taken her on. And she discusses how the demands of fieldwork in geology affect the formation and maintenance of relationships back home.

Happy reading, everyone!

Geology and Feminism

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:07:40 GMT

These two very interesting women, and their websites, came to my attention recently via the WMST-L listserv.

Margaret (Peg) N. Rees

Jill S. Schneiderman

Both of them have some nifty publications listed on their websites. If you are looking for some thought-provoking reading on science and feminism, you could certainly make a good start here. Geology is a truly fascinating discipline that has, or could have, many obvious connections with feminist theory and analysis. Both fields have much to offer each other.

When we speak, too often, of "science" as if it were one thing, important distinctions get lost. What feminism has to offer geology - and vice versa - is very different from what the feminist project in physics might look like. Feminists have not always taken the time to attend to these distinctions between the sciences, or even between the sciences and engineering, yet the differences matter. I know a little (but only a very little) about the work of Peg Rees, enough to say that it's really ground-breaking (no pun intended, geologists). If this week goes a little more smoothly I'll write more about some of her work.

Arnhart on Teaching Darwin

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:23:54 GMT

Right now I am in too much of a hurry to say more than "go read this article and all the comments attached at the end." It's an extraordinary discussion, thought-provoking, substantive, and covers ground I haven't seen addressed elsewhere. I think you'll love it. More on it later.

The Fear of Teaching Darwin. Larry Arnhart wants biology students not just to learn about the father of evolutionary theory, but to read his words. [Inside Higher Ed]

The New and Improved WEPAN Website is Here!

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 23:03:14 GMT

WEPAN - Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network - has launched a new, updated website. Work on the website will continue through at least March 2006 but many new features are already available. You can find various publications on the WEPAN site. Some you pay for, some are free. Among the free ones, let me draw your attention to this one that focuses on retention, by Pat Campbell, Eric Jolly, and Lesley Perlman. It offers a very astute and fresh look at a complex issue. The attention to race, and not just gender, makes this article particularly useful and informative.

If you are a member, you will also have access to WEPAN's Data and Statistics section. There you will find fabulous tables, on enrollment, degrees, salaries, and the workforce. The enrollment and degree data is presented by gender and race, and includes information on foreign nationals. It's also offered for total engineering enrollment/degrees, and by engineering discipline. Good stuff - so if you aren't a member, you should join, just for access to this data alone! Thanks to the Commission for Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST) who provide this data to WEPAN.

If your university does not have an institutional membership - let them know they are behind the times and need to catch up by joining WEPAN! Individual memberships are just $80, so there's no reason you can't take advantage yourself if your institution insists on steadfastly maintaining its pathetically inadequate approach to dealing with access and climate issues.

Growing a STEM Team

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:20:14 GMT

This came in over the PGELIST listserv and I am just reposting the whole announcement here, since some of you may be interested in outreach programs and looking for resources. I am not acquainted with this resource but it has been highly praised by several leading experts in the women and science/engineering community, notably Jane Daniels, Sherry Woods, and Cinda-Sue Davis.

The Growing a STEM Team! Manual is designed to serve as a resource for people interested in conducting gender equitable outreach to K12 classrooms. The manual has two parts. The first part contains classroom tested engineering activities for 8^th grade middle school classrooms such as "The Great Orange Juice Squeeze", "Binary in a Box" and "Design a Wacky Shoe". The second part describes how to form and prepare a team of students, faculty and practicing engineers (a Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or "STEM Team") to deliver these activities in the classroom.

This project is sponsored by the Programs in Gender Equity (PGE) Division of the National Science Foundation (HRD 0217110). We have a limited number of copies to distribute free of charge. If you are interested in receiving a free copy of these materials, we ask that you go to the following website to enter your mailing information on or before October 26^th, 2005. We hope the DVD will be completed and duplicated so that we can send the manual and DVD out together in early November, 2005.

In addition to gathering your mailing information, the website has a short, 2 question questionnaire which will help us understand how these materials are being used. We will also be contacting you in a few months to ask for your feedback on these materials. We thank you in advance for your cooperation in sharing that feedback with us. If you have any further questions, please contact us at STEM at TUFTS dot EDU.
Thank you for your time!
Sincerely,
Meredith Knight
Program Coordinator, STEM Team Project
Center for Engineering Education Outreach
Tufts University 

Kettle Bottoms, Coal Miners, and Stupid-ass Advertisers

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:22:57 GMT

This is a complete digression from my normal topics but something quite close to my heart.

I've just finished reading a book of poems entitled "Kettle Bottom" by Diane Gilliam Fisher. These are poems about coal camp history in 1920-21 West Virginia, when many bloody battles were waged between miners and company-hired goons. Few people know that our own federal government sent our own troops to fight against our own people in West Virginia. Yes, miners agitating for just slightly better working conditions were cause to call out the army. Many of these miners had recently been part of that army, in World War I. What a nice thank-you to our veterans!

Anyway, this book of poems heartbreakingly captures the experiences of the miners, miners' wives, and the children - who were also sometimes the miners. Reading it now, in 2005, these poems about events more than 80 years ago break my heart and bring me to tears. First, because Fisher is an excellent poet. But second, because I come from a coal-mining family, and these poems speak truth about my feelings and experiences, and what I know my grandparents lived through. One of my grandfathers entered the mines at age 9, the other at age 12. My father died at age 57 of a heart attack brought on by black lung disease. I know people who have survived cave-ins, and I am a distant relative of one of the Quecreek miners rescued from a flooded mine in 2002.

Because this book moved me so deeply, I Googled Fisher's name to see if I could somehow find a way to send her a fan letter. What I found were a couple of reviews of the book, and I decided to take a look. In Erin Murphy's positive but patronizing review, we are told that the angel metaphor in one poem is "a bit too poetic for a miner's wife". Too poetic? Because miner's wives are too stupid and low-class to know anything about angels and what their wings would look like? And even if they did know, they don't have the depth of soul required to create metaphors in their own existence? Well, thank you for insulting my mother and grandmothers, Ms. Murphy. She is also critical of a poem in which a wife speaks back to a doctor, not believing that she would have had the gumption to do it. But there were and are plenty of feisty women in the mining community. And she's cranky about the central piece, "Raven's Light" which chronicles a miner's thoughts after he's trapped by a cave-in and knows he will not be rescued. "Too organized, too ordered" she says. But for me it helped me think more closely about that which all mining families try not to think about. It was incredibly painful to read but I am so glad it was written.

Now, Ann Stapleton, on the other hand, plainly shows in her review that she gets it. Thank you, Ann.

You might ask, what is a "kettle bottom"? It's a large rounded piece of rock that can drop, without warning, out of the surface of a mine tunnel. They are formed from the petrified remains of tree stumps. They can weight hundreds of pounds. And they can kill a man. I first learned about kettle bottoms from my brother, who had all-too-familiar experience with them during his mining days.

Now, with all this history, how could I fail to be totally offended by General Electric's new ad campaign about coal mining? Follow the link, and scroll down to "Model Miners". View the video of the ad that purports to tell you how beautiful and sexy coal mining can be. This commercial should make you barf up whatever you have most recently eaten, if you have even a shred of humanity in your soul. I, personally, wish that I could barf my share upon (a) whoever thought up this ad campaign and (b) whoever approved using it. Coal mining is beautiful and sexy, oh yeah baby. Coal mining: how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

For my father's mashed thumb and permanently disfigured thumb and thumbnail.
For the coal dust my father could never completely scrub out of that thumb - or his lungs.
For my father's black lung.
For my father's heart attack at age 57.
For my brother's broken wrist.
For my uncle and his buddy who were trapped under a roof-fall (thankfully rescued).
For the crippling arthritis in my uncle's shoulders and back.
For the lost childhood of both of my grandfathers.
For all the worried hours my grandmothers and mothers spent waiting for their men to return home after a shift.
For my anxiety as a child that if Daddy was 5 minutes late coming home, maybe the mine had killed him.
For roof falls, kettle bottoms, gas explosions, and flooding.
For the thousands of miners who die each year in China's unsafe coal mines.

Oh, I could go on, but you get the picture. One of the most offensive things about General Electric's commercial is the selection of music to accompany the ad - the song "16 Tons". "You load 16 tons, and what do you get?/Another day older and deeper in debt./St. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go/I owe my soul to the company store." This song is not metaphorical, it is literal. Coal companies used to pay miners not in U.S. currency, but in something called scrip that the coal companies printed and coined themselves. This scrip - surprise, surprise - could only be spent in the store owned by the company. Miners had to pay for their own tools and often started out work in debt as a result. Miners were paid by the ton of coal loaded - and that ton had to be shoveled by hand into a cart that was hauled out of the mine by a mule. My grandfather worked this way. So, that song has some particular meaning to me. And those General Electric folks should be ashamed to show their sorry asses in public. Unless they are offering themselves up to be barfed on by me.

I am most grateful to Seth Stevenson for this excellent critique of the offending ad on Slate. Stevenson quotes the ad guy in charge of this travesty as saying "you can picture miners singing this song [16 Tons] without any negative feelings."

I would now like to nominate the ad guy, Executive Creative Director Don Schneider, of BBDO, for the award for Stupidest, Most Offensive, Most Hideously Insensitive, and Most Disgusting Human Being. And if anybody runs into him, please barf on him for me.

Engineers and Disability

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 23:06:41 GMT

You may not see the obvious connection to engineering of this article in Slate. But, since I happen to believe engineers are people who should be right at the heart of creative responses to disabilities - for both individuals and society at large - I know that there is one. Plus, I just think everybody ought to be a little more aware about disability issues. After all, for those of you still completely able-bodied...it's only a matter of time. Sooner or later, disability is everyone's issue.

What to Read While I'm Away

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:15:01 GMT

Well, folks, tomorrow is the day I'm having the gallbladder yanked, so I don't know when I'll be back here. In the meantime, you should go read Philobiblon's excellent review of the The Gender Politics of ICT, which collects the papers from the 6th International Women Into Computing Conference. I found that post on the second Carnival of Feminists, which you should also go look at. If you are interested in what the Carnival of Feminists is, go here.

Also, visit InkyCircus to find out how to get your Darwin Fingerpuppet, and learn about the holiest darn natural history museum in the U.S.!

And finally, don't forget to visit Manolo's Shoe Blog for some happiness. Ah, the boots for the Monday. If you are feeling strong, tour the Gallery of The Horrors.

Or maybe just read a good book. Easter Island is a most awesome novel. Jennifer Vanderbes has written a novel that every woman who ever worked in a science lab sometime in the last 100 years will love. It deals with what science can be like and why women might choose it, when joy is allowed to exist and given free reign in the doing of science; how science is peverted and damaged, how lives are injured and sometimes literally destroyed, when the role of joy and passion in science is denied and supressed. I feel like Jennifer Vanderbes has been listening in on every conversation I've ever had about science/engineering and feminism over the last 24 years, and then she went off and wrote me a novel about it all, one that wraps it all up in a meditative package that connects me to my foremothers and to indigenous peoples, that manages to teach me something new about botany, and that makes an argument for the rights of the disabled, all at the same time. And it's just a damned good read anyway. It is sooooo good.

So, off to the hospital then, and see you all again soon!

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 20:25:40 GMT

Here's a great book you should know about: Eisenhart & Finkel, Women's Science: Learning and Succeeding From the Margins. If you haven't time for a whole book, you could look at their chapter in The Gender and Science Reader, ed. Lederman & Bartsch, entitled Women (Still) Need Not Apply. If that's still too time consuming, maybe you'll just listen to me talk about it here. Here's the one sentence summary:

The liberal critique of science and standard recommendations for compensatory strategies are unlikely to have the desired effect of increasing the number of women and minorities in science because they seek to attract individuals to a practice that does not reflect their interests and concerns.

Now, here's my contextualization of the article in relation to the issue of pleasure in science and engineering.

Eisenhart and Finkel argue that boys and men, especially white males, already have access to a range of scientific experiences that most can or do experience as pleasurable. Attempts to draw more women, and men of color, into science by providing them access to these existing experiences are likely to fail. This is because science as it is currently taught and practiced does not reflect the interests and concerns of -these out-group members. The nature of scientific practice and education must be changed, they say, or at least opened up, to allow for a range of experiences and types of engagement that can be experienced as pleasurable by many different types of people. Women in engineering progams and other kinds of compensatory strategies cannot provide this kind of change; these efforts are aimed at getting women to measure up to existing group standards. Women are being encouraged to find pleasure in that which they often experience as alienating, and are made to feel inadequate for their inability or unwillingness to embrace the kinds of pleasure that many men so readily seek or find so comforting.

One the one hand, the myth of science and engineering as that which is devoid of emotion. On the other hand, the white lab-coated scientist (a white male) who cries "Eureka!" at the moment of discovery. One the on hand, the notion that it is practiced dispassionately. On the other hand, Oppenheimer describing the atom bomb project as "technically sweet".

And then, the new story - women don't want to go into science because it is dispassionate - or it doesn't hold pleasures that appeal to them.

But here is what I think. I think that what is intellectually pleasurable, work of hand and mind that inspires love and erotic joy for the object of study, is not different for women and men. It is only what we are taught about appropriate objects to inspire the erotic in our intellect that differs. And what is appropriate for us to do with that emotion, that differs.

Boys may love machines and trucks. But they may not let their love show, they must hide it, and it comes out again in twisted sorts of ways. Girls may not love machines and trucks - unless they want to be called dykes, in which case they still should not love machines and trucks, because those are for the boys. Girls may love gardening, and quilting, and sewing, and cooking. They may speak openly of their love for these pursuits. But they have to pretend that there is no engineering or science involved in these things.

Men shape an official technological world that is largely devoid of things relegated or relating to women. When objects from those outlawed areas impinge on official technodom, it makes everyone uneasy, and when emissaries from outside official technodom want inside, it makes things uneasier still, and when those strangers want to start studying those strange objects then the whole project is blown up. This is all because technological men understand part of what it is to be a man as doing technology in the way that men do technology. I tinker, therefore I am.

For these men, I don't know what's worse - a woman who's attracted to engineering just as it is, or a woman who wants to change the nature of how engineering is practiced. The first one - if she loves what I love, then how do I know who I am? The second one - she's going to destroy the object of my love! Bad deal either way. No wonder they are so resistant.

It's a Secret - Science and Engineering are FUN!

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 22:37:27 GMT

Just as a follow-up to my last post:

Most women scientists and engineers I know (including myself) have experienced real joy, serious pleasure, in the doing of our work. In the lab, at a construction site, doing field work, struggling to make sense of the data at our desks - it can be tremendously satisfying, physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

I sometimes wonder when I read feminist science theory if the authors are aware of the incredible satisfaction we can experience in doing this work. The feelings are similar, I think, to how artists might feel in the act of producing their art. Difficult, sometimes frustrating; but oh so wonderful.

I'll return to this topic - the pleasure of doing science and engineering - in some future posts. In the meantime, you may want to brush up on your Sally Hacker, Samuel Florman, and Audre Lorde. For now, I'll just leave you with this quote from Walt Whitman, from "Passage to India":

Singing my days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
Singing the strong light works of engineers,
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied),
In the Old World the east the Suez Canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann'd,
The seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires;
Yet first to sound, and ever sound, the cry with thee O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!

The Past - the dark unfathom'd retrospect!
The teeming gulf - the sleepers and the shadows!
The past - the infinite greatness of the past!
For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
(As a projectile form'd, impell'd, passing a certain line, still
keeps on,
So the present, utterly form'd, impell'd by the past.)

...

A worship new I sing,
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,
You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,
You, not for trade or transportation only,
But in God's name and for thy sake O soul.