A comment was posted on yesterday's blog entry that I'd like to share:
I would agree with you that when so few women are physicists in this country and such a small percentage of them are tenured there is obviously a systemic problem - probably starting from general societal attitudes, and what people are encouraged to do from grade school all the way up.! Further, there is no doubt in my mind that the "established" physicists who are in charge of making tenure decisions and choosing who will get important talks consciously (or more likely sub-consciously - i believe the worst part of it is that most male physicists aren't even aware that they are being unfair) disproportionately choose white males. If you include non-American physicists what would the percentages you give be? My naive guess is that women would be more equally represented since there are far more women physicists in other countries (say Italy as the obvious example) than here. And I don't think this would weaken your point, I think it would strengthen the position.
There is one thing I take issue with - I am unaware of the discovery of any new particle. If you mean found a particle known to exist in the data from her experiment you should be honest about it. Although I understand that the layperson will not appreciate the importance of what she did , by exaggerating the importance the people who can help change the situation the most - the "established white-male" physicists will know that you are exaggerating and you lose credibility. It just gives them a reason to ignore you. If in fact she has discovered a new particle, please ignore what I have said and take my apologies.
I love the part about the established white male physicists being the ones who are most likely to change the situation, and thus Absinthe shouldn't exaggerate her abilities...because she might lose all credibility with those exalted white males.
Well shadowenos77 (your domain name appears to indicate you are writing to me from the Harvard physics department), when Absinthe says she was a damn good physicist, she means it. And the particle discovery analysis was real, and extensively well documented. Absinthe isn't going to downplay her abilities just to kowtow to the white males such that they might deign to maybe look into the problem when they feel like getting around to it.
Screw that. If you are thinking this blog should be some feel-good website where gender and race issues in particle physics and academia are discussed in understated genteel and polite terms that won't rock the white male boat, think again. It tried the genteel and polite route many times before. For instance, before I left the lab I already showed the results of the studies I mention in this blog (plus other studies) to the upper-administration-white-males on my experiment, and all I got was platitudes and, ultimately, the brush off. I was so disillusioned by the lack of response that I made the conscious decision before I left the lab to copy all the files from those studies. For future reference.
What in the hell makes you think that the white males are going to fix the problem? Their past history of stellar success at fomenting postive changes towards greater equity in the field? Pull your head out of your arse.
