So my dear friend, Emily Hardy, posted this article on Facebook a few days ago. She tagged me in the post, along with many of her other female scientist friends. It took me a few days to find the time to read it. I find it somewhat ironic that part of why my spare time is so limited is because I'm planning a wedding and working as a babysitter this summer. Once I finally got a spare moment (around midnight on a Saturday night), I read this little gem and found myself saying "Amen!" numerous times. I was going to post some of the highlights on Facebook, but there were too many. The article in its entirety is 10 pages. I strongly recommend that you take the time to read it all. However, if you don't have the time or just simply can't be bothered, I will list my highlights below.
"And what remotely normal young woman would want to imagine herself as dowdy, socially clueless Amy rather than as stylish, bouncy, math-and-science-illiterate Penny?"
Excuse me. I'd much rather be Amy. Truthfully, I'd love to be Mayim, the actress who plays Amy. She's a neuroscientist with a Ph. D. and she's gorgeous and carries herself in a feminine way. She's not "dowdy" and "socially clueless" because you can be a female scientist and still be sexy!
"According to the study’s authors, native-born American students of both sexes steer clear of math clubs and competitions because “only Asians and nerds” would voluntarily do math. “In other words, it is deemed uncool within the social context of U.S.A. middle and high schools to do mathematics for fun; doing so can lead to social ostracism. Consequently, gifted girls, even more so than boys, usually camouflage their mathematical talent to fit in well with their peers.” The study’s findings apply equally in science. "
If anyone was wondering why American students score lower in math and science than students from the rest of the world...wonder no more. It's not "cool" to do well in math and science!
Urry told me that at the space telescope institute where she used to work, the women from Italy and France “dress very well, what Americans would call revealing. You’ll see a Frenchwoman in a short skirt and fishnets; that’s normal for them. The men in those countries seem able to keep someone’s sexual identity separate from her scientific identity. American men can’t seem to appreciate a woman as a woman and as a scientist; it’s one or the other.” "
This just cracks me up! There's so much I could say here, but I can't put it all into words.
"“Women need more positive reinforcement, and men need more negative reinforcement. Men wildly overestimate their learning abilities, their earning abilities. Women say, ‘Oh, I’m not good, I won’t earn much, whatever you want to give me is O.K.’ ”"
All I can say to this one is, "HELLO!"
"What most young women don’t realize, Urry said, is that being an academic provides a female scientist with more flexibility than most other professions. She met her husband on her first day at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “And we have a completely equal relationship,” she told me. “When he looks after the kids, he doesn’t say he’s helping me.” No one is claiming that juggling a career in physics while raising children is easy. But having a family while establishing a career as a doctor or a lawyer isn’t exactly easy either, and that doesn’t prevent women from pursuing those callings. Urry suspects that raising a family is often the excuse women use when they leave science, when in fact they have been discouraged to the point of giving up."
I just want to meet Urry's husband and give him a hug!! "When he looks after the kids, he doesn't say he's helping me." That statement almost brought me to tears! Later on in the article, it mentions that he baked a batch of brownies for the department's picnic because he realized she had slept in. I think that the kind of relationship and understanding that these two seem to have is important for a woman going into any field! I think it's beautiful when a husband and wife can share the joys of raising a family and having successful careers.
"As Nancy Hopkins, one of the professors who initiated the study, put it in an online forum: “I have found that even when women win the Nobel Prize, someone is bound to tell me they did not deserve it, or the discovery was really made by a man, or the important result was made by a man, or the woman really isn’t that smart. This is what discrimination looks like in 2011.”"
Amen!
"The key to reform is persuading educators, researchers and administrators that broadening the pool of female scientists and making the culture more livable for them doesn’t lower standards. If society needs a certain number of scientists, Urry said, and you can look for those scientists only among the males of the population, you are going to have to go much farther toward the bottom of the barrel than if you also can search among the females in the population, especially the females who are at the top of their barrel."
Whoo! Preach!!
"Handelsman, who is awaiting Senate confirmation as associate director of science in the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy, told me that she would love to see murals of women scientists painted on the walls of Yale’s classrooms, “say, a big mural with Rosalind Franklin in the front and Watson and Crick in tiny proportion in the back.”"
Hallelujah! Rosalind Franklin and Marie Curie are my two favorite scientists of all time. I will admit that I am a bit biased, but apparently so is the rest of the scientific community. I guess my bias is just different than theirs. I admire both women for their contributions to science. When I think of all that they revealed for us, I can't imagine what it must have been like for the two of them (in their own times) to be so ridiculed and looked down upon because they were women. Yes, they eventually received recognition for their work; but, at least in Rosalind's case, it wasn't soon enough.
You know how different surveys/questionnaires will ask something like, "If you could talk to any person, dead or alive, who would it be?" I'd totally want to talk to Marie Curie. I think she was pretty kick-ass (excuse my language) and I would love to have the opportunity to speak with her. I'd wear protective clothing obviously...wouldn't want her to share any of that radiation that I'm sure is still pouring off of her.
"Four young women — one black, two white, one Asian by way of Australia — explained to me how they had made it so far when so many other women had given up.
“Oh, that’s easy,” one of them said. “We’re the women who don’t give a crap.”
Don’t give a crap about — ?
“What people expect us to do.”
“Or not do.”
“Or about men not taking you seriously because you dress like a girl. I figure if you’re not going to take my science seriously because of how I look, that’s your problem.”
“Face it,” one of the women said, “grad school is a hazing for anyone, male or female. But if there are enough women in your class, you can help each other get through.”
The young black woman told me she did her undergraduate work at a historically black college, then entered a master’s program designed to help minority students develop the research skills and one-on-one mentoring relationships that would help them make the transition to a Ph.D. program. Her first year at Yale was rough, but her mentors helped her through. “As my mother always taught me,” she said, “success is the best revenge.”
As so many studies have demonstrated, success in math and the hard sciences, far from being a matter of gender, is almost entirely dependent on culture — a culture that teaches girls math isn’t cool and no one will date them if they excel in physics; a culture in which professors rarely encourage their female students to continue on for advanced degrees; a culture in which success in graduate school is a matter of isolation, competition and ridiculously long hours in the lab; a culture in which female scientists are hired less frequently than men, earn less money and are allotted fewer resources.
And yet, as I listened to these four young women laugh at the stereotypes and fears that had discouraged so many others, I was heartened that even these few had made it this far, that theirs will be the faces the next generation grows up imagining when they think of a female scientist."
"Success is the best revenge." You tell 'em, girl.
Maybe I repressed all the memories of people discouraging me from going into a science-related field. Maybe it's because I decided to become a teacher instead of pursuing an advanced degree. Maybe I just flew under the radar and no one gave a crap either way. Maybe it's because all of my awesome science teachers throughout secondary school were amazing females. Who knows! All I know is that I came to love science and even math. I can't imagine not following my dream and becoming a science teacher. Granted, I didn't have to take a bunch of advanced math and physics courses, so I may have skipped some of the discouragement. Regardless, I love where I am today (well, I will once I get a full-time job...but that's another story for another day!). I hope to be able to inspire other young women, and young men, to love math and science and not be afraid to follow that love.
