On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

Finding Your Writing Voice

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:42:06 -0500

I am in the thick of a manuscript that just will not end. This saga all began a couple of years ago when I collaborated on some work. At the end of the project, the results were never published. Some of the project is really bad ass though and really belongs in the literature. I have written the paper and now it has gone through 8 months of edits and discussion with the other authors, mostly because they've taken that long to read the damned thing.

Then it came to light that no one had any money to publish it.

So, I found some money, finished it, and swore last night that I was going to submit it. Until a monsoon hit and we lost our internet.

Perhaps this is a sign that this paper does not belong in the literature. Still, none of the revision or submission process has been as hard as the writing process. I still don't think I have found my "voice" in the literature and sitting down to write a manuscript still feels forced to me.

But, I digress. The reason for telling you all about the saga of the paper that will not end is because this morning I saw a post on Four Steps to Finding Your Writing Voice on Twitter that I enjoyed and wanted to share. It's written by a middle school English teacher. Sometimes I think it is valuable to step back and just think about the fundamentals of writing without the confounding science. I've got two more papers to submit by the end of the month to meet my goal of five papers in twelve months. I think I might take the advice from this post and just sit and write for three minutes.

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Vaginas, rape, and a painfully stupid idea

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:33:28 -0500

One of these days I'm going to write about science. I am a quasi-professional science-y type, and that's what I'd like to write about, but there is so much stupid in this world and so little time.

The latest bit of stupid comes out of South Africa. Being a country located on Earth, it has a huge rape problem. Estimates are that there are around half-a-million rapes yearly in South Africa. Some sources report that a woman in South Africa is more likely to be raped than to learn to read. Rape is a difficult problem, as it forms a basic building block of many cultures. It is a tool used to control women. And it is effective.

And while individual women can certainly try to avoid rape (supposedly), as long as rape is an integral part of culture, the efforts of individual women to stop men from raping them are not likely to make a big change in society. This is largely because rape is not a way for a rapist to get off, but a way for a rapist and the larger culture to control women through violence and intimidation.

That's why this news story out of South Africa is disturbing. A white South African doctor (yes, race matters in S.A.) was saddened by the number of rapes in her country and invented a booby trap for rapists. A woman can insert it in her vagina when she thinks she may be at risk for being raped, and it will grab onto and cause painful damage to a penis and can only be removed by a professional.

I hope, my dear, dear readers, that you can spot some problems with this.

Rape, being a weapon of terror and control, uses unpredictability as one of its tools. How is a women supposed to guess when a man is going to rape her? A woman is always at risk for being raped. Is she supposed to wear this thing all the time? And are rapists idiots? If one of these is deployed, every rapist in South Africa will further traumatize a woman by tearing the thing out before continuing the assault.

And of course, plenty of rapes do not involve vaginal penetration. Are we supposed to put these in our mouths and anuses too?

For those of you who need help understanding the depth of stupidity in this idea, you may want to forget for a moment that rape has anything to do with a man putting his penis in a vagina. It is about a man doing great violence to a woman, and doing it any way he can. And if he injurers his precious unit in the attack, he will just become that much more violent.

And even if this toothy condom prevents a rape, there is a non-zero chance that society will punish a woman for using it. If the man doesn't kill her, his family might. Hell, her own family might just kill her for bringing them shame. And I'm sure the government will pass a law making this horrible crime against rapists a high felony.

This misguided inventor-doctor needs to understand that rape is not simply an individual sexual act between a man and a woman. It is an act of violence done to a woman by society at large, using a violent man as the instrument. As wonderful as it may sound to tear up the guy's cock in return, it just won't work. It will give women a false sense of security, and it once again relieves men and all of society from examining the reasons why rape is so common.

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Sunday Morning Name That Thing

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 11:50:58 -0500

A bit ago a woman that I know brought her child to work because school was closed and she still had to work. Said child spent the afternoon in one of the MRU conference rooms, decorating the whiteboard with an array of artistic stylings. This child then challenged the room full of people to figure out the object that served as the inspiration for the Picasso-like stylings.

I failed miserably at guessing the object's identity. I snapped a picture and wondered if any of you could do better...

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Tom Levenson the Eternally Delightful Newton and the Counterfeiter

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:33:43 -0500

I have been pondering for hours how I might begin this post. I've got nothing witty. So, I'll just throw it out there...

Tom Levenson makes my teeth sweat.

He doesn't make my teeth sweat in the boy-girl, ooey-gooey sense. Tom Levenson, who writes the Inverse Square Blog in all of his spare time, makes my teeth sweat in the sense that he has the ability to lay down prose that is so captivating, it ellicits a sympathetic response. The result of my sympathetic response? Sweaty teeth. I hope that Tom will consider this as a quote for the jacket of his next book. It'll sell a lot of books.

Also, Tom Levenson can pick a mean bottle of wine.

Figure 1: The wine shared with Tom, his lovely wife, and gracious guests during my trip to Cambridge a few months ago.

Those of you who have been regular followers of the blog may remember that back in January I attended the ScienceOnline conference. Through a series of events too torrid to recount on this family-friendly blog, I came to be in possession of Tom's beloved MIT hat. In exchange for the hat's safe return, I demanded a copy of his new book Newton and the Counterfeiter. He graciously agreed and a bloodless exchange was made.

I knew when I started the book on the flight home that it was going to be something special. That's why, in order to be sure that I had a comfortable, peaceful, tranquil place to finish it, I immediately began work remodeling my downstairs bathroom.

Figure 2: Top Panel - The Isis bathroom pre-remodel. Bottom Panel - The Isis bathroom post-remodel, with Tom's book placed in the appropriate position of honor.

To call Newton and the Counterfeiter (now available in paperback for about $10) an interesting read would be like calling the Taj Mahal a mausoleum (another book jacket quote, Tom). It's almost impossible to be a scientist and not know of Sir Isaac Newton or his three iconic laws of motion. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest and objects in,motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an opposing force. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Force is equal to mass times acceleration.

However, Tom Levenson manages to take the second most influential man in history and paints him as entirely human. Approachable. Undoubtedly driven and unquestionably flawed. My heart broke for Newton when I read of his childhood and of the list of sins he chronicled in his early life. Tom writes:

In a notebook otherwise filled with expense records and geometry notes, he covered several pages in 1662 with what reads like a debtor's ledger of sins, entry after entry of transgressions large and small, a reckoning of the burden of debt owed to an unforgiving divine banker.

He admitted wrongs done to his fellow man: "Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer/Denying that I did so";"Robbing my mothers box of plums and sugar";"Calling Derothy Rose a jade." He revealed an impressive urge to violence:" Punching my sister";"Striking many";"Wishing death and hoping it to some"; and in a brutal comment on his mother's remarriage, "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them."

It was absolutely fascinating to learn of Newton's interpretations of religion, of his periods of solitude, and of the love he shared with another man. But, most intriguing is the recounting of Newton's battles against the counterfeiter, William Chaloner. The parallel stories of Newton's appointment to the Royal Mint, his attempts to solve the English currency crisis and his relentless prosecution of counterfeiters, and William Chaloner's ventures into coin clipping, dildo making, and coin fabrication, create Newton and Chaloner as compelling adversaries in the style of Batman and the Joker (we're going through a Batman phase in my house), except that here Batman wants to see the Joker drawn and quartered (and here we have another jacket quote).

Tom Levenson's book is delightful and a must read. Like the many, many, many others who consider themselves total Tom Levenson fanboys/girls, I am anxiously awaiting his next book. After all, I still have two bathrooms left to remodel.

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Dr. Isis's Shoe of the Week...

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:49:13 -0500

Dr. Isis has decided to take the day off from science. Our lab has been working so hard. I need a day to take Little Isis to the zoo. So, while we wait for the zoo to open, we are sitting around in our underpants, eating SpaghettiOs. Tonight I will get back to science.

For now, here's a note I received from one of you lovely little muffins...

Dear Dr. Isis,

Congratulations on surviving 2 years of the magical Interwebs! I actually don't have a question or even a witty comment right now but I wanted to make a shoe offering that I think you will find most worthy of your blogiversary.

http://ow.ly/1ZDVD

The high heeled jelly shoe! In many colors! Could sciencing get any better when high heeled jelly shoes and hot sexy science coincide?

In great humbleness,

Danielle

Like SpaghettiOs, jelly shoes were a real hallmark of the childhood of everyone's favorite domestic and laboratory diva. So, I will admit that I was initially skeptical. I have seen the jelly shoes of the 80s desecrated by many who have tried to bring them back. Indeed, jelly shoes came back in style for a period when I was in college and, I will admit, I owned these. Looking back, they were a humongous FAIL. But, much of the fashion of the 90s was a humongous FAIL. Don't judge me.

So, it was with trepidation that I clicked on the link this darling sent me. Imagine my delight and surprise when I found these!

Figure 1: Vivienne Westwood Anglomania + Melissa Lady Dragon III by Melissa Plastic Dreams. $154 at Zappos.

How adorable is that little faux wax seal? Basically, anything with a wax seal is automatically full of win. And the little blue ball on the tip of the other pair? Darling, to to be sure.

My SpaghettiOs and I are pleased.

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Little Isis Says Science

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:36:06 -0500

Little Isis is back to saying science words and generally being hilarious. Here, he says..

evaporation

photosynthesis

hemorrhage

colonoscopy

larva

ribosome

polymerase chain reaction

middle cerebral artery

cannabanoid

nonstandard measurement

confocal microscopy

sarcoplasmic reticulum

myosin

Enjoy!

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Vive la famille?

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:22:28 -0500

Ah, the American family, that core of Americany goodness. It's what makes this country great, along with Cheez Whiz, unrestricted petroleum drilling, and guns (although I suspect the Cheez Whiz and petroleum may actually be a single category). But what about people who don't get that warm, yummy feeling from family? Isn't that un-American?

Yes. Yes it is.

But that doesn't make it less painful. What if you didn't come from an all-American nuclear family where everyone was excellent to each other? What if every call and email from family feels like a knife in your lower gut, twisting and pulling? I have one strong suggestion for you: shut the fuck up about your shitty family. The rest of us want to pretend that being genetically related to someone gives us a special bond.

And what does that bond consist of, other than a fortuitous meeting of swimmer and sunny-side up? Family has a unique advantage over other people: they know your weaknesses, your fears, your secrets, and know how to maximally exploit them to fulfill their own needs. They know you buy into the myth that genes make the family, and the know that no matter how horribly they abuse you, you will continue to listen to their spittle-filled rants. When you do raise objections, they will explain to you how you were always a trouble-maker anyway. They will ask any number of inappropriate questions (why aren't you married, why don't you have kids yet, why are you so fat, don't you think you'd look better if you just blah blah blah).

There is nothing sacred about family that you should put up with whatthefuckever they throw at you. When they send hate-filled screeds by email, they are fulfilling a need of theirs, and there is no reason you must help them fulfill this need, just because you share one or more biological parents. It is the senseless worship of family that helps perpetuate this insanity (and it is insanity---doing the same thing over and over expecting the same result). Those who tell you, "but it's family" are the same shitbags who torture their own families and fear being abandoned if their families ever realize that blood isn't magic.

Of course, I'm a real American, and my family rocks, so what would I know?

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Where We Go After Two Years

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:06:12 -0500

As of this month, Dr. Isis has been on the interwebs for two years. Two years really marks the transition from honeymoon phase to old married life and it's up to Dr. Isis to throw on a pair of seamed stockings to keep things spicy around here. Otherwise, this is going to turn in to the missionary position of blogs awfully quick.

So, I asked Arikia Millikan to design me a new blog banner. And, even though many experts will tell you that inviting someone new into a relationship leads to disaster, I am always willing to experiment. Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to Set Oculus.

I asked Set to write you all a little something by way of introduction. I'm working on getting a new posting account for Set, but in the meantime, here's an introductory message...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, Isis readers!

I'm Set, but you can call me "Set". The original Set was some sort of deity somewhere a really long time ago. Unlike the proprietress of this blog, I am not a deity, but like her, I am hot. I am an imperfect quasi-professional science-y type who likes to observe and comment on my fellow humans and their shenanigans.

Isis has graciously allowed me to use this space as a platform for my occasional keyboard expostulations, for which I am grateful. Because my imperfect quasi-professional science-y life is quite busy, my posting will unpredictable, both in timing and quality. Complaints can be left in the comment section for shits and giggles (mostly at your expense, hopefully).
Unlike Isis, my Spanish is horrid. I know words like "taco", "cerveza", and "puta". These are not words that help me vis-a-vis my journey toward becoming a perfect human being. Given the fact that so many of my co-workers, acquaintances, and colleagues, and friends speak Spanish fluently, you'd think I could do better. But for some reason, I learned French, a language of some historical, if not practical interest. Tant pis.

What the fuck is up with all this nationalism, anyway? I was born in the U.S. I like it here---a lot. I've read that Constitution thingy and those Federalist Papers and stuff, and it seems that the folks who put this place together were pretty careful about the way they worded things. The Spanish were living in Florida, the French in Louisiana, Native Americans were all over the place speaking dozens of languages, and Canada was filled with Anglophones, and yet somehow they never managed to put down on paper guidance as to what language one has to speak to be a real American. Africans in the South were speaking English, various African languages, and various creoles and patois, and they formed a substantial portion of the population. Still, the Constitution writer people forgot to make English the American language.

And really, why should they have bothered? English is easy. The grammar is simple compared to, say, German, and it readily takes on loan words. It's basic vocabulary is a mix of Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Norse, French and Isis-knows what else, so it's a great mutt language for a mutt nation. And it's spoken by the richest, most powerful and hegemonic group of people the world has ever seen. In other words, English doesn't need a lot of legal protection.

Sometimes at work I'll be sitting in a room with a bunch of people speaking something non-English that I don't understand. My first thought it, "Gee, I wish I could speak that; it sounds cool." My reaction is not, "I wonder what they are saying about me, and if they are having more babies than Real Americans." But apparently that kind of thought is common in places like Arizona.

I have a theory (a hypothesis really). Anglos tend to be paler than many other folks, so maybe it seems everyone is out to get them, even the sun itself. And it's not like they can blame the Republican White People's Party who led us all to economic ruin, because who else is gonna stand up for them? The only solution is to lash out and blame everyone but themselves and the people they voted for. Open wide the Overton window and let in the hate!

So in solidarity with my friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and even some dude in the next office who I don't really like, "Hola! Me amo Set, y soy Americano."

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Change is in the Air...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:19:42 -0500

It is my night to pick up Little Isis from daycare, but there is a big change coming to this humble blog, little muffins. Stay tuned...

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I Would Be More Comfortable if You Were A Little Brighter...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:11:25 -0500

Over the weekend I traveled through the air, over the river, and through the woods to the twin cities of Mr. Isis's birth. One of the best parts of traveling to the greater St. Paul area is the opportunity to eat at one of my favorite non-Los Angeles based Mexican restaurants - a tiny place called Casa Lupita in White Bear Lake. Casa Lupita opened the year I met Mr. Isis and is owned by the Castellanos family of Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Since I moved from Los Angeles to begin my career as the world's most famous diva of bench and hearth, I have had one incessant craving for a food of my youth that I have not been able to sate. I have had a ten year craving for tacos de lengua.

So, when we arrived at Casa Lupita on Saturday afternoon, I couldn't help but ask,

¿Tienes tacos de lengua?

The woman behind the counter, daughter of the restaurant's owner who later told me that the menu items are all based on her mother's recipes, chuckled and said, "We can't serve tacos de lengua here. Our customers are all American and they won't eat lengua, but I have a lengua in the freezer and I am going to cook it up later for my family." My heart broke. We continued to talk while she prepared my conciliatory enchiladas and she said, "We can't even serve queso fresco here. The people here ask for 'regular cheese', so we had to start serving them this." She reached into a bin and picked up a handful of what appeared to be shredded "Mexican style cheese." I said to her, "You had to start serving sour cream too, didn't you?" She rolled her eyes and I lamented, "¡Qué trágico!"

Why I don't just make my own damned tacos de lengua is anybody's guess. It's certainly not that I don't know how. Maybe my constant effort to order tacos de lengua is my own masochistic attempt to remind myself that white folk are alright with Hispanic folk, as long as they are not too Hispanic. Enchiladas are ok, but lengua is just too much. Maybe I am holding out hope that I will someday walk into a predominantly white community and find that they love tacos de lengua, served with queso fresco and no sour cream, and this will be evidence to me that Hispanics no longer have to live in fear that they are forcing their culture on 'other Americans.' You know, kind of how Hispanics are perpetrating an ongoing browning of America because we all like soccer now? I had no idea that England is in South America (thanks to PalMD for the link).

Figure 1: The real United Kingdom, as seen from space. Soccer originated on that little island to the right. Damned savages.

But, I digress.

I have been reminded frequently in the last few weeks of where the line is between excitement over half-priced margaritas because it's Cinco de Mayo and fear of the brown invader from the south. Last week the principal of an elementary school in Prescott, Arizona came under fire for attempting to whiten the faces of some Hispanic and Black children on a mural aimed at promoting environmental conservation. This whitewashing was originally claimed to have been ordered in order to "brighten up the mural and to make the children appear happier." Certainly, there is nothing happier than being white. It was claimed that the decision had nothing to do with race. However, when racist comments made by Councilman Steve Blair and descriptions of racist slurs yelled at the mural painters began to be publicized, it became evident that the decision to lighten the children's faces was made in order to appease people uncomfortable with the depiction of brown children on the side of the school building. Thankfully, the good people of Prescott had the good sense to protest and the district has decided to "leave the art to the artists."

Video 2: I'm not sure that painting the children their natural skintones is an issue of "art", per se, but these dudes look uncomfortable enough that I am willing to go with it. For now.

It has never been more popular to hate Hispanics than it is right now. Unemployment in Arizona has more than doubled in the past year and foreclosure rates have increased 151% since 2006. What could possibly be more insulting than a smiling brown child on the side of a public building that your tax dollars helped build?

Figure 2: Perhaps, showing up for school to find that your principal ordered that your forehead be painted white?

This all, in combination with the recent Arizona Department of Education's ruling that English may not be taught by teachers whose English is determined to be too heavily accented makes me fearful that we are all on our way to ...

Figure 3: The official history book of the Arizona Department of Education. Included in this edition are revised lessons on civil rights leader and polka fan Martin Luther King Jr., our current president Henry Obama, and our first black president William Jefferson Clinton. Hispanic history is included in a separate, supplemental text entitled Picking the Grapes of Wrath: How we evicted those rascals from our country.

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A Mini Post in Which Dr. Isis Falls on Her Sword

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:57:29 -0500

This weekend I have spent a lot of time thinking about our discussions of housework, gender, math and science scores, and women in science. Specifically, I have been thinking about my post about John Tierney. In response to his claim that test scores are the primarily determinant of future success as a tenured academic, I presented an example of the systematic bias that exists toward women using an email that ScienceMama sent and I said this:

We can spend our time discussing SAT scores, but I worry that we are missing the most important thing that keeps women out of science - the cultural attitudes that teach women that if they choose a demanding career, they aren't fulfilling their duties as wife and mother.

It's been bothering me since I posted it on Friday and I didn't want to leave it uncorrected. What I meant by this paragraph is that women, no matter how they are currently living their lives, are expected by our patriarchal society to become wives and mothers and choosing a professional career can be viewed as a violation of that societal duty. Regardless of whether any particular woman has an interest in living a heteronormative lifestyle or becoming a wife or mother at all. As I reflected back on that statement, I became concerned that people might interpret it as meaning that I was speaking only about women who are already wives and mothers, implying that they are the majority of women in science and that some phenomenon that exclusively affects them is what is keeping women out of science.

This bothered me because, even though I am married and have a child, I think a lot about my other sister women in science - Heterosexual and non-heterosexual, married and unmarried, with or without children. I didn't want the women who may read my blog to think that I don't appreciate that women who are not married or who don't have children are also subject to gender bias in the academe.

You are, and I know that you are.

So, while no one has yet taken me to task for the statement, I apologize to mis hermanas unidas en ciencia if I gave the impression that you weren't included. You are just as welcome here as our hermanas who have chosen marriage and childrearing. This was totally my FAIL and I apologize. Now, let's all celebrate our mountains together.

Video 1: Shatner of the Mount by Fall on Your Sword. I dare you to only play this once.
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A Response on Men, Women, Housework, and Science

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:22:10 -0500

Seems as though everyone's favorite domestic and laboratory goddess has beef she didn't know she had. Scrap on, little muffins. Scrap on.

In my previous post, I quoted an email from ScienceMama in reference to a blog post on the Science website about women scientists and housework. Jim Austin, editor of the Science Careers blog site for Science saw my post and took a bit of offense. In a new post specially for me, he writes:

Why single out women in suggesting a housekeeper? Because men don't seem to have a problem. Men, on average, don't need help with the housekeeping. This is not about should; it's about doing what you have to to make your life -- personal and professional -- work. I don't mean to be patronizing, but this is kind of obvious, isn't it?

Indeed, the ScienceMama/Dr. Isis account seems to me the result of a careful, selective, and uncharitable reading of what Venkatraman wrote. One of the explicit themes of the article was: Feeling guilt over not meeting a woman's traditional roles? Get over it!

What would they advise instead? Wait until the social norms have changed and THEN go into science? Get a divorce, then (re)marry for domestic skills instead of love? The latter could be a fine choice for some women, but it's deeply personal, and you won't catch me advising it.

I've done my best over the years to make Science Careers a source of practical advice for aspiring scientists. That's a more noble and difficult challenge than being on the right side of some principle. True, since I've been editor, Science Careers articles have consistently made it clear that there's a point where you have to stand on principle, and it's up to each scientist to decide for him or herself where that point is. But, given a choice between moral brownie points and helping someone get tenure, I'll choose the latter every time, and so will the writers who write for Science Careers.

There's one more question I need to take on, the question of standing. I am, after all, a guy. But I think I have standing partly due to the 9 years -- I've just realized that TODAY is the ninth anniversary of my employment at AAAS -- I've worked to advance the interests of younger scientists -- especially (but not exclusively) scientists from under-represented groups. (An aside: These days youth itself is under-represented in science, and I've spent virtually every working moment of the last 9 years working to advance the interests of younger scientists.)

But there's another thing that gives me standing: I can claim a distinction that's rare among men, and I claim it proudly: I gave up a research career (in physics) so that my wife could pursue one (in chemistry). She's now a full professor, finishing up a 4-year stint as department chair.

My wife deserves all the credit for her accomplishments. She earned her success with tireless, excellent work. But I have done my share of housework.

I went over to the post and wrote the following comment. It appears to be in moderation.

Jim, my discussion of the article from Science Careers wasn't uncharitable at all. In the selection you quoted I said that the advice your writer gave was generally very good. ScienceMama agreed that the article was well-intentioned. There is absolutely no need for you to outline your accomplishments because I am sure that you are interested in helping individuals advance their careers.

That all said, as a woman in science, it is sometimes disheartening to almost never hear an article suggest that a woman in science discuss household duties with her partner and split them evenly. The author of your article makes the statement that women bear the burden of household labor, but until scientists begin to tell other scientists that this isn't right, women are going to continue to leave academic science for fear of not being able to "balance" work and family.

You can be right and be practical at the same time. These need not be mutually exclusive. I also think that you need not choose between achieving tenure and advocating for social justice. And, until you stop choosing, the pipeline is going to continue to leak like a sieve.

But, I am still puzzled by the whole situation. Mostly, I am befuddled because in his closing paragraph, Jim writes "My wife deserves all the credit for her accomplishments. She earned her success with tireless, excellent work. But I have done my share of housework", admitting that his wife has been successful in part because he has shared the burden of household duties. I don't see how my mention that we need more voices telling women that they should not have to bear the entire burden of home and family, in conjunction with voices telling women how to handle the burden they do bear, is offensive, uncharitable, or out of line with Jim's own life experience. Men have never been expected to bear the burden of housework and child-rearing. Where are the posts telling them to sack up? Instead, we get post after post in the Life and Careers section geared toward women, telling them how to manage family life. It reminds me of the old Women's Interests sections in newspapers with tips for cooking, cleaning, and childcare. Except, now for scientists.

Figure 1: The featured articles from the Life and Career section of the Science website. Click to embiggen. Four of five articles are aimed at teaching women to balance work and family. All are written with the expectation that women bear the primary responsibility for housework and childcare. There are no articles aimed specifically at men. Only one of the articles mentions, albeit vaguely, the importance of having a "supportive partner." Whatever that means. There are no articles teaching men how to be supportive partners. Clearly the AAAS is not as influential an organization as I thought if they are afraid that also teaching men will rock the science boat too much.

But, heaven forbid I be uncharitable. That would simply not be lady-like of me.

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Boys and Girls and Math and Why Dr. Isis is Bored to Tears with John Tierney

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:30:52 -0500

And I do mean booooooooooored, little darlings. It seems like every year I have to return to this adorable, and totally hot, little blog to address the question of whether men and women have the same scientific aptitude. In fact, one of the most commonly searched terms for this blog is "Are boys better at math than girls."

Me + That Search Term = Yaaaaaaaaaaaawn

Personally I would rather be forced to watch the second Transformers movie on constant repeat for the next 10 years than continue to have this discussion, but since the New York Time's John Tierney seems to have his head shoved so far up his own ass that his can lick his own tonsils, I suppose we must. But, just know that I am doing it for the people. Not at all for my own amusement.

Figure 1: An artist's rendition of Dr. Isis hearing that she has to discuss science and math test scores. Again.

John Tierney titles his article "Daring to Discuss Women's Potential in Science," as though he is bravely daring to out the dirty little secret that we all supposedly know deep in our hearts. Girls suck at math and science. The truth is, they really don't. It's just that John Tierney sucks at googling.

Tierney wrote his article in response to the passage of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 by the US House of Representatives. Section 124 of Subtitle C under Title I of this 248 page bill is titled "Fulfilling the potential of women in academic science and engineering" (see page 68 of the bill). This section requires that:

...the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall develop a uniform policy for all Federal science agencies to carry out a program of workshops that educate program officers, members of grant review panels, institution of higher education STEM department chairs,and other federally funded researchers about methods that minimize the effects of gender bias in evaluation of Federal research grants and in the related academic advancement of actual and potential recipients of these grants, including hiring, tenure, promotion, and selection for any honor based in part on the recipient's research record.

But, Tierney takes issues and writes pretty much the douchiest next few paragraphs I have ever read. He says:

I'm all in favor of women fulfilling their potential in science, but I feel compelled, at the risk of being shipped off to one of these workshops, to ask a couple of questions:
1) Would it be safe during the "interactive discussions" for someone to mention the new evidence supporting Dr. Summers's controversial hypothesis about differences in the sexes' aptitude for math and science?
2) How could these workshops reconcile the "existence of gender bias" with careful studies that show that female scientists fare as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts in receiving academic promotions and research grants?

I'm not sure a workshop can help John Tierney.

He then continues to outline the evidence that boys tend to be the top scorers in math and science when measured via standardized aptitude tests, even if there is no difference between the means. Yet, he clearly has ignored the fact that this phenomenon is unique to the United States. Indeed, in countries with more gender equal cultural norms, the divide disappears. In Iceland, girls out perform boys in math and science. Japanese girls out perform American boys. Maybe in his next column Tierney will argue some type of evolutionary difference between the boys and girls in these other countries and American boys and girls. Personally, I would find it much more interesting if he would start posting recipes for pies we could make with all the cherries he's picking.

When he brings up the evidence that the gender gap in aptitude tests has not shown the same rate of closing that it once did, he misses the evidence that the performance of elementary school aged girls on these tests is related to the level of anxiety displayed by their almost exclusively female teachers, who have been socially pre-conditioned with this anxiety. This anxiety remains abundant.

Video 1: We were still teaching girls that math class is hard and party dresses are fun in the 90s. Those girls are now some of today's elementary school math teachers.

But, thank goodness for all of us that Tierney is daring to ask the tough questions. Maybe next time he'll also dare to completely research a topic before he writes an article. However, where he really fails, and fails hard, is here:

But a tenured physicist at a leading university...might well need skills and traits found in only one person in 10,000: the top 0.01 percent of the population, a tiny group that would presumably include more men because it's at the extreme right tail of the distribution curve.
...
Even when you consider only members of an elite group like the top percentile of the seventh graders on the SAT math test, someone at the 99.9 level is more likely than someone at the 99.1 level to get a doctorate in science or to win tenure at a top university.

Can we all agree that Tierny pulled this completely out of his ass? Someone who scores in the top 99.9% of an aptitude test is more likely to get tenure than someone who scores in the top 99.1% in the seventh grade? Really?

Figure 2: I would like to know how Tierny writes completely made up bullshit with a straight face. If only I could spend my career writing completely made up bullshit, I'd be golden.
As my dear brothers PhysioProf and Drugmonkey have discussed on their blog, scientific knowledge, per se, does not predict one's success as a tenured academic researcher. Managing a lab as a principal investigator at a major research university requires management skills, the ability to effectively communicate to the scientific community and obtain grant dollars, the ability to effectively teach and mentor more junior scientists, and the ability to creatively outline novel research directions. I would argue that these things are not necessarily predicted by an aptitude test taken in the seventh grade.
Which, brings us back to the idea of gender bias and culture. This is where we need to be looking in order to close the gender gap in STEM. Recently ScienceMama from the Mother of All Scientists sent me a link to this article from Science about how successful academic women learn to outsource daily tasks like housekeeping, childcare, and laundry. While, I think the advice is generally good, ScienceMama picked up on the underlying social message of the article. She wrote to me:
I can't exactly put into words why this article bothers me so much. I understand the general intention of the article, but for some reason the take home message for me seems to be "If you're a female scientist, you need to hire a housekeeper, whereas if you're a male scientist you can just get a wife."

By focusing just on female scientists, it seems like what the article is saying is that domestic chores are a woman's responsibility. Why shouldn't male scientists also be encouraged to get a housekeeper to cover all the work they are clearly neglecting at home?

Again, I understand that the article was well-intentioned (spend your limited free time with your family or on a hobby instead of mopping your floors), but the fact that it's aimed only at female scientists seems to reinforce the idea that all of the domestic chores are the woman's responsibility.
She's exactly right. We can spend our time discussing SAT scores, but I worry that we are missing the most important thing that keeps women out of science - the cultural attitudes that teach women that if they choose a demanding career, they aren't fulfilling their duties as wife and mother.
Left with this, I can't help but wonder what Tierney would say about the debate over race and intelligence. I will be perched here, waiting for him to dare to tackle that issue.

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Wednesday Night Classic Jams

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:47:26 -0500

I heard this song on the way home tonight. I had forgotten how much I loved it when it came out.

No te la doy si no vales la pena, indeed.

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Why Hindsight is 20/20

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 03:09:57 -0500

My dear friend PhysioProf wrote this about scientific writing on his blog a couple of days ago and I really adored it...

One of my trainees and I discussed a manuscript he was writing and decided on a particular angle. He spent several days generating a complete draft coming at the topic from this angle.
After I read this draft, I realized that the angle wasn't optimal, and indicated that we actually needed to come at it from a different angle, which would require substantial rewriting. The trainee got all huffy, angrily accusing me of "wasting his time" by not having pointed him at the correct angle in the first place.

The point is that writing is a path-dependent process, and sometimes you just can't arrive at the optimal destination without meandering around and taking some detours along the way. Corollary is that you frequently learn some important shit while off on those detours. Consequently, it is fucking absurd to look back and in hindsight consider any non-linear path to the destination to have been a "waste of time".

Of course, being a brilliant mentor, I persuasively explained all of this to my trainee who happily pranced off back into the lab to joyously revise the manuscript accordingly. (Well, actually, he stalked off in a major-league snit muttering under his breath about what a dickbag I am. If your trainees are never mad at you, you almost certainly aren't mentoring them effectively.)

This part of science that apparent made dear Dr. Prof a huge dickbag is exactly the part that I love. When you begin tackling a question, no one really knows how the story is going to unfold. Then, once you've got a complete story, there is the new challenge of deciding the best way to communicate it to the scientific community without boring them to fuck with all of the irrelevant bullshit that they don't need to known in order to understand the key findings of your experiment.

Figure 1: Sometimes science reminds me of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. The path that you choose to recount can determine how interesting the story really is. The stories almost never make sense if you read them in a linear sequence from cover to cover. You can click the above picture to embiggen it.

The other thing that made me chuckle about his post is his comment about his trainees being mad at him. One of my favorite scientists once said to me that he knew it was time for people to leave his lab when they started fighting with him.

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