Hyrdogene generally creates minimalist posters around science-y themes. The set of six she created celebrating women who made a big impact on science and the world is particularly compelling. According to the FAQs, an online store selling the posters will be opening up this summer, hopefully in time for my birthday.
On the one hand, it has been a rough couple of months for science communication. We’ve been reeling from problem with sexism/racism/harassment to another. The reputations of even science communication juggernauts like Scientific American and Nature Magazine have not survived intact.
On the other hand, we seem to actually be talking about these issues publicly, which may be a sort of progress.
Established institutions, with their established audiences, retain the capacity to dominate such public discussions. In a must-read post (originally published last week and now republished on the excellent LadyBits), our Raleigh Sewer Tour buddy Anne Jefferson explains the problem of institutions, who claim to not be sexist or racist, providing a platform for bad actors to amplify their sexist and racist messages. As she lays out the problem, it is akin to the issue of false balance in journalism surrounding issues like vaccinations.
Anne also lays out three easy steps to avoid handing your institution’s supposedly progressive megaphone to a jerk. My favorite is tip #1:
If you receive racist or sexist material for publication, DON’T PUBLISH IT. Throw it out.
Why are women turning down opportunities to present their scientific work at international meetings? A study in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology uncovered a lower representation of female scientists at the annual European Society for Evolutionary Biology meeting in 2011. The numbers of women were lower in the category of all presenters (48%)(including posters) and regular oral presentations (41%). However, only 25% of plenary speakers were women. But this disparity isn’t because women weren’t asked to present. Continue reading “Hey Ladies!”
In conjunction with the Uncommon Alliance: Women in STEM conference in Washington, DC (8-9 March 2013), there was a social media push (#DCSTEM) in conjunction with International Women’s Day to get professionals in the sciences to provide 140 characters of encouraging young women to go into STEM fields. I encourage, in my own way, but I can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that I’m being a bit disingenuous when I do so.
Continue reading “Recruiting under false pretenses?”
It appears that a few gentle readers are concerned that the “for gentleman scientists” bit of our every so pithy tagline implies that ladies are not welcome – that we might, indeed, be sexist pig dogs. Let’s lay this one to rest, forthwith. While our porcine and canine qualities, not to mention their synergistic effects on one another, are certainly open for debate, our sexism is not. Continue reading “On “gentleman scientists””
The Finch and Pea 