#women_in_science

  • Why Ada Lovelace Day matters | Science | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/science/sifting-the-evidence/2015/oct/13/why-ada-lovelace-day-matters
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/10/12/1444685308186/98a32e1c-4856-4f95-a8d8-f3f7b0e88dc3-bestSizeAvailable.png?width=1200&heig

    We know that women are underrepresented in science, and because of initiatives like Ada Lovelace Day, and organisations like ScienceGrrl, there are more and more people attempting to do something about the unconscious biases that may well be responsible for the discrepancy. But women are not the only group underrepresented.

    Ada herself was a wealthy and highly educated woman. And these days academia still has more than its fair share of white, middle class employees. Perhaps as well as Ada Lovelace Day we need a day championing scientists, engineers and mathematicians who don’t fit this mould, in the hope that increasing the visibility of these people will encourage more diversity in future.

    Of course, more needs to change than just visibility. The culture of academia needs to change in order for it to be a place that everyone can thrive. Unconscious biases are problematic and hard to remove precisely because they are unconscious. I may have been overlooked or belittled because I’m a woman - equally it’s likely I may have unconscious biases of my own. It isn’t just men who rate CVs with women’s names at the top as being of lower quality, the study that investigated this found that women did so too.

    The harder question is how do we counter and overcome these unconscious biases. Being aware of the problem is the first step. Professor Athene Donald has a practical list of suggestions that I think is brilliant - and most can be applied to equality and diversity in science beyond gender. Encouraging diversity in academia benefits everyone, so what better time than Ada Lovelace Day to highlight the work of a woman that you think is inspirational, so that her achievement can inspire others.

    With Athene’s permission, I have listed her suggestions below:

    Call out bad behaviour whenever and wherever you see it – in committees or in the street. Don’t leave women to be victimised;
    Encourage women to dare, to take risks;
    Act as a sponsor or mentor (if you are just setting out there will still always be people younger than you, including school children, for whom you can act);
    Don’t let team members get away with demeaning behaviour, objectifying women or acting to exclude anyone;
    Seek out and remove microinequities wherever you spot them;
    Refuse to serve on single sex panels or at conferences without an appropriate level of female invited speakers;
    Consider the imagery in your department and ensure it represents a diverse group of individuals;
    Consider the daily working environment to see if anything inappropriate is lurking. If so, do something about it.
    Demand/require mandatory unconscious bias training, in particular for appointment and promotion panels;
    Call out teachers who tell girls they can’t/shouldn’t do maths, physics etc;
    Don’t let the bold (male or female) monopolise the conversation in the classroom or the apparatus in the laboratory, at the expense of the timid (female or male);
    Ask schools about their progression rates for girls into the traditionally male subjects at A level (or indeed, the traditionally female subjects for boys);
    Nominate women for prizes, fellowships etc;
    Tap women on the shoulder to encourage them to apply for opportunities they otherwise would be unaware of or feel they were not qualified for;
    Move the dialogue on from part-time working equates to ‘isn’t serious’ to part-time working means balancing different demands;
    Recognize the importance of family (and even love) for men and women;
    Be prepared to be a visible role model;
    Gather evidence, data and anecdote, to provide ammunition for management to change;
    Listen and act if a woman starts hinting there are problems, don’t be dismissive because it makes you uncomfortable;
    Think broadly when asked to make suggestions of names for any position or role.

    #Ada_Lovelace_Day #Women_in_science #Egalité

  • ‘The Only Woman in the Room’ Demonstrates the Maddening Tragedy of Brilliant Women
    https://medium.com/4th-wave-feminism/the-only-woman-in-the-room-demonstrates-the-maddening-tragedy-of-brilliant-w

    I was mad because Hedy Lamarr, the subject of the book, was never truly vindicated. She was beaten and broken down by the patriarchy, and it seems the patriarchy won. I was mad for her, and for every other woman like her throughout history whose stories we would never know.

    Benedict’s fictionalized account of Lamarr’s life shows us sides of the actress of which few are aware. Her mysterious past as the wife of a Nazi arms dealer, victim of domestic violence, war refugee, and scientist paints a picture of a brilliant mind that was stifled by the strict gender roles of the time. To this day, she is still known by most as only a pretty face.

    The story opens with Hedy as a young actress in Vienna in 1933 (known by her birth name, Keisler, at the time). Hedy was doggedly pursued by Friedrich “Fritz ”Mandl, an Austrian arms dealer. When Hedy married Fritz in an effort to protect her Jewish family during the coming war, she had little idea what she was truly getting into.

    Hedy found herself in an abusive marriage with one of the most powerful arms dealers in the region. He kept her locked away, only allowed to leave with his permission. Her sole purpose in the house was to come out during his important meetings with Austrian and Italian officials and serve as eye candy, her silent beauty underscoring Fritz’s power.

    During these meetings, Hedy learned secrets about the weapons systems that would eventually be used by the Third Reich against her own people. When Fritz, previously on the side of Austrian independence, surrendered to the Nazis and agreed to sell his munitions to Hitler, Hedy fled — taking their secrets with her to Hollywood. There, she dropped her German and Jewish heritage and became known as Hedy Lamarr: movie star.

    In 1940, using the knowledge she had gained in Austria, Lamarr and composer George Antheil invented a frequency-hopping system designed to allow remote torpedos to avoid enemy frequency jamming. This invention solved a major problem facing the U.S. Navy and was patented with a Top Secret classification in 1942. The Navy, however, refused to use it.

    The invention was essentially ignored until after the war, when the Navy used it in developing a “sonobuoy” system. From there, according to NPR, “the whole system just spread like wildfire.” In 1985 it was declassified.

    Spread-spectrum technology, as it came to be called, laid the groundwork for most of today’s wireless communication systems.

    It wasn’t until the 1990s, over fifty years after she submitted her invention for patenting, that she finally received credit. Supposedly, when she was called by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and informed that she was receiving the Pioneer Award for her work, she responded, “Well, it’s about time.”

    She was absolutely right.

    In fact, Lamarr’s story made me wonder if brilliant women are doomed to a particular type of patriarchal tragedy.

    Like Charlie, the narrator in Daniel Keys’ short story Flowers for Algernon, brilliant women are not only doomed to have their contributions rejected and ignored in a man’s world, but also to watch the withering and wasting away of their own intelligence. Women like Lamarr have front-row tickets to their own tragedy, fully aware of the impacts of the loss of their potential both on themselves and society.

    The headline in The Economic Times read: “Indian-American MIT Prof Abhijit Banerjee and wife wins Nobel in Economics.”

    Duflo is the second woman ever to win the Nobel prize in economics, and the youngest ever to do so. She has a PhD in economics from MIT, where she is now one of the youngest professors to have been awarded tenure.

    Cette #invisibilisation, c’est pas ça qui arriverait chez nous, cocorico, puisqu’elle est française et qu’on l’a bien remarqué !

    How many inventors, engineers, or economists are still trapped in a female body, never to be allowed out?

    #HERstory #Hedy_Lamarr #science #women_in_science

  • “The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education” by Gijsbert Stoet and David C. Geary,
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617741719

    The paradox is that countries with greater gender equality (Scandinavia, for instance) have a lower percentage of female STEM (Science, Technicques, Engineering, Mathematics) graduates, and also higher intraindividual differences in abilities (measured with #PISA).

    https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617741719

    An hypothesis of the authors is that, in countries with lower gender equality (arabic-muslim countries, for instance), women are more eager to go to relatively well-paid STEM jobs, to secure some independance. In more egalitarian countries, it is not so necessary so women go to other areas. It’s just an hypothesis: as often in social sciences, there are few certainties.

    The paper is not officially on-line, it seems, but is available on Sci-Hub http://sci-hub.tw/10.1177/0956797617741719

    #STEM #gender_equality #women_in_science