Monday 31 January 2011

"Women Science Bloggers": Divide and conquer is not the answer

Let me make this clear. I am a woman. I am a scientist. I have a blog. I would not call myself a "blogger", given the more-than-sad state of this thing. I wish I had the time to blog about science, I really do. However, my job is not a "blogger"; I am a PhD student with a lot of things on my plate. I read my usual blogs in the morning, comment when I deem it necessary (read: rarely) and get on with my own work.

Some of my usual blogs include Bora Z's A Blog Around the Clock and Ed Yong's Not Exactly Rocket Science as well as following them (and many others) on twitter. There was the recent Science Online 2011 event as well as some articles concerning "Women Science Bloggers" and the various people and issues surrounding that concept. I have read what I can, and given some thought to the issue, but I have found myself getting slightly irate the more I see the term "Women Science Bloggers" pop up (also as #wsb on Twitter).

Why? I guess I should not be surprised at my reaction. I have the same impulses every time I get invited to a "woman's lunch" at scientific conferences. Though I realise women face different difficulties, particularly in science, which has not been traditionally a female pursuit, I am incredibly put off by attending these events. What if a conference held a "men's lunch"? (I know that's a pretty cliché response to a much more complex issue, but stick with me) Well, I can tell you I'd probably be the first in there, waving my burning bra in their faces. I simply do not think that to answer these issues, we should be actively separating genders for the purpose of discussion.

This is a tricky topic. I want to address issues that women face, especially in science. I have experienced it myself, but think that the "divide and conquer" approach is counter-productive. It sets women aside as "others" and do not allow for productive discussion.

I believe that I have come this far in astrophysics by my own right. I do not want my success negated by affirmative action. When I was in my last year of undergraduate, I was the first to get accepted into a PhD program due to the fact that I wanted to move overseas and needed to apply earlier (and I wasn't a bad student). However, my happiness was brought down by my male friends who figured I had "just got in because I was a woman". Now, this may or may not have been said seriously, but it was said by a group of men who were incredibly stressed out about their future careers. Seeing phrases like "we encourage women and other minority groups to apply" on their applications were throwing my white, male friends off their game.

I am the postgraduate representative for my university's Project Juno Committee, which was started by the Institute of Physics in order to address the issues of women in physics departments. I was more-than-hesitant to join this group because I have seen many get-women-into-physics schemes turn into positive discrimination. However, I thought I would go along and see what it was (I am willing to give anything a chance, and yes, I have gone to a few "women's lunches" as well) and was pleasantly surprised.

I approached this committee not to "address the issues of women in science" but more to create a happier, healthier environment for everyone in the physics and astronomy department. I held a seminar for the other PhD students in our department to discuss our futures and why we wanted to stay or leave academia. It was a hard sell, initially, but we had a good showing of 50% men and women who were there to talk about the stress of moving, having a family and advancing careers. These topics were on the mind of both the men and the women of the group.

Family matters are no longer as women-oriented as they once were, so how come the scientific (my experience is in physics) community continues to isolate women for these discussions?

I feel that the "Science Community" and the "Science Blogger Community" is pretty similar. It has a wide range of interests, backgrounds and personalities. Like I said at the beginning, it is hard for me to comment on the struggles of being a "woman science blogger" but I do know what it is like to be a "woman scientist" and frankly, I would rather be addressed as a "scientist".

Yes, I am proud of being a woman. I do not hide behind my sex and sexuality, but that is one aspect to who I am. It should not put me into an "other" category when it comes to my career.

Demographics are, indeed, an issue. In astrophysics (combining the astronomy and physics and astrophysics community in my mind... as I dabble in all of them) I would say that you can pretty much estimate 15-20% female in collaborations, meetings and conferences (and yes, I do count... some talks can be quite dull). This obviously changes the game.

Here is what we do. We stop referring to "women science bloggers" or, ridiculously "men science bloggers" and instead we blog, we keep a presence. People will get used to seeing women around the blogosphere. The same holds for science (and is starting to take effect); instead of me getting up to give a talk and being introduced as a woman scientist to a bunch of kids excited about science, they simply see that I am a woman and therefore simply become used to the idea.

Blogs let you hide behind a persona, male or female, but that is not terribly different from science. We just need representatives. The more people standing up, saying who they are and speaking with the public will start to shift public opinion.

The process is slow. There are not that many female physicists, but the more that I take it upon myself to go to schools, go to planetariums and talk to the public, without making my gender an issue, people will just see that I exist. It is a matter of greying the issue, not making it more black-and-white.

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This is why I refer to myself as a "Woman of Science" and not a "Woman Scientist"... the difference is subtle, yet elegant.

10 comments:

  1. Erin, I'm so glad you wrote this and I don't think you're alone in how you feel about the situation..

    "Though I realise women face different difficulties, particularly in science, which has not been traditionally a female pursuit, I am incredibly put off by attending these events. What if a conference held a "men's lunch"? (I know that's a pretty cliché response to a much more complex issue, but stick with me) Well, I can tell you I'd probably be the first in there, waving my burning bra in their faces. I simply do not think that to answer these issues, we should be actively separating genders for the purpose of discussion."

    I think you may be setting up a bit of a straw argument here. There have only been a few instances of anyone saying women need a separate space to talk out their issues (like in private forums... that was a point Anne Jefferson made that I liked from the #scio11 panel on women scienceblogging). Perhaps you are referring to the #wsb tag (started by Martin Robbins last year) or the friendfeed (started by me at about the same time)? This was to highlight science bloggers who happen to be female, because of the fact that no one -- including righteous feminist female sciencebloggers -- readily comes up with the names of great female sciencebloggers, though many exist. We always think of the men first. There is a bias in all of our minds that, to my mind, can only be reversed with active promotion.

    Which brings me to one other point you said:

    "The more people standing up, saying who they are and speaking with the public will start to shift public opinion.

    The process is slow. There are not that many female physicists, but the more that I take it upon myself to go to schools, go to planetariums and talk to the public, without making my gender an issue, people will just see that I exist. It is a matter of greying the issue, not making it more black-and-white."

    Again, here, I only half agree with you. I do think part of what we need are simply more women standing up. But I also think that passively standing up, without active self-promotion, isn't going to do any good, because a lot of us have been around for a long time doing exactly that, and still no one reads us.

    I understand and share your frustration. Part of me resents that I have to keep jumping up and down (and part of me is terrified of doing it, for looking like a self-serving bitch). I want to be known as a great scholar, a great thinker, a great writer who advances her field and helps laypeople think better about their bodies... and most of all, a self-deprecating one who is discovered by others, not one who jumps up and says I Am Woman, Read My Stuff!

    What has helped me decide to continue working on this promotion thing is that, because of the friendfeed, I discovered a ridiculous number of absolutely amazing female sciencebloggers that I would NEVER have read about otherwise, because they were sitting in their little corners of the blogosphere, timidly tending their blogs and lovely writing, never telling a soul about it even though they want to be read. The women I've met because of this friendfeed (because they've emailed me, petrified to ask to be added, but deciding against their fear to do it anyway) have been so relieved when I've been happy to add them.

    I can look at those bloggers and say, what are you thinking? Tweet me, email me, tell me about your cool blog! How am I to know otherwise?!? And then I realize -- oh, hey, I should be as generous with myself.

    Some people are going to think we were hired "only" because we are women, but they will think it whether they have evidence to support it or not. So I ignore them. Science isn't a meritocracy, anyway... promotion is necessary so that your great work can be seen amid the firehose of publications and blog posts. If the #wsb tag or the friendfeed get some great women more attention, I'm truly glad of it.

    Sorry this was so long!

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  2. I am with you and not. The whole Women science blogger or Minority science blogger thing occasionally upsets me to no end because I am a scientist who happens to be a woman and have a blog. We shouldn't have to talk like/about this. But, this isn't how the world works. So, two things:

    1) I work in the heavily male-dominated (physically and mentally) field of geophysics and find that fewer women are choosing this subject in higher education and as a career. If I can somehow help geophysics become more female-friendly and less male-dominated by encouraging young women who want to go into the discipline either through my blogging/tweeting specifically to them or through professional women's focus groups, wherein women realize that they're not the only ones with career advancement issues, I think this is a good thing. There are also men involved in two such efforts that I work with, and you will see, at least in the geoblogosphere, that men help and cheer us along. It's not an WE ARE WOMEN LET'S ALL RAWWRRR thing, but a Let Us Help Each Other Come Out From Under These Unwritten Rules thing. We have to help deprogram ourselves and each other.

    2) You have already been "othered." By men, or this umbrella of male domination that science has operated under forever. Men who have already used decades, nay centuries, of affirmative action to get where they are and will continue to use their inherent normalization to get ahead. Pointing out the number of women science bloggers and celebrating them is putting our efforts on display (my only beef with some of those lists is how many women they omit or don't allow for). Let me put it this way: As an American of Indian descent, I've watched it take decades for us to be considered normal in this country. Half of it was time and us continuing to Be Americans generation after generation, but much of it was lobbying and social activism on our behalf, i.e. education and actively breaking the barriers of cultural ignorance, to get where we are today.

    I, too, think #wsb is a bit insular and taking it too far, but when male is the subconscious global norm, a little overtness and Hey Wake Up on the part of women is not out of line.

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  3. Why must one say "I Am Woman, Read My Stuff!" instead of "I am [good,great,awesome,talented,informed,witty etc.] read my stuff!" ?

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  4. JR, it was a pun on the phase "I am woman, hear me roar." When I promote my writing I don't point out that I'm a woman. I point out that my writing is interesting or useful.

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  5. But I think that it is a valid argument. Why list "great woman bloggers" rather than "great bloggers" and include women? I have been told too many times that the only reason I have been able to do x,y,z is because I am a woman, so I have had to fight even harder to disprove this to others, and myself. I agree that we should promote, but not as women - as scientists, writers, talented individuals.

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  6. KBHC, Thanks for your comment. In every physics/astronomy conference I have attended in the last few years, there have been "women's lunches" to which I was referring.

    I appreciate that you would not have found some of these women bloggers without your friendfeed, but again, why isolate them because they are women? I'm sure there are lots of extremely talented male bloggers out there as well who are "hiding in their corners" and find it difficult to break through. Why isolate them just because they are women? Breaking through the blogosphere, whether male or female, seems quite difficult.

    Thanks again for your comments though. The difficulty with this discussion is that we do actually come from hugely different backgrounds and experiences.

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  7. I hear what you're saying about affirmative action programs and I hope, now that discriminatory hiring practises are no longer legal that they're no longer necessary. Early in my career, shortly after equal rights legislation was enacted in Canada, I found it very frustrating to go to job interviews as a young woman and have interviews with older males who would say things like, 'I know I'm not allowed to ask you this, but one concern with young female candidates is always the maternity leave issue.' (So what IS your question then, bud? Am I pregnant? Do I plan to ever get pregnant? Do you ask male candidates about their reproductive plans? Didn't think so.) I found this extremely frustrating, as a woman who didn't plan to reproduce and who knew she was never going to request a maternity leave (and never did). I found it even more frustrating to be asked about my reproductive plans as my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother had all worked outside the home. Would I have been offered the job if I'd said, 'I don't plan to reproduce but should I be unlucky enough to, you can trust I won't be doing the child rearing - the bozo who knocks me up will have to look after that.'

    On the other hand, I've seen very aggressive affirmative action programs that really were needed. If the goal is to get to the point at which I believe we are now on the gender issue - that there have been enough female heads of state and women excelling at what were once considered non-traditional female occupations so women really know there's no profession they can't adopt - perhaps these programs need to die a natural death.

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  8. Great post - I keep making similar points whenever "women in science" issues come up. The issues that are discussed are often relevant to both genders, yet men aren't part of he discussion. And while I appreciate people flagging up my blog, I'd rather it was for featuring interesting writing about astronomy, than for being the product of a "woman blogger".

    I tend to get quite negative reactions when I say these things though....

    But great that you have a good experience with your local initiative.

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  9. [I believe that I have come this far in astrophysics by my own right. I do not want my success negated by affirmative action. When I was in my last year of undergraduate, I was the first to get accepted into a PhD program due to the fact that I wanted to move overseas and needed to apply earlier (and I wasn't a bad student). However, my happiness was brought down by my male friends who figured I had "just got in because I was a woman". Now, this may or may not have been said seriously, but it was said by a group of men who were incredibly stressed out about their future careers. Seeing phrases like "we encourage women and other minority groups to apply" on their applications were throwing my white, male friends off their game.]

    And why do you assume your white male friends got where they are based on merit? I don't see how having a few programs that specifically selects for underrepresented students really takes your white, male colleagues "off their game". I think you're coming from a good place on this, but perhaps are not far enough down the rabbit hole to see the implications of all of this. Read Thus Spake Zuska on Scientopia for the myth of merit.

    I get where you are coming from in not wanting "women's only" lists, but if the "great scientists blogging" lists generate 100% dudes we have a problem. The problem is people tend to think about, recruit, and network with people who are more like them. In fields that are white/male dominated this is a self perpetuating cycle. If you don't like these lists you don't have to use them, they are a bit different from the affirmative action you claim you don't like.

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  10. We had similar discussions when I was still in science with PPARC (now SFTC). There was a couple of major sticking points that they just weren't going to address; they pour money in the bottom into schools, ug and phd places, but do nothing about the upper levels. Not just for women but for everyone. But they do it because its cheaper and easier to publicise.

    They can recruit all they want. I think I remember seeing statistics that woman are more likely to stay in science if they have chosen it as a school/degree subject but after achieving degree/phd level they are more likely to leave. Probably because they got a better offer. A permanent post doing research in industry, with proper benefits and promotion prospects sounds alot better to me than a temporary post in a research institution that means moving country and doing research that is in a distantly related field to what you really want to work on.

    I dont regret leaving. The bits I liked during my phd, I still get to do.

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