Pissed off female scientists
That’s how the authors describe their blog.
Reading their stories you can sympathise to a certain extent, it isn’t easy being a member of any minority.
But I read quite a few stories, and can’t say I see much sexism in what they say. Mostly I saw people looking for sexism, labelling things that aren’t really sexism as sexism.
There is a gender-discrepancy in all sciences. Physics has a majority of men, chemistry too although it is more mixed*, biology though, is dominated by women.
The sciences were founded by men, the methodology they use was devised by men, the social bits inbetween the science, thus were also devised by men. It is not surprising that the sciences nowadays may be preferred by men, and considered a less pleasant environment by women.
These things will change, but getting angry doesn’t help. If I had an angry scientist on my research team I’d show prejudice against that person, their sex is irrelevent.
* Interestingly my Chemistry class at university was evenly mixed, I don’t know the exact numbers, but just by looking around you could tell it was about 50-50. I graduated 2 years ago.
I don’t deny sexism doesn’t exist in science. I just don’t believe it exists as much today as it has in the past. No man believes a women cannot match them intellectually. Not any more.
My believe currently is that the stories of sexism nowadays are exaggerated, people trying to explain their failures by blaming something else, or women having to work harder because the jobs they work in were designed by men.
Max Howell August 1st, 2006 at 9:12Uh… look guys. The fact is, you can’t see it, because you don’t live it. White people make the same comments about black people, too, like, “nobody really thinks black people are inferior anymore” or “can’t you at least give credit to how far you’ve come?” etc ad nauseum. As for you Max, considering I’ve had other male chemists try to tell that to my face, ie that women shouldn’t be chemists, aren’t smart enough, aren’t “suited to it”, I think you are off-base on your comment. More likely, you and the blog writer are decent enough guys who don’t have a particular chip on their shoulder about women, and therefore can’t imagine that other guys do. Well, it’s out there, trust me. And I like men, and I don’t think I’m bitter. But there is a decently large percentage of male scientists who are insecure, bitter jerks, and take it out on women, many of whom already feel afraid of speaking up for a variety of reasons. That’s just how it is. So please don’t make generalities about situations where you don’t really know…
FemaleChemist August 2nd, 2006 at 22:26