women and girls in science, technology, engineering + math :: stemming (.org)

I signed up a while back, but have been to busy to explore stemming, so have avoided posting. Today I start.

I was just following the thread (6/29/2010) on Pharyngula about the lack of women attending skeptic conferences. I discovered, much to my chagrin and deep sadness, that women are still dealing with the same sexist drek that I had to deal with 45 years ago. So, I thought I’d focus here on providing support and practical advice on how to deal with the noise.

I’m very interested in passing on my hard-won knowledge about dealing with sexism in the (read more...)

• Diandra at Cocktail Party Physics has a really interesting post about representations of science in the media — including a story of doing a workshop with elementary school students who didn’t believe the young, female graduate students teaching the workshop were “scientists”.

• Female Science Professor writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the difference the “Female” in Female Science Professor really makes in her life and career.

There is an educational initiative in our nation and around the world to encourage our youth to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).   

STEM K8 AFTERSCHOOL program will spark interest and awareness in our planet’s sustainability challenges; accelerate the progress toward a sustainable world by engaging our youth at an early age in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The program will also provide curriculum on Alternative/Renewable Energy and Agriculture. 

  We are a non-profit organization building from the ground up. We have began the process of obtaining a 501©3 classification as a non- profit organization with the IRS.

  The program (read more...)

• Forbes analyzes the reasons women leave careers in science and engineering, and finds that most women cite dissatisfaction with pay or promotion opportunities as their reason for leaving

• PZ Myers at ScienceBlogs criticizes the division of women and men into “feeling” and “thinking” and analyzes the problems that arise when this division portrays science and rational thinking as “anti-feminist”

• At Geek Feminism, a discussion of whether it’s helpful or harmful to warn young women about the sexism they’ll probably experience in technical careers

• At Dreamwidth, cme posts about the

There’s been a bit of an online kerfuffle this week over a recent John Tierney column in the New York Times.

Tierney looks at studies of gifted students who take the SAT at a young age (in this case, seventh grade); these statistics show that boys in this group substantially outnumber girls in getting the very highest math scores (and girls outnumber boys in getting the very highest verbal scores). From this, he concludes that women may be outnumbered by men in the sciences because of… innate lesser ability! How “daring”! No one has ever suggested this before!

Of (read more...)

This is going to be a long post, and it’s more ruminations on this change happening in me, and some observations about how it isn’t really impacting my work or coworkers in any significant ways. Hope you don’t mind the rambling too much.

When I was a teenager I wore makeup every day, though I hardly dressed fashionably at school (usually tee shirts and jeans, or a dress shirt of my father’s that I stole ‘cos I like the way it was all drapey and loose). I also had my hair done, feathered with a perm. At one point I (read more...)

• At Geek Feminism, they’re putting together a thread collecting pointers to (legit, scientific) research on women in CS/STEM.

• Tracy at Skepchick explains that even though she’s female, Sex and the City isn’t her Star Wars, Star Wars is her Star Wars. Bonus: comment thread addresses the issue of women bragging about/being respected for liking “guy things” and/or disliking “girl things”.

• Palo Alto Online profiles several female entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley startup world.

• Geek feminists speak out against a campaign from Electronic Frontiers Australia which promotes an open internet

Project on ‘Using Free and Open source software for teaching Mathematics’ http://fossme.bprim.org

Here you will find list of Maths software with their uses and links.

Do visit. :-)

A Northwestern study shows math mentors much more effective in beginning of career. News story here: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2010/06/mentorship.html

Lucky I have caught my dissertation adviser early in his career, I guess? It is nice that he will probably have more time for me than otherwise. The bigger name in our department has too many students already. I am too early in the process to know how things are going but will try to share my experience as I progress.

I was surprised by the statement that in math, mentors do not co-author their student’s papers. I am in biostatistics, not math, (read more...)

• Mathematician, philosopher, and skeptic Martin Gardner died last weekend; his Aha! series introduced me to a lot of the ideas of algorithms and discrete math when I was still a pre-teen.
• Skepchick debunks the science in a Daily Mail article by Richard Lynn claiming that evidence supports the idea that men are “just smarter”.
• A program has learned to recognize sarcasm; it was trained on Amazon reviews.
• Women 2.0 features mini-bios of some of the women and their projects who have gone through the Startup Weekend program.
• Betty Hayes, a professor at ASU,