by, for, and about women in science, technology, engineering, & math

• The New York Times writes this week about the challenges in getting ANY students to remain in scientific fields through high levels of education — with a lot more demand than supply for technically skilled workers, we can’t afford to alienate anyone.

• A post in the New Statesman outlines some of the many kinds of verbal abuse and threats women writing online often face; this hostile environment keeps many women from expressing themselves online in personal, professional, and political settings.

• The Anita Borg Institute writes on their blog about the business case for diversity in technical fields.

• Geek Feminism has a list of clean-up tasks they need help with on their very useful wiki.

• Under the Microscope highlights two deadlines coming up this month for seminar and fellowship opportunities for women in science.

• Also coming up is the deadline to apply for PITCH, a startup incubator directed at projects with at least one woman co-founder; thanks to a sponsorship, they’re offering 100 application spots for free, so there’s nothing to lose!

• In the New York Times, four top women scientists — a physicist, a neuroscientist, a geneticist, and a cryptographer — are interviewed about the challenges they face (both the general challenges of advanced research and the specific challenges they face as women and mothers) and the strategies they’ve used in rising to the top of their respective fields.
• The DevChix blog has started a series of Q&As on its members, beginning with programmers Nola Stowe and aimee daniels.
• BetaBeat profiles 25 women with prominent roles in the New York City tech scene — and it doesn’t just include “women near tech”, as in so many similar sets of profiles, but features several coders and engineers along with businesswomen and entrepreneurs.
• A neat article at the Atlantic about Project Euler’s approach to teaching programming
• Women in business blog The Glass Hammer posts about stereotype threat; a consensus is fast emerging that this phenomenon — as the article says, “the fear of proving a negative stereotype true actually causes someone to underperform” — is one of the biggest factors keeping women underrepresented in STEM (along with the vicious cycle it forms with the shortage of role models in these fields)
• Under the Microscope has a piece about “STEMebrities” — female scientists, teachers, or fictional characters who provide geeky inspiration and serve as role models for young women and girls
• Two awards from the Anita Borg Institute accepting applications:
  • Applications for the Anita Borg Pass-it-On Awards — small grants for individual technical women to pursue projects or studies — are open until July
  • The Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award is accepting applications through October for a U.S. company
• Location-specific events in Los Angeles and Columbus:
  • In Los Angeles, there are several upcoming Python Ladies events
  • GirlDevelopIt in Columbus is looking for mentors in programming and web development

• Geek Feminism is rounding up books about women in science, by women.
• Advice, via the book Unlocking the Clubhouse, on encouraging more women to edit Wikipedia.
• Elizabeth Stark writes about the importance of mentors for women in technology.
• Fast Company is seeking nominations for the most influential women in tech.
• Here’s a roundup of some of the financial support options available for female grad students in STEM

Got any more links? Share them in comments!

And Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US!

• 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’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 course, his conclusions aren’t very scientific. Here are a few of the unfounded assumptions he has to make to draw the conclusions he draws:

• Most obviously, the assumption that test scores at age 13 precisely reflect innate ability, rather than also reflecting the effects of thirteen years of possibly-biased education and socialization
• The assumption that the SAT (a test known to feature many cultural biases) accurately tracks mathematical intelligence
• The assumption that mathematical intelligence is “what it takes” to get tenure at a top university (and not, say, luck, personal factors, institutional support…)
• The assumption that science is so hard that it’s really only suited for people with extremely high scores (in the top fraction of a percent among a group of students who are already in the top fraction of a percent among their peers)
• The assumption that this finding would explain the low numbers of women in science, ignoring the fact that the size of the imbalance among high-scoring seventh graders is still smaller than the size of the imbalances in many professional STEM fields

Why are people still trying to bend over backwards to “show” an innate difference in ability, that, if it exists at all, is by any evidence available still much smaller than the difference in representation? Why are they trying so hard to deny the existence of biases and unequal treatment, despite the heaps of evidence available that this occurs at every level and the common-sense conclusion that cultural factors play a much bigger role than biological factors in keeping women out of science?

(More responses to Tierney at Shakesville and Jezebel.)

• 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 and anti-mandatory-filtering stance (good!) via the sexist moms-are-the-least-technical-demographic-we-can-think-of trope (bad!).

• Misty at Shakesville highlights a promotion from an agile technology vendor whose name assumes programmers are men — and their response to complaints, well, leaves something to be desired.

• Female Science Professor responds to an email from a man who feels left out because his department-wide email list received an invitation to a women-only networking event.

• Check out Diaspora — this fall, they’re planning to launch an AGPL’d, GPG-secured, distributed, decentralized, host-your-own-profile social network, helping users regain control over their data. Awesome! I also love how they funded this project using Kickstarter — the four programmers (all dudes, alas) pledged to work full-time on the project this summer if they could raise enough money to pay their bills (which they did, and more!).

As always, submit your own links in the comments or in a separate post! Happy weekend!