Yet again, I am backed up on blog reading.




Over at Adventures in Science and Ethics, the Goddess Dr. Free-Ride has posted some excellent posts as of late. My favorite post is all about Girl Geeks. Dr. Free-Ride hosted a nerd-off over at Science Blogs; I am so jealous of such a wickedly cool idea. She is looking for the Nerdiest Nerd. Brilliant idea, Dr. Free-Ride. Insanely and wonderfully brilliant. Her commentary, too, is simply delicious. Here is an excerpt about why more women aren't scientists:

Which makes it easier to discount the possibility that seriously hostile workplaces, or scientific cultures where women are expected to just deal with being treated like outsiders, or lower wages due to actual discrimination might be playing any kind of role in keeping anyone out of the sciences.




It's gotta be that girls just don't care for science, right? 'Cause if they loved it enough, they'd put up with all sorts of other crap -- some of it directed at them simply because they're female -- to keep doing science.

Excellent links. The first one discusses why there are no women in science from a sexual harrassment perspective. The third link talks about the pay inequality for female scientists.





Not being a scientist, I had no idea.




On another post, she talks about Geek Chics at parties.





I can say that this is, indeed, true. When I taught at Penn State, I went to a dinner party at the Dean's house where we spent a good part of an hour talking about the chemical make up of PVC piping. The Englishy nerds thought we had won ourselves a special place in Dante's inferno (so much so that we threatened pasting a sign to the front door saying "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."




Englishy nerds talk about books and poetry. Sciencey nerds talk about science. It would fry my brain to connect the groups too often!!!