Women and The Olympics

So I'm not actually following the Winter Olympics that much, I'm not super into snow sports, and I've been so occupied lately with other parts of my life that I've just hardly watched very much except for a few snippets here and there.

However, I have always loved the Summer Olympics, and recently I was at my local library and saw the book "Rome, 1960" featured...I had heard of this book before and picked it up. It's about the 1960 Olympics in Rome. It's really fascinating, 1960 was really a seminal Olympics in a lot of ways. I would highly recommend it.

Anyhow, so I'm waking to a luxurious Sunday morning and continued reading...and read that women ran the 800m in the 1928 Olympics, and apparently, the sight of women collapsing at the finish line after such an all-out effort greatly disturbed the powers that be, and they banned 800m races for women because they were too frail to complete it, as evidenced by the 1928 Olympics. Men collapsed at the end of the 800m all the time, but women so fatigued was apparently "too much" for the men to witness and they banned it. The roots of this came from the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin, who was known to be disturbed by the notion of women and sports, according to the book:

He said he was disturbed by the very notion of women competing in sports, often citing how upset he once was to see women whooshing down a snowy hill on sleds.

What in the fuck does that even mean? It doesn't even make sense.

But back to the 800m. So it was reinstated to great controversy in 1960. Apparently in the press box, Don Graham (son of the great great Katherine Graham), overhead a British journalist saying to another journalist:

how it was "unconscionable --- they should never allow women to run so far."

I mean, seriously, when I really think about this stuff, I get so disturbed. 800m? 800m is not far. It's two fucking laps around a track. 6 years olds can run 800m without dying. How could this be the prevailing attitude? What the FUCK? I don't know why I'm so strongly affected by this.

Anyhow, despite all the brouhaha, the momentum had begun, and twelve years later, women were allowed to run the 1500m. Until 1972, people thought women weren't fucking capable of running a distance that is not even quite a fucking mile. Finally, in 1984, women were allowed to run the marathon. 1984? 1984???? That's in my lifetime. Did people seriously think women could not handle marathons until 19-fucking-84? Jesus fucking Christ.

It almost makes me want to run one to show all those fuckers wherever they are that they were full of fucking horseshit. At the very least, I've run more than a couple half marathons, and I'm still alive. In fact, I am fucking awesome.

It's times like this that I remember how recently it was that women were considered weak-ass nothings...and how latent that kind of sentiment could be just bubbling under some surfaces, since it was so recent. We have come a long way (no longer chattel, at least), but there is still a long way to go before everyone thinks of every woman as a strong and legitimate human being capable of anything men are capable of.

If you think about it, 100,000 years ago, there is no way ancient cavemen could have survived if the women, the ones who bore the children couldn't even run fucking 800m. Duh.

Ok, I'll stop ranting now. If you are interested in a less swear-word-laden synposis of women's running in the Olympics, check this out:

http://www.runblogrun.com/2008/08/evolution_of_olympic_womens_at.html

BARBIE IS A COMPUTER ENGINEER!!!!!!

Watch Out, Computer Engineers: Barbie Wants Your Job

Thanks to all you guys who voted to make Barbie a computer engineer, this occupation won the popular vote!!!!!

This is so exciting to me. I might actually buy this Barbie and put her in my office. I can't describe how....validating this feels. Part of me feels that is pathetic, but part of me feels proud that the forces of the world united to show Mattel that people want Barbie to be a nerd. Can you imagine? How many women (and men) nerds out there joined together for this? This tells me that I am not as alone as I feel sometimes. That there are other women out there like me, and men (like CPP who voted for Computer Engineer!!!!) who are supportive. This is not some little online poll, this is a vote that made an international toy giant choose Computer Engineer for Barbie's next career! I am gushing. I am embarrassed by my joy.

The other part of this which I think is important is that, apparently, the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering both had a hand in designing her outfit. And let me say, I would wear this outfit. Computer Engineers don't have to be Mountain Dew-addled guys who haven't showered in 4 days. I know a few of those, but they are vastly outnumbered by nice normal people - and this is a truly widespread way of reducing that stereotype. Computer Engineers can be girls. Computer Engineers can wear cute (albeit geeky) cloths. Computer Engineers can have long, lustrous, beautiful hair. Computer Engineers....can be Barbie. And maybe now, so will a lot of little girls. Who knows, maybe I'm putting to much stock into this. But it's such a lonely world out there for us girl geeks....that this makes me really quite happy.

Happy Hacking, Barbie :).

Vote for Barbie's Next Career

Has this circulated the blogosphere already?

If not, please consider voting for Barbie's next occupation. There are only 5 choices, and one of them is COMPUTER ENGINEER!!!!

As a woman in computing, this makes me exceedingly happy. No more of this "math is hard!" shit.

You can vote here: http://www.barbie.com/vote.

Presumed feminism

So, I've had a few things happen in my life where I am talking about something, and someone assumes that I am being like, all offended in a feminist way, when in fact I was not thinking along those lines whatsoever.

It's very annoying because sometimes, I am so surprised that it is only minutes later that I even realize what they must have thought I was saying, and I can't even go back to fix it, and now they assume I am a raging overly-sensitive feminist.

Example 1:

There was a methodology and toolset proposed and pushed by a member of the faculty at my university. It's good in its place, but as technology has changed, it is no longer enough. I was at a conference, and this methodology came up, and when a question session came up, there was a queue at the microphone. A prominent professor at another university said, "REAL men use methodology Foo when they are doing Bar." Meanwhile, the professor at my university was standing RIGHT behind him, waiting to defend his honor because his methodology is simpler and does not do Foo. It was somewhat deliciously dramatic, but the moderator of the session stopped all questions after this.

I was back at school, relaying this story to a fellow student. I said, "and THEN, Prof. Awesome said, 'REAL men use Foo when doing Bar!' It was insane!" And then fellow student said, "Well, I'm sure he MEANT real scientists, he didn't really mean MEN." I was thinking to myself, what in the hell is he talking about?

After the conversation was over, I realized he thought I was offended at the term "real men" because it excluded women. Which was so entirely ridiculous that I missed it at the time. What the hell? It's so annoying. And now this guy walks around thinking that he can't use the turn of phrase, "REAL men do X" when I'm around because then I will try to kick his ass. Which is totally not true.

Example 2:

This occurred more recently. There is a policy in my office about making coffee, which I think is very common. If you take the last bit, you make a new pot. Very simple. Very reasonable.

I had been lucky enough to avoid having to do this for several weeks after I had started work. Then, I had the fortune of getting hit with making a new pot two days in a row. The first time, I was thinking, well, it's about time I guess. And the next day, I was like, "hahaha, how funny that it worked this way. well, shucks."

Then a coworker comes in and is like, "oh you're making coffee?" and I said, "yup, i've been lucky enough to get it two days in a row!"

And he says, "well, it's just random you know..." and something about it seemed really defensive. I know he said something else, but I don't remember what, but I do remember it was somewhat defensive. I was confused, but I don't know this guy very well. Later, I realized (though I don't remember exactly why, this was a few months ago) that he had thought I was annoyed at being foisted coffee duty because I'm a woman.

And again, I"m like what the hell? Any human would be like, "ack, two days in a row!" Not that I won't make coffee, but it's not like people are happy when they have to do it. Am I annoyed because I'm a woman? Of course not. Do I feel like there is some conspiracy to get me to make the coffee? No, because I'm a friggin reasonable person and I realize that this is just the way the cookie crumbles in this system. I was just griping good-naturedly about my luck, and he assumes I'm ready to freakin sue the company.

So again, since the leap of logic on the part of the dude was so ridiculous, I did not understand what he meant at the time, and then when I realized he thought I was getting my feminist panties in a twist it was too late to be like, dude, that's not it.

Does this happen to you guys? I feel like it happens to me more than I would like and it really bugs me.

Don't worry about it, it's historical

The other day, I was minorly irked about how a form for something that I had to do now that I am a resident in New State because of New Job had Mr. Phizz's name first, even though I was the person who handled the entire interaction with Other Party.

It was just a field that involved putting who the contract was about, and the person who made the form put "Mr. PhizzleDizzle and Dr. PhizzleDizzle." It was a freeform field and could have been filled out in the opposite order without any detriment or confusion.

I said to someone offhand in my office, "Oh, that's so annoying, because I am the only person this person who made the form has dealt with. Lame."

He brushed me off and said, "Don't worry about it! It's just historical. Don't let it ruin your day."

Somehow this really annoyed me. I think I would have forgotten about it momentarily if he had not said just a ridiculous thing. I was never going to let it ruin my day, but to be brushed off with "it's historical" is the lamest thing I have ever heard. You want to know what's historical? INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM is historical. Institutional racism is historical. Institutional poverty is historical. Saying something shouldn't bother me BECAUSE IT'S HISTORICAL is garbage.

Gender and College Majors

I recently came across this article:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/08/10/gender_gap_majors/

The primary point of this article is that one of the reasons men make more money the women is the choice of college major - that accounts for 19% of the income gap for the high school class of 1999. This isn't particularly surprising - men choose engineering more, women choose nursing more...this ends up skewing the aggregate pay comparisons between men and women. Fine.

The more disturbing stat is that once women begin achieving parity in male-dominated fields, overall pay for that career goes DOWN. Case in point is biomedical engineering. Yes, engineering. Now that it's basically 50-50, pay has stagnated, whereas male-dominated engineering fields, like electrical engineering, are still highly paid.

They suggest one reason could be that women don't negotiate as much, bringing down the aggregate pay rate of a field when they enter a field en masse. Or that once women join a field in large numbers, the field becomes less valued.

Either way, it's pretty depressing. Selfishly, I guess I'm glad that I'm the only woman for miles in my company. In a larger sense...it's pretty depressing. What do you think it is? The lack of negotiation of the devaluation of a field once many women enter it?

Insurance and Gender Shiz

So I'm shopping around for car insurance. I'm applying for a bunch of online quotes. And a few websites (though I can't remember who), really really pissed me off.

Several, upon finding that I was married, then asked for the information on my spouse, and auto-filled the spousal last name to be the same as mine. It just struck me as strange, to see Mr. Phizz's first name paired with my last name. It made me just a little bit mad, that they made this assumption that spouses have the same last name.

Then, there was one website that actually HAD NO FIELD AT ALL for putting in the spouse last name. In other words, they had no means for me to indicate that Mr. Phizz and I have different last names. At all. I was like, wtf?

For some reason, this made me really really mad.

Frustration

I'm not really an open-sourcer myself, so I am really far removed from this brouhaha that's going on in the Ruby coding community. But I'm plugged in to the happenings on the inter-tubes, and apparently there was a big thing recently over a talk given at the Golden Gate Ruby Conference, which is a conference held in the Bay Area about a development platform called Ruby which is really useful and rapidly increasing in popularity.

This dude gave a talk where an analogy of databases:porn was made through the entire presentation, be-thonged women in numerous pictures included.

The kicker is, when some people (not all women) objected to the nature of the presentation....entire hordes of people said, "get over yourselves and get some sense of humor."

Since I'm really not involved in this community at all, I'm not going to say much more because I don't know anything about the players involved, but just reading about this from the sidelines makes me really sad.

Really? Really? This is your title page? Is this for real?

This wasn't even the only bare ass in this presentation. I think, given that I *do* have a good sense of humor, I might have been able to handle this title page, maybe, if I were at a journal club with a bunch of my friends only. MAYBE. Now that I think about it, actually probably not. But I know I would not be ok with seeing this at a conference, however edgy it is supposed to be. Sigh. Sigh Sigh. Imagine being in a room with a few hundred men, and a handful of women, and watching this talk. Wtf. I'm sad. So sad.

Article for JLK to pick apart

A recent blog post in the NYT talks about a lot of the stuff JLK and DuWayne are super into. I read it with interest.

Apparently, these days a boy being called a "fag" or "gay" in school is the ultimate kiss of death in terms of coolness, to the point that some kids are being driven to kill themselves once they've been pegged with these epithets. And that all that it takes to be called one of those terms is to care about school, your clothes, or have an ounce of effeminate characteristics.

While I am all for "girls can be anything they want," I've been a bit disturbed by the lack of progress in acceptable boy behavior as a society. They really do seemed to be trapped in a really monosyllabic note in terms of what's ok, and that sucks.

I read in "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan that American suffragette Lucy Stone's mother cried upon learning the sex of her latest child, "Oh dear, I am so sorry it's a girl. A woman's life is so hard." I wholeheartedly believe that was true before, but I think it is definitely less so now.

These days, I just think it's hard to be a kid. Every time I see a kid, and I think about having one of my own (thoughts about that here), I get paralyzed with fear that my kid will be teased mercilessly for one reason or another. It's a miracle I got through my childhood pretty unscathed, but I think that was a combination of 1) my personality, 2) my parents, 3) my community, 4) my particular school, 5) my particular combination of classmates, 6) sheer luck.

How can I make sure that same tenuous balance happens for my kid? I think it's really important to live somewhere that's diverse and urban, so that a lot more behavior is acceptable for both boys and girls, and there is a lot of shit to do besides gossip about someone.

My high school was over 3000 people. No one could ruin your life because at any given moment only 500 people even knew who you were, the other 2500 didn't know or care about you. You could only become a pariah in a small distinct group and it wasn't too hard to just...move to another. On top of that, there were so many people that in general, you could ALWAYS find 4 other people who were as unusual as you and be friends. Groups of dudes who played D&D and Magic all through lunch? Yeah - about 10 of them. Kids who cared about school and took lots of AP classes? About 60-100 of them. Cheerleaders? I didn't know who they were, and I didnt' care. Football players? Pretty much the same. Kids trash-canned and thrown into lockers? Never happened. A guy my year even catapulted to popularity for getting a leading role in a play with the Drama Club. Band kids weren't even considered lame. They were a good band.

Can I find a school like that for my kid and make sure it's a pretty healthy, functional place? Why do I wonder this even if I am sooooo ambivalent about whether I even want one, ever?

Because I overthink things and am crazy :).

Ada Lovelace Day Post - Corrinne Yu

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, and I signed a pledge to blog about a Lady Computer Scientist on this day.

I chose to blog about Corrinne Yu, who is basically one of the most amazing people I had never heard of (until recently).

She is a GIANT in the field of game development. What do you think of when you think of computer games? Specifically, what do you think of when you think of the following?

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Halo

I'll tell you. You think of guys. Geeky guys. Well, guess what? Corrinne Yu is a big part of all of those games. She codes, she write the engines that support these games. She's a technical big shot. And this is her:

I can't believe I had never heard of her. I'm not really into games, but a hott Asian chick kicking ass and taking names in a male-dominated computing field? She's my freakin' hero(ine)!!! She is a dramatically different member of the game development community by stereotype, but not by skill or prowess, and that is what I really respect and admire. It's hard to kick ass and not fit in, and she does it. Kudos to her.

So, Corrinne was the Director of Technology at Gearbox Games (yes, Director of Technology), but was hired away by Microsoft to lead the Halo development team. Halo. Halo. Talk about SHE MUST KICK SERIOUS ASS. I love it. I don't play games, but I must say, I was blown away and excited by the knowledge of her existence, and I must share.

To read more about Corrinne, check out this interview with her: Linky.

great headline

So I love how this study seems like a reasonably legitimate study with reasonably legitimate (and interesting/non-traditional results), and the headline connotes poorly.

Why Fewer Women Succeed at Math

I can think of several better headlines.

Study: Dearth of Women in Math not from Innate Differences

or

Why Women Don't Choose Math

And other such headlines which don't blare out such negative connotations between women and math. Stupid scientist->journalist->reader translation. Can you think of a better headline?

Women, Tokenism, Profits, and Corporate Boardrooms

Recently, a few articles came to my attention which I find extremely interesting.

The first described a study done by McKinsey in Europe that showed that corporations with women on their board of directors tended to make more money than companies that didn't.  Not only that, but the MORE women there were, the MORE profitable the corporation was.  Those companies also tended to score higher in metrics of "organizational excellence."

At the same time, the article also described a study done on US Fortune 500 companies which showed that companies with the highest proportion of female directors were more profitable and efficient.  This, to me, is fascinating.  You'd think, in this age of greed, that companies would be scrambling to put women at the top because of this.

But the more interesting thing is this, and I'll quote:

A sole woman on a board often feels marginalised, according to research reported in Harvard Business Review last December. The appointment of a second woman can help reduce this isolation but can also create difficulties: two women may have to be careful not to be seen as “conspiring”, said researchers Alison Konrad and Vicki Kramer, who interviewed 50 women directors, 12 chief executives and seven corporate secretaries at Fortune 1000 companies.

A “clear shift” occurs when there are three or more women, they found. The women tend to be seen just as directors, rather than female directors, the boardroom dynamic becomes more collaborative and the discussions richer and more informative.

I think this has implications for academia and science too.  This means that a department can't trumpet their commitment to diversity, and then hire The Woman, and perhaps even The Black Man.  Tokenism doesn't help all that much.  What really matters is getting to a critical mass such that the minority person ceases to be The Minority Representation and is just a member of the group.

At the same time, we can't forget that the quality of women matters.  Obviously, you can't just pick random women and put them in corporate boardrooms and expect to make higher profits.  The CEO of Lloyd's bank in the UK runs a bank with half female directors, but emphasizes that those ladies were the best for the job.  As he says, "I think it has to do more with the quality of the women than the fact that they are women."

Clearly, from this CEO's perspective, there is no dearth of female talent with which to fill his board.  But why haven't other companies placed talented women into positions of leadership?

Well, that question became moot in Norway, where a few years ago the government MANDATED that all companies have 40% female directors, or face closure. At the time, there was a big hullaballoo, but the reason given was that putting women on boards was not fast enough, and that "for a woman to get in, a man must get out.  It is not difficult to find qualified women." (citation)

So the other interesting article was a followup on this Norwegian experiment, which at the time yielded predictions of the collapse of the economy.  Well, it turns out that hasn't happened.  The article doesn't actually give numbers, but female members of boards have increased very dramatically, but the nation has managed to keep its yearly budget surplus despite the infusion of female talent.  They have even inspired Spain to consider the idea.

The man who pushed through this law, Ansgar Gabrielsen, says his motivation was just that it was supposed to be good for business (citing the first article), and that it seems pointless to educate girls only to not utilize them at the top.  He also says he's not a feminist (which he says is probably partly the reason it got through).

Anyway, when is this research (done on US companies) going to change the way US companies are run?  Or perhaps trickle into other aspects of life (like science and academia)?

One can only hope.

The Rise of the Meritocracy and Lani Guinier

I was inspired to make this post by some interesting stuff going on Blue Lab Coats as a response to some postings over at Young Female Scientist. The basic gist of the discussion is about whether the hiring practices of academic departments is subjective/objective, systematic/arbitrary, and whether that is good/bad.

Several years ago at my Grad Institution I went to a talk by Lani Guinier. If you don't know who she is, you might remember that she was nominated by Bill Clinton to be the civil rights chief for the Justice Department (and the first African American one at that). There was a media firestorm over some of her stances on affirmative action and he withdrew her nomination not long afterwards. Either way, she is a professor of law at Harvard Law School and has some controversial but provocatively interesting views on power, equality, and "the majority."

Anyway, so I went to her talk, and she talked about how her son had his 7th birthday party and there were both boys and girls at the party. At some point all the children played some sort of game, boys against girls, and the girls won, hands down. She then wondered, "who made up this game?" And the answer was....the girls. I forget exactly the rules of the game but it required both patience and coordination - something 7-year old boys just generally don't have as much of as 7-year old girls. And so the girls won.

She used this as the basis of her talk - that we as a society have all these metrics to measure the "quality" of people, but that honestly, you have to look at what the metrics are actually measuring, who designed the metrics, and whether they actually line up with desired characteristics to see if the metrics are remotely worthwhile. For example, she says in law school, the superstar students are the ones who raise their hands early and often and wax ad nauseum about whatever. The measurement for being a standout law student is basically to be a pompous ass who likes to hear themselves speak. She said that she's noticed, though, that what tends to happen is many competent and thoughtful future lawyers are sitting and composing their thoughts into a response before they raise their hands to speak, but by the time they are done, Loquacious Ass has gone on so many tangents that the subject has changed and the moment has passed, and they put their hands down. She asked, is this really what we want? We can measure this way but does this line up with what we hope to get out of our lawyers? If not, we better line up the rewards/merit system more with what we desire out of future lawyers.

She then brought up The Rise of the Meritocracy, a book written by Michael Young in 1958. The book is a dystopian satire about a future society based solely on "merit", a function of IQ and effort. The fundamental point of the book is that a society based on merit is kidding themselves - the people in charge tend to make things that only the elite can access keys to obtaining merit. The word "meritocracy" is meant to be a pejorative joke, like saying, "I'm not racist, but I only like white people," or "I'm an equal opportunity employer, but I only hire exceptional talent...people who speak Latin, can quote Shakespeare, and know how to properly eat an artichoke." I mean seriously, meritocracies make us feel better but let's be honest, there is no such thing as a totally unbiased evaluative metric because the metric is always in the eye of of the evaluator, which obviously is not totally objective.

So this gets to what brought on this post, a discussion of academic hiring practices. There are people out there who argue against hiring preferences for women because then "more qualified" people are left in the dust. But what does more qualified REALLY mean? I mean, obviously, plucking someone off the street - they would be unqualified. But do you really know if a guy has one more High Impact Paper then he is definitely "more qualified"? Qualified to do what? Contribute to the diversity of the department? Get funding? Teach undergrads? Mentor graduate students? If a department is committed to diversifying its faculty perhaps in approach, thought process, gender, whatever, then ABSOLUTELY hiring a someone whose cardinal publication number is less than someone else's is NOT a sacrifice in quality because you are hiring someone to do exactly what your objective is.

What is a department's objective? Think of it this way, let's say this year the department would like to hire someone in Subfield A, though applicants from other subfields may apply. Let's say Applicant X has N publications in Subfield A and is a good candidate, while applicant Y has N+2 publications in Subfield B and is also a good candidate, maybe even a little bit better. But the department really wants to expand Subfield A, and so they go with Candidate X. Does that mean they have "sacrificed quality", by not hiring the guy with more papers? I don't think so - they have merely gone with the decision that better satisfies their stated objectives.

So if a department values diversity and wants to diversify, and actively seeks out a qualified woman, I don't think that's in any way bad. It's not like they're going to hire a dumbass off the street just because she possesses two X chromosomes.

On the other hand, there are also women (like YFS) who complain about the lack of systematic evaluations because it goes against women (as opposed to people described above who complain about the lack of systematic evaluations so that a hiring decision can favor a woman). How can a woman prove she's qualified and/or better than a man if there's not objective measuring stick? I'm not sure about this one - my gut tells me that if there is an Old Boys Network in place at an institution, there's no getting around it - Grumpy Old Professor is going to hire Future Grumpy Old Professor.

At the same time, I believe in a bit of wiggle room in order to hire people who "fit" and/or that you like. There is the innocuous version of this wiggle room, wherein you keep out the scary, socially inept, crazy incommunicado types. There is also the more sinister type, wherein you keep out the women/minorities because they "just don't fit." There are always two sides to the same coin.

As of now, I think I fall into the "I like wiggle room" camp because I believe, particularly at institutions that value both quality and diversity, I can ALSO win in the likeability/fit category. And I would hate to be at a place where everyone was just an automaton and there was no departmental community.

Maybe this will come back to bite me in the ass someday when I actually try to find a job, but for now, that's how I feel. Meritocracies are often a joke and wiggle room is good.

Geeks and TV

I read an article in a recent WIE magazine about how to get more women into computer science/engineering. The lady said all this stuff about how law has done it (not at the partner level, but at the law school and associate level), and so has medicine (I think women are now 50+% of medical students). Why not in engineering?

After I read that article, I thought long and hard about the best way to get more women into engineering - I think it really boils down to a perception issue. You want to know why Law and Medicine did it? Two answers:

ER and Ally McBeal.

Ok, not really, but there really are a lot of shows on TV that totally glorify law and medicine, and on top of that the shows are really about hot sexy people having hot sexy sex with each other. Think of one show about hot sexy engineering having hot sexy sex in an engineering building. Mmmm....ZERO.

Honestly, I think this raises the mental accessibility of Law and Medicine to women, because obviously there are lot of women in these shows in order for the men to have someone to have hot sexy sex with. Thus, both genders are well represented in these disciplines, and moreover, they are always having hot sexy sex so everyone wants to be a Doctor or a Lawyer to have this life.

In the last few years there have been a few geeky shows on TV that at least SHOW geeky people are somewhat main characters instead of just ancillary caricatures. Of course, they are all men, but I suppose it's a start. Geek representation on TV is a whole other subject. For now, I'll just review these shows.

Big Bang Theory:

This show airs on CBS and is about a bunch of total geeks who are friends, and the shenanigans they get into because a beautiful blonde girl moves in across the hall. These are geeks at their most...stereotypical.

The Indian Guy - in the few episodes I've seen what I learned about him is that he cannot speak to women. He is like, physically unable to speak to a member of the female sex, he's too scared.

The Jewish Guy with the Bowl Cut - he is the one who thinks about sex all the time.

The Arrogant Sociopathic Guy - this guy is not REALLY sociopathic but he totally denigrates things like feelings and emotions, reveres only logic and rational thought, and considers himself God's gift to Science.

The Nice Guy - This is the guy who is just that lovable geek that could totally be a girl's best friend, all the while pining for Beautiful Girl while she pines for Wrong Guy, and in the end she may or may not realize that he's the only one that will treat her right and possible also bring home millions as the next Mark Zuckerberg.

All in all, I enjoy the show enough to watch when I channel surf and see it on, but I'm sure it doesn't reach a wide audience. A lot of the jokes are totally out there, but it's quasi-real geek representation. However, it's not the kind of show where people will be saying, "I decided to be an X because of Big Bang Theory" the ways I've heard lots of people say, "I decided to be a lawyer because I loved Law and Order" or "I wanted to get into forensics because I love CSI". No one wants to be these guys...unless you already are total geeks, because these guys are alpha geeks. But I like it, it makes me think fondly of all my geeky friends.

Chuck

This show is soooo dumb but cute. I kinda like it, enough to actually TiVO it and watch it every now and then.

First of all, Zachary Levi (the dude who plays Chuck) is ADORABLE. I have a soft spot in my heart for geeks, I find extremely "classically" hot dudes kind of repulsive in a way. I have NEVER been a girl to swoon over some abs. I am a girl who swoons over humor and brains. So...Chuck is like, freakin' adorable. I love his hair, his Converse shoes, and his short sleeved button downs.

I watched a TiVO'ed episode yesterday, and he made all these geeky references which weren't over the top, but are the kinds of things that regular geeks (i.e. the ones who aren't stereotypical like the ones in Big Bang) do just in normal life.

1) He talked about how Pluto was no longer a planet and how he was kind of bummed out about it.

2) He talked about using the Force. He was trying to reach something he couldn't reach and just said in passing to himself, "C'mon Chuck, use the Force USE THE FORCE!" That's so something I would do. But I don't think everyone does that. And it's not *out there* but it's just regular geek.

3) He talked about MacGyver. The way he said it you could just tell he was one of those dorky boys as a kid who lived for MacGyver and watched every episode. It was cute.

So...none of the above are crazy geek markers the way the things the dudes in Big Bang do are totally geek markers - Chuck is a normal guy who happens to be a geek, and happens to be adorable. We need more geeks like this on TV. Now, he just needs to have a lot of hot sex with hot sexy she-geeks, kind of like his ex-girlfriend Jill, and we are all set. I loved the exchanges between Chuck and Jill a few episodes ago where they got all gaga over each other from totally geek references. That's how I get over Mr. PhizzleDizzle. When he knows something or figures something out that blows my mind, I want to just jump his bones.

In short, I vote for more hot sexy brainiac geek chicks on TV. We need a engineering Addison Shepard/whatever her maiden name is, an engineering Dr. Noah Wylie, an engineering Ally McBeal, and they need to get into a love triangle meanwhile saving the world over at the NSA with computers and technology.

Google and Successful PhDs in Computer Science

There are few fields in this world, as far as I know, where the speed of a PhD can be extremely dependent upon how you spent your time as a 10-year-old.

I was thinking recently about why I have been pretty slow in getting my PhD. One of the reasons is that I did not grow up a hacker. This means that when I have an idea that I need to implement in order to test and experiment, the success of my experiment rests very highly on my ability to implement it quickly, effectively, and successfully, and I had to learn all those skills all on my own. In the biological sciences, bench skills are usually taught either in lab classes, or at the very least in the lab when you get trained by a prof or a postdoc. But few people enter the biomedical sciences having had a decade of experience with bench work and the various techniques PRIOR to entering even college, let alone graduate school.

In my world, no one uses the word "train" describe what they do to nascent graduate students; they either know shit about computers or they don't. If they don't, they usually drop out because it's so hard to compete - you might have good ideas but if you can't implement them, you lose. End of story. This may be a reason why there are so few girls in the area, I don't know many girls who hacked all their lives, even fellow computer scientist chicks. In graduate school for computer science, all focus is on idea generation and testing of said ideas, and very little about training.

Because of this, I will totally and unabashedly say that if there were no Google, I could not get a PhD in computer science. Hands down, absolutely, totally true. There are too many things out there that I just don't know about that I had to use Google to figure out. Some are basic and some are complex. I think I will thank Google in my thesis acknowledgments.

Examples:

1) Compiler error X when building software Y.

Thanks to google and experience, I now understand and recognize most errors. However, sometimes I don't know how to fix them, but the plethora of mailing lists usually helps me figure out fixes or patches. I don't know how many blogs, mailing list archives, and whatnot I've trolled to figure out various things that have NOTHING to do with the idea I am trying, but everything to do with figuring out how to properly set up an environment to test the idea I am trying.

2) Finding helpful tools.

Without google, I would not have found various software tools that help me with my work. Writing your own tools is a bitch sometimes, and in the end, it's just great when someone else has written it already. But I wouldn't know about it without Google.

3) Little definitions.

Sometimes I just can't remember this little technical definition or that. Instead of having to go to the library, find the section that I think covers what I want to know, flipping through the index only to find that I'm wrong, and moving on to the next book until I find what I want to know, I can just ask google. For example, recently I needed to know what a Gini coefficient meant with respect to forming a decision tree. I had no idea - but Google did. Thanks Google!

In short, I think Google has revolutionized my ability to do what I want to do. It has (sort of) leveled the playing field such that it wasn't such a bitch to catch up to my fellow graduate students who have been living the dork-lifestyle since they were small children. It frustrated me to no end in the beginning of grad school about how I just didn't know stuff that I needed to know to get shit done. Not only did I have to learn about the field in order to properly think of new research directions, but I had to learn a crapton of other shit in order to be an effective researcher. It was a tremendous barrier to entry. Tremendous.

How can this be changed???? I don't know. I'll have to think about it.

Tit for Tat

As discussed previously, Mr. PhizzleDizzle has been taking excellent care of a frazzled PhizzleDizzle lately.

At the moment, he is cooking Indian food (he marinated chicken yesterday) and making hummus. Comrade PhysioProf is not the only dude on the block who can cook! I am sitting on the couch working (blogging?), and thinking about tit-for-tat.

One of the reasons why I feel so blessed to have Mr. PhizzleDizzle is that an entire aspect of life, the search for a partner, has been taken care of. I am not sure how life would be right now if I were not only trying to finish a PhD but ALSO trying to meet someone that I enjoyed being with. Or trying to deal with someone I was with that I didn't like so much. Instead, that aspect of my psyche can be devoted to my work.

With him taking such good care of me lately, I wonder about whether I would do the same for him. I almost feel like the husband lately. I hardly do any dishes, I don't pick up after myself, today I changed my underwear for the first time in 3 days (laundry day is approaching and I need to make it to the finish first), and I have generally lapsed in personal hygiene. When he is working this hard, will I do the same for him? Is that the hallmark of a good relationship? Do men ever think this way about returning favors/TLC? Does Mr. PhizzleDizzle feel underappreciated? I have been telling him thank you and that I love him so much every few hours or so. I am worried eventually he will get tire of this and resent me.

Also, am I fundamentally selfish? I am not sure if the time came I would be so gracious as Mr. PhizzleDizzle. I think I would still expect him to do a few dishes, or put some of his clothes away. Does this make me a bad wife? I don't know.

How do you handle times when you are stressed and busy as hell? Does your spouse take care of you? Do you do the same when they are stressed? What happens when you are BOTH stressed at the same time?

Women and Computer Science

Yesterday, with sadness, I read this article in the New York Times which wondered, where are all the women in computer science?

I must say, it made me both sad and confused. Apparently, while women have largely achieved parity (in terms of undergraduate degrees) when you take science and engineering as a whole, women in computer science has been dropping steadily. In fact, latest estimates for the most recent classes of undergraduates place women as numbering less than 10%. For undergrad. If you continue to lose with each higher degree, which is the norm for women, you wonder if I am one of the last of my kind. I mean, shit.

10....measly....percent. Why is this? I cannot figure it out, exactly, because figuring it out would require that I determine what it is that makes me extremely unusual. I know I'm unusual, I'm ok with that, but I have a hard time thinking that I am *extremely* unusual because I view the world as a big bell curve for everything and just by principle I am unlikely to lie at the extreme end of any of them. But apparently I do.

It has been wonderful for me to find this community of lady science bloggers online, but at the same time I feel like I don't totally belong in this group, because I have never worked with proteins, used a pipette, or worked with anything remotely alive or cellular in my work. All the hot, sexy science discussions are outside of the reaches of my comprehension. I can take a big picture idea, but that's IT.

In somewhat loneliness the other day, I actually went into google reader, which has a nice search function to find blogs that interest you, and typed in "female computer science."

Guess how many bona fide blogs came up? TWO. I subscribed to them both.

I have divulged extremely little information on this blog (I think) regarding what I do specifically, because I fear that just that little information could make it pretty easy to pick me out. How sad is that? I know people in biomedical or medical research, and the labs are FILLED with women. I know that doesn't make it easy, it's still a patriarchal sausagefest at the top, but like...I went through all of graduate school being the only girl in journal club. The first time I went, I was late, and I felt soooooo self conscious when I walked into the room with 30 men, late. I wanted to crawl under a table and die. I just felt so out of place. Also, I go to conferences, and when there are 20 women there out of 300, people say, "wow, there are a lot of women here." Can you believe that?

One of my advisors (not the one I discussed the other day - I am co-advised), has been a full professor for many years, we're talking he achieved full professorship sometime when I was in elementary school. He's no spring chicken. And he has NEVER graduated a female PhD student. Ever. I will be the first. Can you imagine?

I desperately, desperately want to know why this is.

I have a few theories but that will be another post. Back to work.

@Renee

I will reprise my comment @Renee on Dr. Isis's blog here. Thanks to ScientistMother who alerted me to this travesty. (Synopsis - some people say it is bad to project femininity when you are a scientist because this causes people to take you less seriously. Renee comes in to say she doesn't like black people because she doesn't like hip hop, and she doesn't like women because she doesn't like shopping.) To that I say:

@Renee - how's this? I don't like people who dislike people for reasons that make no sense.

What you seem to not understand is that most people aren't caricatures and members of only one "culture" as you call it. I find it hard to imagine that you can do good science when something as complex as human beings are broken down into simple one-faceted elements.

Love,
Hip Hop Loving, Classical Music Loving, Dancing Loving, *nix Loving, Mac Loving, Nerdy Boy Loving, Ender Loving, Python (the language) Loving, Shoe Loving, Food Loving, Project Runway Loving, Slashdot Loving, Yellow-Assed PhizzleDizzle

Fin.

Random Tipsy Post - Man's Job??

I am high on crappy beer because I bought crappy beer because it was cheap and the economy sucks. I may be posting (unwisely?) tipsy like Dr. Isis but I'm sure she had better shit than I. I'm ashamed to even say what it was.

I am watching some show on TV in which they follow around the Parking Authority. It looks like the bastard sibling of COPS. Kinda sad. There are two women driving around putting boots on cars, and they are talking about how "People say booting is a man's job". Wtf? Putting a boot on a car is a man's job? Why? It makes no sense to me. Their boss is like, "The female booters, they may be small but they pack a punch, you know what I'm saying?"

I can't, in my tipsy state, quite explain why this perplexes me so, but it does. To me, that's like saying writing books is a man's job. It seems like a totally gender-neutral endeavor to me, and here they are facing shit from people. Someone enlighten me, what does being a booter have to do with gender? I don't get it. If people are all gender-ified about that shit, then what the hell hope do we have for science and engineering? Shit.

Assumptions

I was thinking about the venerable FSP's Random Person encounter post and how screwed up it was.

What it seems to boil down to is that the person in question had certain assumptions about FSP and could not comprehend the fact that the assumptions were wrong. I described the post to Mr. PhizzleDizzle, who, bless his heart, could not comprehend what sort of idiot would act that way. Being a White Male, he is very supportive of me but doesn't always understand what kind of shit can happen to non-White Males.

This made me think of an encounter of my own this summer. It was not even in an academic setting. I had just finished doing a 100-mile bike ride and was at the post-ride food area standing in line waiting for some food. Despite having just biked 100 miles, I still looked like, well, not like a Computer Scientist. I am a chick, after all. Plus, I matched and am cute.

Anyway, I notice another guy in line, who did look like a computer scientist (he had long unkempt unruly hair and looked like a slob), and he was wearing a t-shirt that said, "ACM International Symposium on Computational Geometry". I first noticed the shirt's first part, the "ACM International Symposium on" part because I myself have been to many Symposia sponsored by ACM, however I stopped short when I saw the Comp. Geo. because that is not my field. So I went up one level of commonality, and said:

"Hey, I'm a member of the ACM too".

Do you know what this jackass said?

"OooooooOOOoooooh" (implication, do you think you're SPECIAL?)

Seriously, what the eff? I was so shocked I just looked at him, trying to comprehend what he meant. Then some distraction off in the distance happened that caused us all to look towards it, and then it was his turn for ice cream so he ordered, and then left. So I never got to respond.

There are a few things I wish I could have said, but I can't decide which is best.

1) "Wow....I'm guessing you've never been laid."
2) "Hey asshole, you realize I'm getting a PhizzleDizzle, yes? Put that in a pipe and smoke it, BITCH!"
3) "Hey dipshit, I know you think I'm some sort of script monkey for some massive software company that doesn't have a soul, but I'm actually ABD. Go fuck yourself."

It boils down to the fact that I'm sure he thought I was some sort of low level test engineer or something, and that I thought being in the ACM put us in the same boat, whereas he knows that in reality, he's a Computational Geometrist, i.e. he does math and theory and publishes, which makes him brilliant, particularly because of his long hair, which is always a sign of brilliance in my general field (unless you have two X chromosomes). I couldn't possibly even understand how much I'd insulted him because I don't even know what academia is.

I described this encounter to my husband, who was incredulous. It seems every time I tell him a ridiculous true story, he is incredulous. Bless his heart, it would never occur to him to be such a jackass. He even has a mentee (chick) who worships the ground he walks on because he's been such an effective teacher and mentor to her. He judges on merit. So to know that people judge based on something else blows his mind.

If people as sympathetic as my husband can't fathom how someone could be that much of a troll, how can people who are unsympathetic? The unsympathetics would probably just flat out not believe me. Sigh.