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I am a publishing academic scientist. I observe that women in my particular field take one of two paths. A certain proportion invest a lot of their time bloggin

I am a publishing academic scientist. I observe that women in my particular field take one of two paths. A certain proportion invest a lot of their time blogging about how hard it is to be a Woman In Science. The rest get on with doing research, presenting at conferences, writing papers, and generally being scientists. In most aspects, women in science (at least in my field) no longer face significant discrimination. I am not saying it never happens, but it's much less common now than it used to be a few decades ago. We are now, happily, at a point where women in science can better advance their cause by doing science than by complaining about the status quo. It's simply a better way to invest time and energy towards making up whatever prestige gap may still exist. To summarise: shut up and write the damned paper. (This is good advice to all scientists, male or female, black or white.)

MichaelSalib 16y ago
women in science (at least in my field) no longer face significant discrimination. I wouldn't be surprised if women in your field no longer faced outright prejudice. But discrimination involves systemic effects beyond just individual prejudice. Do the women in your field have wives? You know what a wife is I'm sure: the kind of spouse who spends more time with the children and doing all the drudgery of running a house so that their science-doing spouse can spend all their time at work doing exciting important science. Sometimes wives have jobs, but we all know that such jobs aren't really important and must be given up if the important science research has to move to get a better professorship. If your female colleagues don't have wives, do you think that might, in any way, be connected with societal expectations for how marriages should work? I mean, having an unpaid personal assistant is surely a boon to research productivity, so it seems that differential assignment of said assistants to scientists of different genders might bring about discriminatory effects. Even in the absence of individual prejudice by any scientist in your field.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  Downvoters: any particular reason for downvoting this comment?

MichaelSalib 16y ago

women in science (at least in my field) no longer face significant discrimination. I wouldn't be surprised if women in your field no longer faced outright prejudice. But discrimination involves systemic effects beyond just individual prejudice. Do the women in your field have wives? You know what a wife is I'm sure: the kind of spouse who spends more time with the children and doing all the drudgery of running a house so that their science-doing spouse can spend all their time at work doing exciting important science. Sometimes wives have jobs, but we all know that such jobs aren't really important and must be given up if the important science research has to move to get a better professorship. If your female colleagues don't have wives, do you think that might, in any way, be connected with societal expectations for how marriages should work? I mean, having an unpaid personal assistant is surely a boon to research productivity, so it seems that differential assignment of said assistants to scientists of different genders might bring about discriminatory effects. Even in the absence of individual prejudice by any scientist in your field.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
Downvoters: any particular reason for downvoting this comment?