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Skepchick Quickies 2.5

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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7 Comments

  1. Yes, it’s sad that we still don’t have a lot of women in STEM; and even sadder that a big part of that is because we set up silly artificial barriers to entry for them.

    Frustratingly, I get the feeling that if we could get more women in STEM, a lot of the bigotry would go away — but the bigotry turns a lot of very smart women away from STEM. Depressing.

  2. I am now using the phrase “shruggie”.
    Gupta, although an M.D. in his own right, is a communicator. His quality of communication is up for discussion, but I’m wondering how much crap he’s willing to shrug over as long as it will get more folk to listen to him. It’s also bad news that I think he’ll get more support from the politicians if he hangs out with Known Names, even if those Known Names are idiots.

  3. Question for any marine animal experts here: Which mammals give birth tail-first? (i.e. Where’s the dividing line?) Whales and dolphins are mentioned in the article but there are a lot of species in that gray area between land-based and aquatic. Ones I can think of: otter, sea lion, walrus, dugong, manatee. I’m guessing most of those give birth on land and therefore head-first.

    Not too sure about the manatee and dugong, though. I’m guessing they’re pretty close to the dividing line between head-first and tail-first.

  4. autotroph:

    Frustratingly, I get the feeling that if we could get more women in STEM, a lot of the bigotry would go away — but the bigotry turns a lot of very smart women away from STEM. Depressing.

    Discrimination of any sort tends to work like this, there are basically two equilibria (though disequilibrium can persist for quite a while), one where the discrimination is near-ubiquitous and one where its nearly non-existent. Its a matter of pushing attitudes past a tipping point so we end up at the good equilibrium.

  5. Female Science Professor on the lack of respect that women science students still experience today.

    And are they talking about this lack of respect coming from religious fundamentalists? I think not. It’s coming from peers who should know better.

  6. I think you’ll appreciate this.

    My wife is an engineer and is very active in the Society of Women Engineers. My 5 year old son has been exposed to this group for many years.

    Recently, he learned that his grandfather is also an engineer. Upon hearing the news, he exclaimed, “You mean boys can be engineers too?”

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