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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Women and physics

42 replies

CuriousaboutSamphire · 01/10/2018 10:09

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45703700

Apparently men have been discriminated against in physics! He might have had a slender point had he focussed on positive discrimination, but, for a scientist he has a tenuous grasp on the idea of reliable research.

OP posts:
Original poster
CuriousaboutSamphire · 01/10/2018 14:59

So... women actually do science with less fuss, they are measurably more hire able, with fewer (presumably better) publications and more quickly than men!

Cool Smile

OP posts:
inquiquotiokixul · 02/10/2018 09:33

Did anyone else see the BBC news section on this? Can't find a clip, but the footage they used to illustrate the "women can do physics too" was a few seconds of a girl in school using a pink calculator with perfectly manicured fingernails.

I went on a "women in physics" residential course as a teenager which was brilliant. I had no such opportunities at any point during degree, PhD or postdoc - I then gave up on being a physicist.

There are massive structural inequalities right from the start. Mentoring plays a huge role in getting people started, and each person tends to choose a mentee who reminds them of their younger self, and so bias and inequality are perpetuated.

PussinWellies · 02/10/2018 09:48

There's also the problem of being the only girl or woman on anything residential. BTDT as a physics-loving schoolgirl, an industry undergrad scholar, a grad student... If you get invited along with the blokes in the evening, you have to do the tedious self-checking for 'wrong signals' all bloody night. If you don't, you can go and sit glumly in your room and miss the discussions that might actually be relevant to the course, presentation, project, whatever, the next day.

7Days · 02/10/2018 09:58

Oh God i read the title as psychics, as in fortune tellers.

Sorry - carry on.....

Original poster
CuriousaboutSamphire · 02/10/2018 10:30
Smile

user I do hope you read the humour in my post under those slides. I'd hate you to think I was being wholly serious, or ridiculing you!

OP posts:
JoggerBottom · 02/10/2018 10:57

This is on Victoria Derbyshire now. It is very upsetting how the woman on there has been trolled over this and is frightened that her career will be impacted by this in the future.

JoggerBottom · 02/10/2018 10:57

He is also telling her to 'don't worry, don't worry.' It is disgusting the way he is talking down to her.

JoggerBottom · 02/10/2018 11:00

Sorry - forgot to say that the cern scientist is speaking over the phone on VD.
I have a baby on my lap distracting me!
Would be worth a watch on catch up.

Original poster
CuriousaboutSamphire · 02/10/2018 11:02

Thanks - I shall!

OP posts:
2rebecca · 02/10/2018 13:45

Are you in the UK interviewee 1001? Most of your rather awful experience sounds more like the US system than the UK, no tenured positions here and other differences.

hackmum · 02/10/2018 13:55

I see a woman is one of the three winners of the Nobel Prize for physics this year. Which is nice:

www.theguardian.com/science/live/2018/oct/02/nobel-prize-in-physics-2018-live

ErrolTheDragon · 03/10/2018 18:05

Hurray! Women can do chemistry too!

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06753-y

Interviewee1001 · 03/10/2018 18:10

Yep, am UK. You’re right, “tenure” as such doesn’t exist here but it’s often used as a short hand in my specialism at least, to refer to “first non-short term contract” post esp junior lectureship etc even here. Creeping Americanisation of language I guess.

DeltaG · 03/10/2018 18:30

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Whilst they make all the right noises about women in science at an institutional level, the reality is that through the ranks, there are plenty of men who hold such opinions. As I found out when I got pregnant.

Bowlofbabelfish · 03/10/2018 18:42

Tenure per se doesn’t exist in the UK but it is still widely used as a term for a permanent post, so I see why it’s used.

I agree with interviewee that the discrimination is structural and occurs from earlier. I left academia for both push and pull reasons. The pull was more money and a post in a country I wanted to live in at the time, plus a permanent (as permanent as any job is, but not fixed short term) contract.
The push was the lack of permanence in academia - it’s not compatible with family life to be moving every two or three years for a new job plus having very little security at the end of it. Of course people do move and have families but the insecurity of academia is definitely a factor. It’s also v hard to take maternity leave and many labs actively don’t recruit women of childbearing age - in a three year postdoc, a year of May leave is a big deal - it could mean the research gets scooped.

So men don’t see it - they think that because they’re nice to women and not actively slapping arses mad men style there’s no sexism. When you point out that it’s structural they don’t get it.

This thread is amazing. It’s aboit work in general but most of it applies to academe as well.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3082251-Men-whose-lives-are-facilitated-by-women-how-did-this-happen

This and the follow on should be archived somewhere - it’s a depressing but incisive read.

ErrolTheDragon · 07/10/2018 16:46

There’s a good leader in the latest New Scientist which I’ve only just looked at. Hopefully this link works

www.newscientist.com/article/2181377-it-has-been-a-goodbad-week-for-women-in-physics/

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