All of this is why I completely and totally love the new tumblr This Is What A Scientist Looks Like started by sci-comm guru Allie Wilkinson. Scientists from all kinds of fields are asked to submit photos of themselves and write a brief bit about who they are. The pictures are incredible; scientists are depicted everywhere from Antarctica to the tropics, on the tops of mountains or under the sea. The pics express personality, intelligence, and even a little humor.
Anyhow, if you’re a scientist, I strongly encourage you to add yourself. And if you’re not, go check out what scientists really look like, including a few goofballs like this:
In the wake of Science Online 2012, a new hashtag has emerged on twitter: #Iamscience.
I, too, am science. A few years ago, when I was about to begin my PhD, I wrote my I Am Science story. I am reposting it now, in honor of the hashtag. If you’re on twitter, definitely check out all the great stories being told!
A Marine Biologist’s Story
The air felt thick and heavy in my lungs. As I drove further down the narrow strip of beach, my throat closed and my eyes burned. It wasn’t normal sea air – it was toxic. Red tide was hitting the area in full force, killing off thousands of marine animals and filling the air with the neurotoxic compounds the algae Karenia brevis is known for. As the waves crash on shore, they break open the delicate algal cells, aerosolizing the odorless but noxious brevatoxins.
Many people have heard of red tide, but if you haven’t experienced it, you should consider yourself lucky. A few years ago I was driving an ATV on Casey Key late at night looking for nesting turtles to tag during one of the worst red tide seasons in recent history. Everything was dying. You couldn’t go near a beach without coughing and wheezing, and you probably didn’t want to anyhow, since they were covered in dead fish and other marine life.
But there I was, 2:30 in the morning, holding my breath as much as I could and scanning relentlessly for nesting turtles as a part of a summer internship at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, FL. I hadn’t slept much in days, and I was going to be out there until sunrise. I was exhausted. I couldn’t breathe. And it was in that moment that I started thinking about how I ended up in this situation in the first place.
You know, no one ever asks me why I am a marine biologist. I still expect that people will, and that I’ll get to tell these elaborate stories of the great things I get to do as if they had anything to do with my choice to follow this career path. But no one ever asks. I think most people assume that they know why someone becomes a marine biologist. They think “ooo, she gets to be like those people at SeaWorld riding the dolphins.” Everyone has this fanatasy of what a marine biologist is, and they think that all marine biologists have known their whole lives they would end up that way.
First off, they’re completely wrong about what it means to be a marine biologist. Being a marine biologist isn’t all playful dolphins and spectacular diving. It’s driving an ATV up and down a beach littered with dead fish – and spending an hour pulling a 200 lb dead sea turtle high enough out of the water so that the stranding crew could find it in the morning, even though you can barely breathe. It’s never, ever being able to look at seafood the same way again. It’s getting up at a god-awful hour to make it to your field site for sampling when the tide is at just the right height, where you can pull water from the ground but still count the crab burrows on the surface, then staying out there all day even though it’s 100 degrees out with no clouds and you feel like you’re being baked alive. It’s cleaning the bones of a manatee so that it can be used as a teaching tool, which requires placing the putrid rotting skeleton in a vat of water in the sun to rot, and then going back once a week, dumping the fetid water and pulling whatever decomposed flesh you can off, until the bones are picked clean. It’s counting the 53 dead baby sea turles from a nest that was raided by fire ants (who aren’t exactly pleased that you’re disturbing their hard-earned meal). It’s staring into a microscope for hours picking the miniature, formaldehyde-pickled marine life from a mud sample to catalog the fauna in a riverbed. It’s always feeling like you smell of dead creatures or harmful chemicals, and being so used to it you actually kind of like the smell.
In other words, it’s gruesome. It’s a little grotesque. And to be honest, there’s got to be something kind of off with you to begin with to enjoy it enough to make a living doing it.
Secondly, I haven’t always known I would be a marine biologist. Looking back it might be obvious to the casual observer, but that doesn’t mean it was obvious to me. I didn’t really figure it out until I had to pick a college and a major to go with it. Let me explain:
I was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the summer of 1985. I was happy in New England. I liked being a little kid. And I was a smart kid, too, which made being a little kid all the more fun. I didn’t really have much of a choice about being nerdy. Just look at my dad, who designed the first computer go program – I was screwed. Neither of my parents, though, were biologists, and in Boston the ocean is cold and unwelcoming. Of course, when I was about four years old, my parents decided they didn’t want to live in the frozen northeast any more, and they moved me and my brother to Hawai’i. I know – how awful.
It’s in Hawai’i that the first signs of my future career began to show. At the ripe age of 5 years old, my parents decided to send me to a special school for gifted kids (I said I was smart, didn’t I?).
I liked tongues.
To do so, they had to have my IQ tested. I passed. But the most interesting part of my IQ report isn’t the score, it’s the commentary from my examiner. She said I was a “poised, cooperative young child.” I was friendly and quick to talk, and even better, in my chatty childish way, I talked about what I liked:
The student spoke briefly about her interest in animals and bugs, noting that she likes to “find dead geckos and open their mouths to see their tongues.“
Oh yeah. I was a biologist when I was five – not that I knew this until much later. I loved animals of all kinds, and couldn’t get enough of museums and zoos. I also fell in love with the sea. I loved tide pools and whatever creatures I could find in them. I thrived in the ocean, learning to swim at a very young age and spending as much time as I could underwater instead of on land. Hawai’i became my home, and I felt like I had lived there all my life (I still say “Hawai’i” and certain Hawaiian and Asian words with an accent that never ceases amuses my non-local friends).
Then my parents divorced. My mom moved to Vermont, of all possible places. So I spent most of the year in the artic world of New England, and only my summers back in the wet and salty world I loved. But being in Vermont gave me the opportunity to explore a whole range of interests. Being an outgoing person, I took well to the stage, and loved every facet of the theater. I loved art and painting, and always had a creative streak in me that I still nurture. I learned to play guitar and sing, and wrote my own songs. By high school, in fact, you probably would have expected me to end up a starving artist of some kind.
In high school, I was a jack of all trades. I took the highest level courses in math, science, theater, art, history, and english. My senior year I was granted independent studies in History, Theater and English. I took all kinds of AP courses, walking away with APs in English Lit, English Language, U.S. History, Calculus BC, Physics B and Advanced Physics. Note, for the record, that not one of the things I just mentioned has the word “biology” in it.
You see, I loved animals – I had cats and dogs and odd pets like hedgehogs my whole life, I loved searching the woods for living creatures, adopting anything injured or sick – but I didn’t think of myself as a biologist. Not yet, anyhow. I was an actress, musician, artist, writer, historian, and even physicist, but I wasn’t a biologist. Then, of course, I had to think about where I wanted to go to college. There was one thing I wanted above all else – I wanted to live in Hawai’i.
I missed it. I missed the water and the waves. I missed the sun and the beach. I missed everything about the islands. I felt like a fish out of water in New England – all I wanted was to go home.
Somehow, in my homesick, 16-year-old mind, I came up with a brilliant idea. I would study the physics of cetacean (whale and dolphin) communication. I could double major in Marine Biology and Physics, ending up in Hawai’i for graduate school, and I would get to be where I belonged. So I found out which colleges had good science programs, particularly marine ones (the whole getting back to Hawai’i bit hinged on me being a marine-centered physicist), and applied. And through a twist of fate, I ended up in Florida at Eckerd College.
After my first semester of courses at Eckerd, though, I knew that I wasn’t a physicist. I loved physics, but the advanced, theoretical stuff just wasn’t my cup of tea – I liked the hands on, applied physics. I did, however, adore my marine science classes. I liked learning about the physiology of marine inverts, and playing with them in labs. Once, I spent an entire hour flipping an upside-down jellyfish upside-down then right-side-up again until my hand actually went numb. I met my undergraduate mentor, Dr. Nancy Smith, who I quickly came to aspire to be like. And from that time onward, there was no doubt in my mind that although I didn’t know it until then, I was a biologist all along.
I believe the phrase is, “duh”
In truth, I should have seen it earlier. Heck, I was never squeamish or easily grossed out by things. When I took freshman biology in high school I was the only person who actually got a bit of a kick out of dissecting the fetal pig. I stayed after class to carefully remove its brain so that I could look at it close-up. I loved the natural world. I really, really loved animals, often to my parents’ dismay when I would attempt to make “pets” out of every creature I could get my hands on. When I was writing my PhD applications this year, I asked my dad when he knew that I would end up in biology. “Are you kidding me?” he responded. “You’ve been like this since you were born!”
But I didn’t become a marine biologist because I wanted to since birth. I didn’t even want to since I was in high school. In some ways, I became a marine biologist by accident. Or maybe it was fate, if such a thing exists.
Now, I can’t imagine a life other than this. I love what I do. You see, it was that thought, not some self-doubting “why am I doing this?”, which went though my head as I breathed in the thick, noxious air while riding that ATV. It was a thought of wonder, asking the world how I got to be so lucky as to do what I do. In truth, I was barely paying attention to the toxic fumes. I was too intrigued by the fact that the dead fish I drove over started to glow after my tires crunched their bones – the beach, in fact, was glowing bluish-green. Some kind of bioluminescent algae or bacteria was all over the rotting corpses and in the water, and it glowed whenever it was disturbed. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. I remember stopping just to step on dead fish and watch them light up (I did say you have to be a little sick to do what I do, right?).
Of course, the best part was tagging the turtles. That night I sat quietly and watched massive female green sea turtles dig their nests and drop hundreds of eggs into the sand. While they did, of course, I calmly checked their flippers for tags and tagged any that didn’t have them already. They didn’t run or flee as I touched them – once a female sea turtle has begun laying her eggs, she’s intent on finishing the job, and just about nothing will deter her from that task. To this day, the sight of those beautiful girls laying their precious eggs is still one of my favorite memories.
The point, I guess, of this long and self-indulgent monologue is that you should always follow your passions, and eventually, you’ll end up where you want to be. Or where you want to be will be where you end up – as Douglas Adams says, “I may not have ended up where I intended to go, but I know I’ve ended up where I’m intended to be.” For me, in the end, I even get to fulfill my 16-year-old me’s dream – in the fall, I start my PhD at the University of Hawaii.
This story is also in part to explain what it means to be a marine biologist. It’s not all cliches and playful creatures, and we’re all a little weird to even like what we do. And in part, I wanted you all to get to know me a bit better.
But mostly, it’s because no one ever asks why I’m a marine biologist. I have all these fun stories and anecdotes about being nerdy. And, damn it, I really wanted to tell some of them.
Whew. What a crazy week! Just 7 days ago, I hopped on a plane and began my long journey eastward to North Carolina to attend Science Online 2012. In case you aren’t familiar with the conference, Science Online is, as Christopher Mims said, like “a Burning Man for Science Journalists.” For me, this meant three days straight of talking, learning, and networking – note the absence of the word “sleeping.” Last night was the first time in a week I got more than 5 hours sleep. It was amazing.
Anyhow, I was at Science Online not only to engage with other scientists and journalists, but also to co-moderate a session titled “Blogging Science While Female.” Here’s the session description:
The session on women in science blogging at Science Online 2011 sparked internet-wide discussion about sexism, discrimination and gender representation in science and science blogging. Now here we are, a year later. How have we, as a community, faced the issues brought up by last year’s discussion? What has changed? What have we learned, and what challenges still lie ahead? Moderators and attendees will assess the current state of women in the science blogosphere and discuss the best way we can support and encourage gender representation in science blogging.
Rather than rehash the session here, I’ll instead give you Tanya Lewis’ storify of the session (below). Also, be sure to read Kate Clancy’s epically awesome post: Blogging While Female, and Why We Need A Posse
Every plant and animal out there produces miRNAs. We, for example, are thought to produce thousands. These teeny-tiny snippets of RNA serve regulatory roles in our cells, attaching to bits of messenger RNA and causing changes in expression of different proteins. They are far from evil: indeed, miRNAs are necessary for cells to function properly.
Can miRNAs we eat alter our gene expression? Well, yes. That was the incredible scientific discovery made by the Chinese research team that was recently published in Cell Research. But to make the leap from ‘miRNAs we eat can alter gene expression’ to ‘GMOs are dangerous’ requires unbelievable gaps in understanding about GMOs and miRNAs.
First off, there’s no reason to think that the DNA being introduced into GMOs is going to produce more/different miRNAs than it did in the original organism. Ari’s claim that “new DNA can have dangerous implications far beyond the products it codes for” simply isn’t true because miRNAs are coded for. These small RNA fragments aren’t random or accidental – they are explicitly detailed within the genome. So a stretch of DNA that didn’t code any miRNAs before isn’t going to suddenly code for a ton of them when it’s placed in a different genome. If we’re worried about potential miRNA effects, we can screen genes we are considering transferring and determine if there is any chance they produce miRNAs before we shuffle around which organism they are in. Indeed, GMOs are tested genetically, to ensure that the target gene has incorporated properly and that the organism is producing the desired protein, and not unexpected products. Genetic modification is a very precise process, and there is no reason to think it would cause a sudden burst of miRNAs.
But perhaps more fundamentally, miRNAs are found in all kinds of life, including every single species that we currently eat. There’s no logical reason that a new miRNA being produced by a GM plant is going to be more dangerous than the multitude of miRNAs we ingest when we eat the non-GM version.
In fact, the potential side effects of non-GM food is, very explicitly, what the Chinese research team showed: that of the millions of miRNAs we eat every day, at least a few make it from our stomachs into our blood, and that a specific one from ordinary rice can change the expression of genes in mice. So if miRNAs are dangerous – guess what? – you’re already ingesting them every time you eat. And, to get a little gross, let’s be clear: when we eat something, we don’t just ingest the miRNAs from the species we intentionally eat. Did you know, for example, that foods you eat are allowed to contain mold, hair, insect parts, and even rat poop? All of those bits of organisms which we inadvertently eat have DNA, and – you guessed it! – miRNAs, too. If miRNAs are so dangerous, we would never have been able to eat anything previously alive in the first place.
But we can eat other organisms, and we will continue to, because, simply put, miRNAs aren’t that dangerous.
Perhaps what ticks me off most, though, is that Ari’s scaremongering overshadows the very real and interesting implications of the science he failed to cover. The notion that miRNAs may drive some of the interaction between us and our food is incredibly new and totally cool. As the authors write, their research suggests that “miRNAs may represent a novel class of universal modulators that play an important role in mediating animal-plant interactions at the molecular level. Like vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients derived from food sources, plant miRNAs may serve as a novel functional component of food and make a critical contribution to maintaining and shaping animal body structure and function.”
What if some of the benefits of drinking wine aren’t from the antioxidants, but from the miRNAs present in grapes? What if we can produce beneficial miRNAs, and take them like we do vitamins? Or reduce the expression of harmful ones? Suddenly, we have been given a sneak peek at a whole new facet of nutrition science that we didn’t even know existed. The amazing implications of this research – not some ludicrous and tenuous connection to anti-GMO propaganda – should have been what The Atlantic highlighted. Instead, they made a fool of themselves by allowing Ari Levaux to expose just how poorly he understands genetics.
It’s 8:09 PM here in Hawaii – hours until we say goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012. We’re one of the last to experience the ushering in of the new year, and thus I have had a lot of time to think about my new year’s post. I wanted to sum up 2011 in a grandiose manner. More than just a tally of the year’s accomplishments, I wanted this post to be a resonating last word. But every time I tried to sit down and write, I found myself blocked. That’s the funny thing about writing – the more complete, profound and impressive you want your words to be, the more totally inept you become at writing them.
Well, here I am anyway. I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on the past year, and thinking about my hopes for the next one. In accordance with proper US traditions, I feel obliged to write down some resolutions. It’s probably a silly endeavor – the science has found that new year’s resolutions are indifferent at best. Still, it can’t hurt to try. So here are my hopes and goals for 2012:
Take at least 10 minutes every week to reflect on the positive. No matter how bad things are, or how stressful life might get, studies have shown that taking time to focus on what you’re thankful for can improve your health and happiness. So I resolve to take that time and truly contemplate the things in my life that make me happy.
Read. I have a number of books that have been gathering dust on my bookshelf for the past few months because I ‘don’t have time’ or ‘have so many more important things to do.’ Well screw it. I love reading – it’s my personal escape from the rest of the world. So, I resolve to read more. A lot more.
There’s this great song by Sara Bareilles, and in it, she has this line that always hits me: “I’m not the girl that I intend to be. But I dare you darlin’, just you wait and see.” I think we all are like that to some extent; we have all these high hopes or ideals that we strive to live up to, and end up falling short because we simply don’t care enough to push for it. Well, I resolve to be the person I intend to be, at least as much as I can. Nothing extraordinary, just the best version of me that I can be.
So there you have it. My three new year’s resolutions. What about you? What are your hopes for the new year?
It seems you are upset at the torrent of outrage your Futures piece has caused. You’re “dumbfounded” that anyone could read so much into your frivolous little tale, and honestly didn’t mean for your short story to harm or offend anyone. After all, it was just supposed to be a joke.
That is totally understandable – I mean, come on, haven’t we all been there? You’re having this fun, friendly conversation with a colleague/friend/family member/whomever and you make some comment or joke. You giggle a little – because hey! It was a funny! – only to see that your companion clearly feels otherwise. You didn’t mean to offend, but by the awkward silence and sudden look of confusion, anger, or even hurt on their face, you realize that you did. It was completely by accident.
Most people’s instantaneous reaction to the above scenario is two simple words. Those words might be followed by an explanation of the joke to see if it changes the response (“See, it’s funny because I said XYZ when, really, we all know ABC…”). Or, even, when that clearly doesn’t improve things, defensive statements like “Wait – that didn’t come off right” or “That’s not what I meant” or even “What I meant to say was…”, but the first thing, the first thing that comes out of their mouth, is this:
“I’m sorry.”
Ed, you say that you totally didn’t mean to offend anyone, and with the benefit of the doubt, I’ll believe you. But you did offend people. A lot of people, especially women in science.
You say that the image painted by others of you isn’t accurate, that Womanspace isn’t a reflection of your views of women and gender, and that it was supposed to come off as a joke that, if anything, says women are superhuman while men are bumbling idiots.
But for what seems to be a large percentage of its readers, it didn’t. And while you seem to be able to go on and on about how really good a person you are, and how you didn’t mean any harm, and it was just a joke, you have to realize by now that to many people, it was offensive and anything but funny.
Yes, you’re allowed to defend yourself. It’s understandable that you wanted to make sure that people know you didn’t mean to alienate women, or reinforce the notion that women should cook and clean while men ponder the intricacies of the universe. No one will fault you for quickly saying “Wait! I didn’t mean for it to sound like that!”
There was just one problem: your response lacked the two little words that should have been your knee-jerk reaction to making so many people feel badly. You should have felt compelled to apologize for the unintentional harm you may have caused.
In short, you should have said you’re sorry.
The fact that you didn’t reveals more about you as a person than any terribly-written, stereotypical science fiction story ever could.
I am one of the people who reacted strongly to a science fiction story sexist piece of crap published by Nature in their Futures section titled Womanspace. In it, the Draper-esque protagonist discovers that his wife’s apparently miraculous shopping aptitude is due to her remarkable ability to transit into parallel universes, an extension of her evolutionary success as a ‘gatherer’ as opposed to his innate role as the ‘hunter’.
There was plenty of outrage, but not everyone had the same reaction that I did. Comments supporting (or at least not outright condemning) the author, Ed Rybicki, and the editor who approved the story, Henry Gee, all sound about the same: lighten up, ladies. There’s no call to be angry – it’s just a joke, even if it’s a bad one.
For example, Michele Busby wrote in her defense of Womanspace that we should “cut Ed a break” because, after all, it’s not “worth getting upset about.” A commenter on Janet Stemwedel’s post was more defensive: “Until your response, the sexism was humor. Now, your foolishness makes it an actual issue. Who ACTUALLY harmed interpretation of women?” Meanwhile, though he doesn’t condone the work, Hank Campbell feels that “the “Womanspace” thing was just goofing around, pretty harmless.”
That’s the thing, though. Reinforcing negative gender stereotypes is anything but harmless.
It was Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson who, in 1995, first coined the term stereotype threat. It refers to how the knowledge of a prejudicial stereotype can lead to enough anxiety that a person actually ends up confirming the image. Since that landmark paper, more than 300 studies have found evidence for the pervasive negative effects of societal stereotypes.
When it comes to women, studies have shown that stereotype threat is very real. Women are stereotyped to be worse at math than men due to lower test scores. But it turns out that women only score lower when they are reminded of their gender or take the test in the presence of men. In fact, the greater the number of men in the room with a female test taker, the worse she will do. The gender profile of the environment has no effect, however, on women’s verbal test scores, where no such inferiority stereotype exists.
So, yes, I was outraged to see something which comes off as overtly sexist and reinforces gender stereotypes published under Nature‘s name, whether it was intended to be humorous or not. The result of Womanspace is that women in science feel alienated. It is exactly the kind of environment that contributes to the STEM gender gap. Just listen to how women reacted:
Kate Clancy: “I felt completely alienated and abandoned by a journal that is supposed to publish science”.
Anne Jefferson: “it seems in every way designed to make me feel othered and excluded from the scientific academy”
Ali Kerwein: “I am so disappointed. I admired this publication so much, and now I feel completely disgusted.”
Ed may not have meant to demoralize women scientists when he wrote Womanspace, but by reinforcing the stereotype of the domesticated woman as opposed to the scientific man, he did just that. But even worse, as Anne Jefferson said, by approving of such a piece, Nature has given this kind of sexist attitude their highly-valued stamp of approval.
Shame on you, Nature, for contributing to the kind of environment which leads to stereotype threat – the kind of environment that tells girls they shouldn’t bother becoming a scientist. Because while I can shrug off some bigoted humor, they can’t. They’re the ones harmed by such careless support of antiquated gender roles. I am mad at you for them. You have done wrong by little nerdy girls everywhere, Nature, and you need to acknowledge it. Anything less says that you simply don’t care.
If you skim the twitter hashtag #mencallmethings, it’s clear that there are plenty of blatant misogynists to go around. As a woman, it’s impossible to ignore this kind of clear and dangerous language. But, in my experience, these comments aren’t the norm. Only a small, vocal and problematic group of men belittle women so coarsely. Many more do so unintentionally, even charismatically, with a smile.
In a couple months, my network coblogger Janet and I are going to be moderating a session at Science Online about women in science blogging. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to say. I attended the session on this topic last year, which I posted about afterwards (I’ve included that post at the bottom of this post, as extra food for thought).
It seems like fate that now, while I’m tossing these issues around in my brain, Ed Rybicki‘s Womanspace is brought to my attention. As a blogger for Scientific American, I work for Nature Publishing. I am deeply disappointed that an article like this has been published by a company I am associated with in any way.
Rybicki doesn’t threaten rape or malign the general intelligence of women. But make no mistake – this article is misogynistic. As Pieter van Dokkum expressed in the comments section: “What this story highlights is the issue of unintentional, subconscious bias, which is something that our community has to come to grips with… the story places women and men in fundamentally different categories: women are well-organized and domestically-oriented whereas men are useless in everyday life but come up with theories about the universe.”
“After reducing women to a stereotyped shopping monolith, cheekily analogizing women’s behaviors as a parallel universe (can someone finally kill the astronomic analogies for men vs women, please? This book is almost 20 years old), and expressing fear over the empowerment of women, he now marginalizes women into superficiality, hazarding that given our newfound knowledge, we will exercise it to get rid of ugly men and select “better-looking” versions.”
I get what Ed was trying to do – he was trying to be funny. I might even be able to turn off my internal angry feminist for a moment and say that he didn’t mean to reinforce gender stereotypes, and instead was trying to tell a cute story about his wife. He wasn’t trying to be a complete jerk.
The thing is, a guy doesn’t have to be a complete jerk to be sexist. There are plenty of charismatic misogynists out there – guys who don’t notice how they say things that demean women, especially when they’re trying to be complimentary. They don’t even realize how their frivolous and yes, sometimes even funny, comments contribute to the derision of women in society and in STEM fields in particular.
A commenter here, for example, began a supportive comment on a post of mine with: “I think Christie is correct, and I’m not just saying that because according to her profile picture, she’s absolutely beautiful. [emphasis mine]”. I get it. He was trying to be flattering – but instead, he implied that my looks are the most important factor in whether or not something I write is correct. It’s hardly the first comment I’ve received like that.
I want to know is why on Earth a piece like Womanspace is being published by Nature in the first place. Therese is right: this article lacks any kind of scientific merit, and instead flippantly tosses around gender stereotypes in a poor attempt at humor. I stand beside Ylaine Gerardin and Tami Lieberman in saying it is disturbing that “the world’s leading scientific journal would choose to publish a piece – even a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ science fiction story – that promulgates such nonsensical Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus ideas” and that “Nature should be setting an example by not literally alienating women, but instead encouraging the dissolution of the last bastions of ‘manspace'”. It just adds insult to injury that this is published in a section called “Futures” – I sincerely hope this isn’t Nature‘s idea of looking ahead at the scientific community of the future.
On a side note, I encourage those of you going to Science Online 2012 to join Janet and I for our session. Clearly, there is still a lot to discuss.
Update: Nature has closed commentingreopened! on the article itself. But, you can tell Ed Rybicki or Henry Gee (the editor in charge of Futures) how you feel on twitter. Or, post on Futures’ wall on Facebook and share your opinions.
A few weeks ago, I received a facebook message. It was from a male admirer of my blog (and his fiancée, coincidentally). In it, he said “You are GORGEOUS, and your tits look absolutely incredible.” I froze. I know it was meant as a compliment, but it made me really uncomfortable. It was a sentiment that was much more muted in other comments I’d gotten. You know, ones like “wow, you’re an amazing writer AND you’re hot?” or “who would have thought a pretty girl could be so good at science?”
Of course, if you point out to any of these people that their comments are sexist, they instantly defend themselves and say that’s not what they meant. They weren’t trying to imply women should be less good at science or writing, they just wanted to say that it’s cool that I’m pretty and nerdy. They think women in science are great.
But what they fail to realize is the fact that my looks are important enough to comment on is what makes their comments sexist.Sure, maybe male bloggers get the occasional “you’re hot”. But can Ed Yong or Carl Zimmer say they’ve gotten comments about their packages? Has any fan approached them and heralded their tight abs or buttocks? I’m guessing the answer is no*. No one is amazed that a guy like Eric Johnson is good looking and a good writer, because no one thinks it strange that a good looking guy has other talents, too. Men can look however and do whatever – their intellectual pursuits and their physical appearance aren’t intrinsically linked. But for a woman, everything is linked to how she looks. Everything.
Sexism is a hard thing for me to talk about. My generation likes to think we’re past it. Our great-grandmothers and grandmothers fought to secure women equal pay and the right to vote, and our mothers continued to fight through the feminist movement in the 70s and 80s to ensure that we don’t feel as excluded or put down as they did. That was their fight, their struggle, their blood, sweat and tears. They suffered so I don’t have to.
Growing up I was a tomboy. I went to liberal private schools and was allowed to be as strong minded and bodied as I desired. In college, I had powerful female professors (with kids!) that served as my mentors and role models, and I never once felt like being a woman in science was frowned upon.
So why did I go the the session on women in science blogging? I wasn’t set on attending beforehand. But I was one of the many women who talked to Kate Clancy, and in my conversation with her and Anne and the rest of the women at that table, I realized that, more than ever, I needed to be in that room. I needed to hear the struggles of my fellow female bloggers, even if I haven’t experienced them, and I need to be a part of the conversation. Because even if I haven’t been attacked for my gender on my blog yet, I could, and probably will, be. The battle against inequality was not just my mother and my grandmother’s war; it’s my fight, too.
After all, if you look around at the current science blogosphere, you can’t help but think there’s something wrong. Despite the fact that over half of the attendees at Science Online were women, female bloggers make up a small portion of the high-profile blogging networks. As Jennifer Rohn noted last year, no major blogging network even comes close to a 50/50 male/female ratio. Perhaps it is in part the fault of female bloggers for being too meek, mannered and mild and not shamelessly self-promoting in every way they can – but I doubt it.
Why isn’t there a girl version of Ed Yong or Carl Zimmer? Why is there no woman in the elite list of the most well known science bloggers? The excuse that there aren’t enough high-quality female science writers just doesn’t cut it anymore. They’re out there, and they have been for years. Incredible women like Sheril Kirshenbaum have been standing up and taking the full brunt of the internet’s misogyny with the utmost grace. We have to be honest with ourselves as a community. The problem isn’t that the women aren’t there. It’s that they aren’t being taken as seriously.
Most women I know hate the idea that their gender is a factor in their professional life. A friend of mine and fellow graduate student, for example, recounts angrily how she found out she was referred to by one of the male professors her first year as “the pretty one.” She intentionally wears t-shirts, jeans, and little make up at work to downplay her femininity and be seen as just another graduate student. One of my blogging friends, similarly, has told me she blogs under a pseudonym simply because she wants to take her looks out of the equation.
I’m not so complacent. I shouldn’t have to hide the fact that I am a woman just to be seen as a brilliant scientist or a great writer. And I am young and bull-headed and perhaps just naive enough not to hide. You might notice my looks first, but I’ll be damned if you don’t hear my words, too.
I don’t have the same risk-aversion that other female scientists or science writers might because I haven’t been beaten down or held back. Nor am I timid. Trust me, no one has ever accused me of being too quiet. Call me ambitious, driven, or even a bitch – those words are all compliments in my book – but be certain that I will not allow my gender to prevent me from achieving success.
Clearly, we need to make a change in the science blogging community. I won’t stand up and say I have all the answers. I don’t know how to better encourage other female science bloggers other than to say I’ve got your back. I can’t assuage the fears of those who think if they put their name and face on a blog, they’ll lose credibility or get attacked, other than to lead by example. But maybe I don’t have to do more than that. Perhaps all it will take to tip the scales is a woman who is willing to say “bring it” and is still standing a year later.
Well, then. Bring it.
*I’d comment on whether or not the packages, abs or buttocks of the male bloggers are up to par, but I think I’ll let their wives be the judges instead.
Many people have heard of red tide, but if you haven’t experienced it, you should consider yourself lucky. A few years ago I was driving an ATV on Casey Key late at night looking for nesting turtles to tag during one of the worst red tide seasons in recent history. Everything was dying. You couldn’t go near a beach without coughing and wheezing, and you probably didn’t want to anyhow, since they were covered in dead fish and other marine life.
Now, I can’t imagine a life other than this. I love what I do. You see, it was that thought, not some self-doubting “why am I doing this?”, which went though my head as I breathed in the thick, noxious air while riding that ATV. It was a thought of wonder, asking the world how I got to be so lucky as to do what I do. In truth, I was barely paying attention to the toxic fumes. I was too intrigued by the fact that the dead fish I drove over started to glow after my tires crunched their bones – the beach, in fact, was glowing bluish-green. Some kind of bioluminescent algae or bacteria was all over the rotting corpses and in the water, and it glowed whenever it was disturbed. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. I remember stopping just to step on dead fish and watch them light up (I did say you have to be a little sick to do what I do, right?).
The worst part, though, is that these negative effects start at a very young age. Simply 
