AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of July 10, 2009
eds. Joan Schmelz, Caroline Simpson & Michele Montgomery
This week's issues:
1. Engineering Pamphlet for Girls
2. Professional Skills Development Workshop
3. Field Theory
4. Most Inspirational Woman Astronomers?
5. How to Submit, Subscribe, or Unsubscribe to AASWOMEN
6. Access to Past Issues of AASWOMEN
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1. Engineering Pamphlet for Girls
From: Joan Schmelz [jschmelz
memphis.edu]
A colleague of mine sent me this link to an engineering pamphlet for girls:
http://engineeryourlife.org/cms/8750.aspx?subpage=3D10324
While exploring the web site, I found this:
A coalition of more than 55 engineering organizations set out to discover
why so few academically prepared high school girls were entering engineering
programs, and what could be done to increase their numbers. Two findings
stood out:
(1) Girls (as well as their parents, teachers, and counselors) believe that
engineers must be exceptional at both math and science and that
engineering is difficult and challenging.
(2) It is the engineering community that is contributing to their limited
understanding of the profession.
Rather than conveying what it's like to be an engineer, and sharing what
we love about the field with young people, we tend to discuss the process
of becoming an engineer, concentrating on the necessary qualifications and
emphasizing all of the potential hurdles along the way. What's emphasized
to girls (and boys) is how challenging the process is, not the reasons one
would want to become an engineer in the first place. In a well-meaning
effort to arm potential engineers with a healthy dose of realism, we often
forget to also convey what is attractive and meaningful about the profession.
Changing just a few words would make this directly relevant to astronomy.
For all of us teaching undergraduates, mentoring an REU student, doing
outreach in local schools, etc. remember this advice from our engineering
sisters and brothers: share what you love about being an astronomer!
If you've lost that love in the hustle and bustle of everyday life -
proposal deadlines, grading exams, applying for your next job, etc. - take
some time to rediscover it. It will not only be good for you personally
but also for the next generation of astronomers.
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2. Professional Skills Development Workshop
From: Hannah at the Women in Astronomy Blog
Mark your calendars: here's a heads up for those of you planning to attend
the Women in Astronomy Meeting in College Park, MD on October 21-23. There
will be a professional skills development workshop held the day before the
meeting, on October 20, on the topic of Negotiation. The workshop is
intended primarily at postdocs, but graduate students and young faculty may be
accommodated depending on space.
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3. Field Theory
From: Hannah at the Women in Astronomy Blog
This week, I had the pleasure of playing in the Mud Cup, the semi-annual
soccer game played between the two departments at my former place of
employment. One of the rules we have adopted is that each team must field a
minimum of two women at any time. This form of affirmative action is necessary
because while we can claim equality in terms of intellectual ability, you
can't get around the fact that men are generally faster and stronger. It's
meant to be a friendly game of soccer rather than a high-stakes competition,
and we women would like to get the chance to play, hence the rule.
At the post-game party, I got to talking with a friend who coaches his sons'
soccer teams. One year, his team practiced at the same time and place as
a girls' team. The coaches got the teams together to play scrimmages
against each other. My friend noted that the boys would either get
super-aggressive against the girls, or back off completely. "These guys
here do the same thing," I replied, indicating the soccer players
around us.
It seems to me that this sort of attitude carries over from the soccer
field into science, too. Some male scientists feel threatened by women who
compete with them, and aggressively attack the women's ideas. Some take a
condescending attitude toward women scientists, along the lines of, "oh how cute,
she's trying to act like a scientist," and they dismiss the women's ideas
altogether. Fortunately, though, there are also those who treat us with
respect as colleagues, or even competitors, on an equal footing.
To conclude, I'll mention that while my team was vastly outnumbered by our
opponents, meaning that we had far fewer players to substitute in. We ended
up having to substitute women in for men, and by the end we had five women
on the field to their three. Still, we came out victorious. It only goes
to show that women's contributions can be invaluable, whether on the soccer
field, or in the field of science.
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4. Most Inspirational Women Astronomers?
From: Joan Schmelz [jschmelzmemphis.edu]
[Last week's item from the NewScientist survey on "Most Inspirational
Woman Scientist Revealed" triggered several comments. Perhaps we should
come up with a list of inspirational women astronomers. Who would you put
in the top ten? - Eds.]
Jocelyn Bell Burnell was #4 on the NewScientist list.
One AASWOMEN reader wanted to know, "Where is Cecilia Payne, perhaps the
greatest astronomer and one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century?"
What about Henrietta Leavitt, Maria Mitchell, and Annie Cannon? All three
inspired me.
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5. How to Submit, Subscribe, or Unsubscribe to AASWOMEN
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6. Access to Past Issues of AASWOMEN
Past issues of AASWOMEN are available at
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
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