Viva la Feminista

I am a nerd in many different ways. I love math. I went to Space Camp for my 40th birthday. I could go on, but I think I have established my nerd credentials. Thus when I heard this book came out and a movie, I could not wait! I picked up this book at Powell's Portland airport store. Let me tell you,  Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly is a beautifully written book about the collision of race, gender, and science in the USA from World War II to the late 1960s. Hidden Figures tells the stories of a number of African American women who found themselves working on engineering projects during World War II and through the 1960s space race. Oh, I should add that they were doing all of this in Virginia too. As someone who has spent her career working to diversify science, technology, engineering and mathematics, these type of stories are not new to me, even if the characters are. There are so many hidden figures in the annals of the history of science we could write books for a...

As long-time readers know, my paying job is to support women who are studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). I often get asked what the magic key or silver bullet is for getting more girls into STEM. While the actual answer is complex and nuanced, when I am talking with parents it usually ends up being, "Let them break things & get dirty." This is why I am excited to invite you to join me for #STEMchat with SciGirls on May 21st about citizen science. I love the tagline, "Do Try This at Home," because that is such a key to the puzzle! Do science at home. Demystify it. You don't have to be a genius to do science. And I'm super excited to be chatting with SciGirls. Now in its third season, SciGirls features real-life girls and mentors engaging in science, citizen science. As the SciGirls track toads and count clouds, they also hope to inspire SciGirls (and SciBoys) to join the citizen science movement. Citizen science invit...

I was 11 and in 5th grade on a field trip to Chinatown when Katie S. came up to me to announce that Challenger had exploded. I didn't believe her. My group found a TV in a shop or restaurant, I can't recall, and there it was...on TV...the truth...it had. When we got back to school our teacher had that talk with us. How they were brave, it was risky and she revealed how she almost had applied for the teacher astronaut program. For most of the people I knew, the explosion proved to them that some things were too risky to attempt. For me, the space bug didn't just bite me, it burrowed into my soul. I became obsessed. It didn't hurt that I was able to connect my new obsession with my longer obsession with President Kennedy. Yeah, I was a strange kid. Soon I was able to rattle off the names of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts along with which missions they flew in. I observed the dates of the Apollo 1 and Challenger tragedies for years. I find it ironic that one of TH...

December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada. Established in 1991 by the Parliament of Canada, this day marks the anniversary of the murders in 1989 of 14 young women at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal. They died because they were women. As well as commemorating the 14 young women whose lives ended in an act of gender-based violence that shocked the nation, December 6 represents an opportunity for Canadians to reflect on the phenomenon of violence against women in our society. It is also an opportunity to consider the women and girls for whom violence is a daily reality, and to remember those who have died as a result of gender-based violence. And finally, it is a day on which communities can consider concrete actions to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. Pretty much my whole career is about women in science & engineering. The murder of 14 young women who were studying to be engineers happened when I was ...

Today is Blog for Equal Pay Day!  This post isn't meant to be lazy, but I realized that the idea I had for today I already did over at Girl w/Pen . Yes, I've finally gotten to the point in my writing where I have forgotten what I've written about. It took a web search to remind me. Oh, so pathetic...but back to today's post.... One reason why I am passionate about piquing girls' interest in science and engineering as a career path is the money. Even in this recession, starting salaries for computer-related and engineering careers are on the rise. They are also usually higher than any other field. This can be quite a carrot for sticking out a second semester of Calculus or even organic chemistry. But I also tell my students that there is a wage gap for scientists and engineers. Back in 1999, the National Science Foundation found that the wage gap for engineers was only 13 cents . Not bad. Overall for science, engineering and math, it looks like the wage gap in...

For Finding Ada 2010 , I would like to talk about Engineer Your Life. It's a website that is geared towards girls, but anyone can visit and learn, and focuses on why a career in engineering is rewarding and fun. They have a list of 10 reasons why you will love your career in engineering. Parents and those of you lucky enough to have an impact on young people's lives, please encourage them to visit this site. There is still such a stereotype that engineering is just about rockets and bridges. I blame years of physics and calculus classes for reinforcing this view. As we saw in Minnesota a few years ago, bridges are important. But we don't quite teach that in our schools. We also don't teach our children that engineering touches our lives and will shape the future. That is why we need to point them to the area about finding their dream job. There is a stereotype, that bears fruit in real life, that girls are more likely to be drawn towards careers that clearly ben...

This was originally posted at Girl w/Pen Do you ever think, “Duh!?” when you read a news story about how fattening movie popcorn or fast food is for us? I get that same feeling when I read that yet another research study has been published proving that girls and boys are equally good at math. How much more proof do we need? Professor Marcia Linn’s paper focuses in on why there are differences in girls confidence around the world. The answer? Social expectations. [PDF link] A society’s gendered division of labor fosters the development of gender differences in behavior by affording different restrictions and opportunities to males and females on the basis of their social roles….if the cultural roles that women fulfill do not include math, girls may face both structural obstacles (e.g., formal access to education is limited to boys) and social obstacles (e.g., stereotypes that math is a male domain) that impede their mathematical development. Many people like to believe that we...

Originally posted at AWEARNESS WOW! I can't believe the response my post about girls and computer science on Wednesday received on Twitter. Thanks. Many of the retweets were of "don't forget us too!" variety, so to follow up on the popular post, here is a quick run down of just a handful of the amazing groups working to recruit girls to computer science and keep them interested. Please, please add additional ones in the comments! Anita Borg : This is a powerhouse organization that works to connect tech companies to women. ABI offers workshops, publications and information aimed to develop leadership skills; celebrates and highlights the success of women who are changing the face of technology; and provides programs that change the way technology is created, learned and taught. One peek at their board and you'll see that the movers & shakers of technology are gathering at ABI to bring more women to the keyboard. Read the rest of the resource list over a...

Originally posted at AWEARNESS Despite the rise of women attending college and becoming the majority of the workforce , one area that continues to be ignored by women and girls is computer science . There are many theories as to why girls love using computers ( women are the majority of social media users ) but don't want to learn how to program or build computers. There are those who chalk it up to gender differences plain and simple. Some believe it is because girls are repelled by geek or hacker culture. Universities and companies who hire computer scientists are constantly recruiting girls and trying to show them why computer science is a great option. One part of the theory why girls are excluded from hacker culture is that it is too "frattish" and misogynistic. That is why I find the lap dances at a recent Yahoo! event (Yahoo! paid for women to dance in skimpy clothing at a "brainstorming session") to be especially atrocious. Read the rest ove...

Originally posted at Girl w/Pen It seems like every other story in the past month had a science grrl at its core. Some were good, some not so much. I honestly couldn’t make up my mind on which story to write about, so I’ll write a little about all of them: Elinor Ostrom is the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics . The best part of her story? That her high school advisor told her that she couldn’t take trigonometry because she was a girl. It’s been quite some time, but if that advisor is still alive, I hope they give her a call to apologize. Otherwise, girls take note. My high school advisor was horrible my freshman year, so I switched. If you don’t feel supported, find someone else to talk to! Ostrom topped off what has been a banner year of women winning the Nobel. We had the first time two women won a Nobel together (in medicine). The advisor-former graduate student pairing makes my heart a flutter. Now that’s Sisterhood NOT Interrupted! In addition, Ada Yonath won in...