patriarchy
gregladen | August 30, 2016Women and Physics by Laura McCulloch is a concise addition to the IOP Science Concise Physics series.
McCullough is an award winning Professor of Physics at UW Stout, and served for several years as the chair of that university’s Chemistry and Physics Department. Her research focuses on physics education, and gender and science. By both chance and design, I know a lot of people in this area, and I’m pretty sure IOP Science could not have had a better choice in authors for this important book.
How do you make a physicist? Well, you start with a child, and poke at it for 25 year or so until it…
thusspakezuska | April 7, 2010Reader Jason commented on my post about compulsory smiling thusly:
I just wanted to thank everyone for the comments here. They've been enlightening... to be honest I had never heard of anyone being ordered to smile outside of greeter/public relation jobs (chalk it up to youthful naivete, I suppose). With that in mind when I first read the post it struck me as an overreaction to something minor, but it's hard to argue with a few dozen women from all over with the exact same stories and reactions.
I don't know if I've ever been guilty of this behavior in my life (I hope not, though I am a…
thusspakezuska | May 27, 2009Welcome to our discussion of The Gender Knot by Allan Johnson. This is the first post in the discussion series. We will be discussing Chapter 1 "Where Are We?" You can find all posts connected to this discussion here.
I just noted a potential problem. There is an updated edition of the book now available. Right now I am working with a 1997 edition. I haven't decided if I will purchase the new edition; for now, I am going to keep going with my old one. But, if you are working with a new edition, you may encounter something in the book that I have left out. If so, please feel free to…
thusspakezuska | May 15, 2009Well, that's quite a vigorous discussion we've all been having these past few days over proto-feminist d00ds, no? I am grateful to you all for your participation and for the many good suggestions made to help proto-feminist d00ds along the path of growth. In case some of you missed it, Comrade Physioprof offered his own handy-dandy guide for d00dly commenters over at Isis's place.
With all the interest in these two posts, I'm thinking that maybe we need to spend a little more time talking to/with/for the d00dly d00ds. Herewith, I am proposing Zuska's Outreach Project For D00dly D00ds.…
thusspakezuska | May 5, 2009Over at Uncertain Principles, Chad frets about committing physics heresy via a reading of Goldilocks and the Three Bears to his young offspring.
The story may convey a useful moral message, but it's way off base on the physics.
After all, the Papa Bear, being the biggest, presumably has the largest bowl of porridge. Here, the story fits what we know about thermodynamics, as the largest bowl should take the longest time to cool, and thus should be the hottest at any time before the porridge bowls reach thermal equilibrium with their environment.
The description provided of the other two bowls…
thusspakezuska | April 27, 2009Sooooo....it appears some of you take your comics quite seriously. At least, should one be so foolish as to point out painfully obvious, boringly everyday occurrences of sexism.
Danimal asks of Comrade Physioprof: "So you are saying the comic reflects real life?"
What Physioprof said is this: "Every single one of the Foxtrots themselves represents absolute conformity to patriarchal gender norms. And the characters who are not part of the family who appear to violate those norms serve the patriarchal narrative purely as foils."
Inasmuch as patriarchal gender norms represent Real LifeTM,…
sciencewoman | March 24, 2009Yesterday Sheril Kirschenbaum and Chris Mooney of the Intersection announced that they were leaving Scienceblogs in favor of new digs at Discover. Unfortunately, commenters on other blogs around those parts have been behaving badly on posts welcoming the new bloggers. It appears that it doesn't matter how good a scientist and writer a blogger is, if she's female, only her appearance matters. (One more reason I only show off my footwear.)
Physioprof has an excellent (and relatively profanity-free!) post up taking apart this behavior and explaining why it is not appropriate to make your first…
palmd | February 9, 2009I keep pandagon.net on my google reader. I don't agree with everything I read there, which is a good thing, but I do respect Amanda Marcotte's opinions (and they are always well-written).
I must take some exception with her recent analysis of the octuplet fiasco. It's not just that I have a problem with blaming everything bad on Teh Patriarchy (which I do), but I think that sometimes dealing with patriarchy distracts from other real issues. Yes, sexism and patriarchy are important in society, but not everything is that simple. Let's take a look (emphasis mine):
At this point in time, I…