John Tierney ignores (mountains of) data that do not support his hypothesis

I can't believe my mother hasn't emailed me this NYT article yet. It's right up her alley. Any minute now, my inbox should be pinging with a reminder that I am unnatural, not female, possibly not human, and any day now my British husband will squeeze into a tutu and leave me for a gay man who does better oral than me. Isn't that the gawd-ordained fate of a female scientist?

I don't mind, actually, if my being a scientist means I can't be a woman too. As long as I get to keep the multiple orgasms, Mr. Tierney can envision a new gender for me, since I definitely don't have a penis. Although this brings to mind a whole new genre of pornography...

Anyway, for anyone interested, the fact of sexism in science can be found at the following links, although I really dislike having to repeat what has been shouted by many, many people and which Mr. Tierney is well aware of:

Nature, SherryTowers' investigation of Fermilab
European Commission Directorate-General Research Report on sexism in STEM (pdf)
A whole wagon-load of scholarly references, brought to you by Science (pdf)

You know what discouraged me from going into science/tech/eng? It wasn't all that subtle. I mean, when you sit down in your high school algebra class on the first day of eleventh grade, and your teacher sneers at the class that he doesn't want to teach this class because, and I quote, "you girls should all be in Home Ec, not taking a college prep level class," that was a pretty clear indicator that I wasn't welcome. Thanks, Mr. Tryba!

Also, I'm Pennsylvania Dutch. I was reared to bake really good pies, muck out barns, and serve dinner to the menfolk and to Grandmom, who ruled the Thanksgiving table with an iron fist. Not to be "anything you want to be, honey!" unlike many young women these days. I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not have X, Y and Z because it was a Thing For Boys. My mother figured that when I went to college (which she wasn't willing to pay for, not for a daughter), I would study art or English Lit or some cheesy thing until I got my MRS degree. She demanded, several times, that I not take classes she didn't approve of, even though she wasn't paying for them. Nor was she above going through my mail to find out if I was lying about my course schedule. My honors advisor once had a faux schedule printed up for her benefit, and I used to get mail at my advisor's office for that reason.

When I was an undergrad, oh lordy, which story do I tell? The one about the genetics prof who regaled a room full of honors students (men and women) with his stories of picking up prostitutes to see to his "manly needs"? The one about the ecology prof who couldn't keep his hands to himself and figured that having tenure meant you could perv on your students and hang up Playboy centerfolds in the main office? The other genetics prof who told his class that "ladies are always welcome to come to class without their clothes"? The chemistry department head who, if you asked for help on the homework, offered to exchange sex for grades with several students before finally picking on an Iraq War v. 1.0 vet who sued him into oblivion? They've all created some special memories, for sure.

It's funny, does anyone really ask why people leave science? I see a lot of speculation in the editorial pages of the weekly journals, plus a lot of speculation by the authors Mr. Tierney cites, ("women just aren't interested"--did you ask? no you didn't, you ASSumed) but it seems like no one really asks anyone. Maybe we should have exit interviews. I know many of my fellow alumnae ended up going to nursing, dentistry or medical school instead of into research as a direct result of their experiences with sexism. I know several female co-workers who went into nursing school or teaching because they needed a steadier job than STEM could offer; outside of the coastal areas of the US and a few select regions in Europe, steady, middle-class-paying jobs for scientists, engineers and mathematicians are pretty thin on the ground. When I lived in the Midwest, I once was offered a job that involved temping for a full year before the possibility of full-time work would even be considered, for $15/hour, with a 90-minute commute (one way), no health insurance, working with BSL-3s. And this was for a federal defense contractor. Nursing, with starting pay at $20/hour and all the benefits you can eat, looks pretty good from there.

I can also see the rationalization that women leave for family reasons. I've always wanted a stay-at-home wife, myself; you know, the kind from the 1950s who does all the housework and greets you at the door with a cold drink and dinner ready? I asked my husband if he would be a househusband, though, and he didn't seem too keen on the idea. He immediately saw the downside to being a stay-at-home spouse: economic insecurity, infinite boredom, social aspects of work, plus the basic reality that doing housework all day really blows. But if you have a spouse who earns a lot more than you (likely, given the usual wage disparity in most jobs), and your actual workplace isn't all that social or fulfilling (perhaps because your colleagues are sexist jerks), then maybe daytime TV and play-dates with the neighborhood Mommy Brigade don't look so bad.

Hey, there's my inbox now! I bet it's mom...