Cultural differences

So in discussing the Boobywars on ScienceBlogs, one commenter made a point of telling other ladies to show off their feminine attributes without fear, because we could not live our lives in fear and must, at some point, square our shoulders and work to change our culture. However, she also mentioned that she was surprised that junior scientists and students in her lab had intimated that they had used their feminine wiles to get grades, assistance, etc. and then went on to joke a bit about the importance of putting various unguents on one's breasts to make them more lustrous. I joked back, well, a better option might be glue, all things considered--I don't want to put on a peepshow by mere accidental stumble. She was not amused by my joke and seemed a bit horrified, as if the joke had been pushed too far for her liking. Maybe it was.

But the more I thought about it, the more it struck me that she must come from an extremely different world than me, money-wise. I went to school in economically depressed areas of the US, where double-digit unemployment was the rule rather than the exception. Women students at my alma mater frequently did put themselves through school by gluing things to their breasts and then jiggling the results at paying men. That was not unusual in the least; it was seen as just another option for a part-time job in college, like bartending. It paid rather better than most other part-time jobs, but this was looked on as hazard pay, similar to any other dangerous job that is done by part-time contractors (crab fishing, lumberjacks, etc.) and can only be done by the relatively young and healthy. Nor was it unheard-of for undergrad women to collect their tips from their own university department heads. The women themselves saw their own bodies as a straightforward economic resource, not a game. They wouldn't have found the commenter's joke funny, merely puzzling. Why would you put Vaseline on your breasts for any reason? Didn't she know it would make your skin break out? Then they'd expound on the many types of body make-up, relative pricing, ease of use, and so on. Some worked as prostitutes, also.

I cannot emphasize enough how normal and regular this was, especially for working class students. Lower-middle class students, whose parents were just barely able to send their daughters to school, but not able to afford them the tutoring and private schools that would have given them enough academic skills to compete, were more apt to trade their bodies for grades and favors. They didn't have any other means of getting grades enough to meet their aspirations, although those aspirations were not usually any different from those of wealthy students whose parents expected them to become doctors, lawyers and chief executives.

{Male students who needed to raise money in a hurry usually used their organic chemistry skills to manufacture LSD. You could correlate the student drug busts exactly with the announcement of tuition increases and the bursar's billing schedule. Students who only occasionally deal drugs aren't good at avoiding police detection. Basically, there's just not enough financial aid for students who need it, there aren't enough jobs for students who need them, and the jobs that exist don't pay enough. A temporarily crummy or black market job to get a leg up in the class wars is worth it to some people. They've seen how their parents live and don't want to die like that. But I digress.}

For decades, my alma mater's chemistry department was run by a man who did trade grades for boobage. All the chemistry teachers were known for grading their large lecture sections hard, and women especially. Some of my friends would experiment on their professors by coordinating their answers with the male students, then comparing grades. Male students got A-s and B+s for the same exam answers that merited a C- from female students. When this was brought to the attention of the department head, they were given the option of trading oral sex or stripteases for a revised grade. This scam went on for many years before the department head in question tried it on the wrong student, who promptly sued. One of my undergrad advisors argued on his behalf in court that it was grossly unfair of the school to fire him, since he had tenure.

When I went to grad school in an area that was far from economically depressed, in an area that was in the midst of a small boom, there were no strip clubs, no bad part of town where hookers cruised, no known whorehouses, and a few college bars which any respectable person could be publicly observed. Only a few students ever complained to me that they needed financial aid, and for the most part they managed to get scholarships or additional loans. The lower-middle class kids did offer to trade sex for grades, but this was fairly infrequent and many professors were horrified by the propositions they received.

It struck me that the commenter and I are coming from such different experiences. I don't think to show off any of my feminine attributes, well fit as they are, because when I was a lass showing off your figure was something women might do for money, certainly not for free, and it was a job I didn't want. There were professional jobs that I wanted to have, grubby jobs I didn't want to have, and showing off your feminine wiles was grouped along with "scrubbing toilets" and "car salesman" under the Jobs I Don't Want heading. Things I might have to do out of economic necessity, but would prefer not to do if at all possible. Yet to the commenter, her breasts and sexuality are toys, a joke, a fun part of her appearance and something she can afford to lecture other ladies about. If she ever struggled with a difficult class, no doubt her first tactic was to study harder, get tutored, attend extra study sessions. She didn't have to do the calculus of X hours in class + Y hours at work = no additional time for studying, and wonder how to pass a needed course at her wits' end. She cannot see how her economic advantage shaped her thinking on the matter, or how she can afford to be brave in the confidence that she has many other options for battle or for escape if she encounters a sexist situation.

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...