(no subject)

[naath]

foreverdirt linked to this excellent talk about sexism in science, the talk is an hour long and there are introductions before and questions after so it is a bit long, but I think worth it.

One of the excellent points made, and one that I have failed to express when I wanted to, so I'll do it here instead - is saying things like "women are innately worse at science" is *actively harmful* to the progress of women in science, and that if you are thinking of saying such a thing in public then you really ought to be very sure that you are right; that just saying such things with the force of your reputation and your conviction that you are right will cause other people (in this case women) to internalise the message (and as a result be worse at science). It turns out that this has actually *been tested*; if you give girls a maths test then they *do worse on it* if you remind them that girls aren't good at maths before they sit it.

Comments

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

do you have views on something like an all-women's university? If Good Science emerged from such a thing people might get the point.

However I believe it is rather difficult to start from scratch and become a Good University if you don't have a few hundred years to spare.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Good Universities can't really just be invented - you have to attract the talent, and the funding and so on.

I was personally very happy at Newnham because having more women senior members meant that I had a greater chance of being supervised by women - which lead to greater confidence that, yes, women do go on to do well in Science. I know that other people didn't like it so much though, so I'm not sure if it is in general a Good Thing.