Bravo to <a href="http://www.queerday.com/2005/mar/07/300_attend_candlelight_vigil_for_james_maestas.html">Governor Richardson</a> for speaking out forcefully against the <a href="http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/11159.html">brutal gay-bashing</a> that occurred Feb 27 in Santa Fe New Mexico, and for applying New Mexico's <a href="http://www.adl.org/learn/news/Mexico_hate_law.asp">new hate crime law</a> for the first time to this incident.  This horrific event was not extensively reported. I heard a report on <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4529292">NPR covering the incident</a> by Angela Taylor, but nothing on other mainstream news sources. Such hate-crimes must be loudly and publicly condemned.Â
Despite "No Confidence" vote, Lawrence Summers will stay.
Posted in Sexist pigs on March 16, 2005 by Blog Admin<p>Gee Lawrence, what will it take to show you the door? Given your poor track record for tenuring women, and your publicly expressed belief that women are innately less suited to science and math fields, it seems that you might be a bit of a liability. Have you checked the gender <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf00327/pdf/app2.pdf">breakdown of undergraduate enrolments in biology and environmental sciences lately</a>, or are they not a "real" sciences in your book? <font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#ffffff">Bravo to the faculty of Harvard for </font><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/03/16/summers_gets_vote_of_no_confidence/"><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#0099ff">voting no-confidence 218 to 185</font></a><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#ffffff">. Do future undergraduate women a favor, and step down. What kind of message are you sending them?  How many future Barbarba McClintocks and Jane Goodalls will never emerge because of you? So, as many Harvard students sang yesterday, "Na na na na, hey hey Good bye" Lawrence!</font></p>
Jane Goodall
Posted in Women's Voices on March 13, 2005 by Blog Admin<p>Once again in honor of Women's History Month and to offset the damage done by Lawrence Summers, I am focusing on a great woman scientist, the renown primatologist <a href="http://www.wic.org/bio/jgoodall.htm">Jane Goodall</a>. Jane Goodall faced many obstacles to her being accepted by the scientific academic community. As Jane initiated her scientific career, she did not have formal scientific training, and went about her data gathering in an unconventional manner.  Some of Jane's strategies included naming the individual chimpanzees that she studied, rather than numbering them, and recording information about chimpanzees' vivid personalities. It was Jane who shook our understanding of what it is to be human by observing chimps using tools to gather food. At this time it was assumed only humans used tools. </p><p>One may ask how a women without (at least initially) formal scientific training could become a world-famous primatologist. It was the brilliance of <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/boleak.html">Louis Leakey</a> to recognize the limitations of formal scientific methodologies. He intentionally looked for someone with intelligence, but no formal science background. Jane had been serving as his personal secretary, and the rest is history. Jane did pursue and receive her PhD, but not before making startling discoveries. She continues to be a tireless advocate for conservation education through her institutes, the <a href="http://www.janegoodall.org/jane/default.asp">Jane Goodall Institutes</a>. Imagine if this different-thinking woman would have been silenced by a Lawrence Summers of her time!</p>
Barbara McClintock
Posted in Women's Voices on March 5, 2005 by Blog Admin<p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; COLOR: #333333; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><font color="#ffffff">In honor of Women's History Month and as a sort of antidote to recent media support of Lawrence Summers' suggestion that women are innately less suitable to enter scientific and mathematical fields, I would like to remind everyone of </font><a href="http://www.nas.edu/history/members/mcclintock.html"><font color="#ffffff">Barbara McClintock's</font></a><font color="#ffffff"> contributions to science. Evelyn Fox Keller has </font><a href="http://www.whfreeman.com/generalreaders/book.asp?disc=TRAD&id_product=1002001829&@id_course=1058000241"><font color="#ffffff">a fabulous book concerning Barbara</font></a><font color="#ffffff">, called </font></span><strong><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #333333; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><font color="#ffffff">A Feeling for the Organism </font></span></strong><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #333333; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><strong><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><font color="#ffffff">The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock. </font></span></strong></span></b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #333333; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><font color="#ffffff">Barbara McClintock represents an instance of how women's cognition is necessary to accurately express the complexities of scientific phenomenon, that traditional reductionistic approaches cannot adequately express. Barbara McClintock was a </font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytology"><font color="#ffffff">cytologist</font></a><font color="#ffffff"> who studied higher-level (more complex) organisms than her male counterparts. Although she was a renowned researcher well before 1929, she could not get a tenure track position at a University until 1936, and it was an entry-level position. </font></span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; COLOR: #333333; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"></span></p><p><font color="#ffffff"></font></p><p><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #333333; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana"><font color="#ffffff">Barbara had a unique ability to recognize complex structural relationships in genetic materials by observation that allowed her to discover sophisticated genetic interrelationships, like "mobile genetic elements", for which she was granted a </font><a href="http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1983/"><font color="#ffffff">Nobel prize in 1983</font></a><font color="#ffffff">. Barbara discovered this phenomenon in the 1940's and yet it took several decades to receive acknowledgment.  It appears that women's interconnected way of thinking actually contributed to Barbara McClintock's brilliance, rather than detracted from it. What do you think of that Lawrence?!</font></span></p>
ABC News suggests that Lawrence Summers is justified
Posted in Sexist pigs on March 2, 2005 by Blog Admin<p align="left">On the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=537795&page=1">ABC Evening News yesterday (March 1, 2005)</a> Peter Jennings indicated that Lawrence Summers is justified in suggesting that biological differences are a significant reason why women are underrepresented in engineering, mathematics, and science. </p><p align="left">Historically, science has pointed to various physical differences in women to "explain" their inferiority, especially in the realm of intelligence. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/science/24women.html?ex=1109912400&en=19c7ed4c1aeb7d00&ei=5070&oref=login">According to the NY Times, "A century ago, the French scientist Gustav Le Bon pointed to the smaller brains of women - closer in size to gorillas', he said - and said that explained the "fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason" in women.</a>"</p><p align="left">There are clear biological differences between men and women, which applies to our brains as well. I think it begs the question that one brain structure should be superior to the other. Scientific paradigms tend to favor male (atomistic/positivistic) thinking and discriminate against female (contextual and interconnected) thinking styles.  Shouldn't quality problem solving involve multiple thinking strategies and paradigms? <a href="http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2465/is_2_31/ai_71634867">"The Gendered Atom"</a> does a nice job of explaining how science has been biased against women, and does not adequately represent the complex interconnected reality of science.</p><p align="left">Despite the brain research that currently exists, I think it is inexcusable to suggest that women are not cut-out to be scientists or anything else for that matter. It's time to retire Summers!</p>
Bush Abroad
Posted in Media Watch on February 23, 2005 by Blog Admin<p><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#ffffff">As George W. Bush is traveling in Europe, I am reminded of an international trip that his Daddy made to the Republic of Panama, after </font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Just_Cause"><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#0099ff">"Operation Just Cause</font></a><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#ffffff"><font color="#0033ff"><font color="#0099ff">"</font>.</font> I'd like to draw a few parallels and contrasts. Listening to </font><a href="http://www.ndrinfo.de/ndrinfo_pages_nimex/0,3228,SPM5170_URLaHR0cDovL3d3dy50YWdlc3NjaGF1LmRlL2V4cG9ydC9OSU1FWC8wLDE2NDYsT0lENDA4ODE4Ml9NT0QxLDAwLnhtbA==,00.html"><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#0099ff">NDR4 </font></a><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #333333" color="#ffffff">(North German Public Information Radio) I heard the report of the demonstrations against George W. during his visit in Brussels (and Germany as well). Unfortunately, few mainstream American media sources reported on this issue. During the summer of 1990 I was teaching in the Republic of Panama. During this time, Daddy Bush made a PR stop to show the world the gratitude of the Panamanian people for <em>Operation Just Cause</em>.  To ensure a positive performance by the attendees of Daddy's speech, it was invitation only. (Does this remind you of someone's Presidential campaigning technique?) Despite being invitation only (only wealthy people were invited), the speech did not take place, because the Mayor of Panama City could not finish her introduction due to the tear gas that was thrown. Too bad! I watched the speech live on a military channel, which simply went off the air, after it was apparent that things were not going well. What type of democratic society cannot sustain critical discussion of it policies? What kind of censored country are we living in?!</font></p>
Iraqi Elections
Posted in Media Watch on February 18, 2005 by Blog Admin<p>So a mere $300 Billion to fund massive destruction, <a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.net/">tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis dead</a>, <a href="http://icasualties.org/oif/">around 1500 US military</a> and hundreds of the coalition-of-the-willing dead, and what has the US involvement wrought in Iraq?  Bringing about another religious state in the region? At least the Iraqi people told Bush what they thought of his influence by voting for the US backed party of Iyad Allawi by a mere 14%, and supporting the Shiite, United Iraqi Alliance, by 48%.</p><p>There is a silver lining to this horrific quagmire. According to Naomi Klein in her column "<a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050228&s=klein">Getting the Purple Finger</a>", the platform of the United Iraqi Alliance calls for a time table for US withdrawal, calls for the state to provide all able Iraqis with jobs, and to use oil wealth for economic development projects. Sorry, Cheny you better pack up <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7115-2004Jul22.html">Halliburton and find another counry to plunder</a>. Hopefully, soon you won't have the US tax-payers' money to line your pockets with. </p>
Summers is criticized by other university presidents
Posted in Sexist pigs on February 15, 2005 by Blog Admin<p>In their recent editorial, "<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/02/12/women_and_science_the_real_issue/">Women and science: the real issue</a>" John Hennessey, computer scientist and president of Stanford University,  Susan Hockfield neuroscientist and president of MIT, and Shirley Tilghman molecular geneticist and president of Princeton University criticized <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/19/summerss_tortured_logic/">Lawrence Summers sexist remarks</a> at a conference titled, "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce: Women, Underrepresented Minorities and their S. and E. careers".</p><p>Given the long-history of discriminatory treatment of women scientists, male-oriented research paradigms as chronicled brilliantly in "<a href="http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2465/is_2_31/ai_71634867">The Gendered Atom</a>", I guess it's easier to blame the victim and be done with it. </p>