Telling Women's Lives

Allie Hubbard- Reader Response 3/20

There were many startling things that stuck out to me when reading the NY Times article, “Why There Are Still So Few Women In Science”. One being that a women experienced in her classes grading students based on a “boy curve” and a “girl curve” because the teacher though that you couldn’t really expect a girl to compete with boys in Physics on equal terms. Teachers are supposed to be the ones that encourage women and help break this stigma, but instead enabled this gender bias. As the author noted, all she wanted to hear was someone praise her and tell her to go get her Ph.D. But, her teacher actually noted that he doesn’t encourage anyone to go into physics of math because it’s a hard life. I think it’s very important to reinforce this message to teachers, whether that be in training sessions or by the school principle that women need positive reinforcement. Beyond encouraging girls to go into science, teachers need to make sure that girls aren’t interested because they believe that science and math just isn’t something that girls don’t go into to or whether it is truly something that doesn’t interest them.

When reading the other NY Times article about the interview with C. Megan Urry I was very much surprised by the problem of sexual harassment at academic conferences. Being at these types of conferences as a women is hard to begin with because of the intimidation of being a woman, but having the fear of being sexually assaulted is not acceptable. Also, the importance of your mentor really surprised, which is usually a male, and him having the power of the success of your career. This is very scary because you are going to listen to anything he says. This is bound to have many negative consequences. There are many times when I feel intimidated being a women in business being a woman, but I cannot imagine my levels of fear knowing the prevalence of sexual harassment at conferences.