where did the women go?

i helped organize a Women in Astronomy Workshop for the astronomical society of australia that took place in sydney this past friday the 13th of may. a major goal of the workshop was to raise awareness of general issues that face women, who ultimately drop out of the field in huge numbers within a few years of getting a PhD, and work towards finding solutions that can be applied by institutions and individuals to retain women in the profession and help them succeed.

so what is the problem exactly? the good news is that half the students attaining undergraduate science degrees from universities are women. not everyone is interested in attaining a degree beyond a bachelors degree, and that is absolutely reasonable, but of those that choose to pursue a PhD, roughly 40% are women (in australia anyway, the percentage worldwide is probably between 30% and 40% for astronomy). but within a few years of getting a PhD the percentage of participating women starts dropping dramatically, such that less than 8% of science professors are women and less than 4% of the top level positions at science institutions, universities, and observatories are appointed to women. from a management standpoint, it is an incredibly poor business practice to invest in the training of so many women only to lose all their knowledge, expertise, and training within a few short years.

keep in mind that this isnt a problem unique to astronomy or even academia: in the corporate sector, women hold something like 15% of the highest positions and board seats, and of all the people in parliament in the world, only 13% are women (source: see video below). it is not possible just simply to say - women have babies and then decide to drop out of their profession. this is true for some, partially because there is not yet adequate support and flexibility to help parents get back into the swing of things after such a career break, but overall the reasons are much more complex and not discussed openly enough, in my opinion.

one point made at the workshop that i had not fully appreciated before is that women tend not to say things in meetings (big or small) unless they are almost certain that what they are about to say is absolutely "correct." it is more common for men to throw out speculative ideas without regard to whether someone might show they are wrong, or without considering whether their statement might hold up an otherwise very tight meeting agenda.

one of the many reasons for this might be something called "the imposter syndrome," which affects most people to some degree, but much more often women, and potentially to a career-debilitating degree. the imposter syndrome describes the fear or worry that eventually someone will figure you out and realize you're not actually as smart and capable as they think you are! this can prevent you from negotiating contracts, asking for promotions, or applying for grants or positions that you think you probably wont get. of course women and men are equally capable, but the trouble is, you can never get something you don't apply/ask for, and the numbers show that men more often ask for promotions and apply for grants than women.

i recognize that it is my responsibility to speak up at meetings and make a vocal contribution of substance in order to be noticed, heard, acknowledged and appreciated, but i have to admit that it's almost always a challenge. when i attend a meeting or listen to a talk and a question or comment pops into my mind, inevitably my heart pounds loudly and i feel myself shaking a little from nerves over the prospect of speaking out to the group. you'd think after attaining a PhD, thinking about this astronomy stuff for so many years, and genuinely believing that i have ideas to offer the discussion, i would have gotten over these feelings, right? wrong. i still have to force myself to be brave and make the statement, to let my face turn beet red and risk sounding unknowledgeable or stupid.

i know i'm not the only one with these feelings and fears and the only way to help get over them is to be aware of them, admit them, talk about them, and have courage (i hope!)! that is part of what the workshop was about. almost 70 people showed up last friday, including several heads of university astronomy groups and the directors of observatories. considering there are only about 400 professional astronomers in australia, i thought the turn out was a great success! there were many female PhD students present, but the audience was noticeably lacking young male PhD students.

photo credit: bryan gaensler

unfortunately, i think the tendency for most people is to think "well, i'm not sexist (or racist, etc...) and i don't understand how anyone could openly express such discrimination, so i don't have anything to gain by attending such a workshop."

it's not enough just to believe that you do not practice these behaviours and then ignore the issues entirely, because  
we all have "unconscious biases" and many of your colleagues are systematically suffering because of them.   we need to be aware of these biases in order to change the current state of career progression and not lose female talent from continuing along the academic (or corporate or political) pipeline.


instead of going on about more potential problems that lead to the decreased number of women at the highest levels, i will refer you to the video below for some other issues, and move on to sharing some practical suggestions that came out of the workshop that can be implemented by institutions and individuals.

action points for institutions:

• appoint diverse committee members to select speakers for conferences and recipients of awards and jobs. our unconscious natural tendency is to want to work with people who are like ourselves. this is mostly ok, or at least understandable, but ever notice, for example, how invited speakers at conferences are almost always men despite the fact that attendees are much more gender balanced? of course there are fewer women who have reached the career stage to give invited talks, but we have to start recognizing and encouraging and exposing the women that are in the field. diversifying selection committees is one way of taking action towards this goal.

• supply childcare at professional meetings, especially national meetings, so that parents can also benefit from the community and the networking possibilities for themselves and their students. and since we all know that a lot of ideas and new collaborations happen at the pub and over dinner, offer a few evenings of childcare as well so parents can spend some time with contacts outside of the rigorous daily conference sessions.

• offer more flexible working arrangements and small grants to encourage mothers and fathers to return to work while dealing with all the unpredictable time frames of children. examples: if you are advertising a position and it is possible to hire someone at part time, mention that in the ad! monash university offers a populate and publish maternity leave grant (what a name!?!). offer an option to take unpaid holidays for school breaks, provide onsite childcare, support a child friendly work environment (and tell employees!).

• encourage employees at all levels to participate in organized mentoring programs. if there is no program in place, develop one.  dont make the mistake of assuming that "hard work and merit" are the only factors necessary for advancement for every individual. people also need encouragement and mentoring.

• in applications, ask for selected 5 years of publications, instead of just previous 5 years, to account for career breaks.

• institute a double blind academic journal refereeing system. (can someone explain to me why this isnt already in place? that's not the only problem with the academic journal racket though.)

• have open discussions about these issues inside your working groups!! encourage the acknowledgement of unconscious bias.

action points for individuals:

• speak up at meetings (be brave), network broadly, find mentors, set goals, know when to say no, apply for things!! do not let people assume that just because you do a task once that you will always be responsible for it, especially if it isnt gaining you any prestige or career benefit! dont fear that because you say no you wont be "liked." the point is not to be liked, but to be respected.

• goals should be specific, measurable, attractive to you, realistic, and time-framed (short- and long-term).

• find mentors!   seek senior members who can be active mentors (both men and women), or widespread university programs, and do this at every stage in your career!  recognize who in your department or institution is useful, successful, powerful, and/or influential and get to know them! seek their advice and mentorship.

• pay attention to words used when writing recommendation letters. (as a test, search through the adjectives you have written in a letter for a man and a letter for a woman. it was a telling exercise in unconscious bias for one speaker at the workshop) 

• use appropriate titles (Dr, Prof, etc...) consistently for all colleagues regardless of gender.

• surround yourself with happy (not miserable) people in your working environment.

• make sure your romantic partner is a real partner in every sense of the word.

• be self aware of personal biases

please share any other ideas in the comments and i'll update this list if possible.  for further reading, the american astronomical society provides a nice page of resources for all.


i'll leave you with yet another excellent TED talk by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on "Why we have too few women leaders." she articulates some of the above, but also brings up several other very interesting points, including why it's true that "success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women."

UPDATE: if you're interested in this post, i recommend reading through the discussion happening inside the comments. i also encourage everyone to participate!

four finches - species are not immutable

i've seen many tattoo variations of darwin's four finches at the science tattoo emporium, but this one is definitely my favorite. it's subtle and artistic, beautiful and full of meaning!


while probably not the biggest influence, the finches that charles darwin found on the galapagos islands played an important role in helping him recognize the reality of the evolutionary process... that “species are not immutable.” the finches he found on different islands shared similar size, coloration, and habits, but the sizes and shapes of their beaks were so different that he originally thought they were all completely different types of birds. turns out the beaks are highly adapted to the different food sources eaten by birds in different locations.

the term Darwin's Finches was popularized in 1947 by David Lack in his book called Darwin's Finches and was first applied by Percy Lowe in 1936.

back to tattoos though, while i whole-heartedly agree with what david mitchell says in his column this week in the guardian, i still like my tattoo ;)

crisis of capitalism

i found this animated video of a lecture by sociologist David Harvey to be quite interesting.

imagine if the tea party was black

a very interesting perspective about the tea party protests in the US is given in this article by tim wise. i'll share some from the beginning, then you can read the rest if you like.

"Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington."

nobel peace prize 2009: barack obama

the smoke is clearing a bit since the whole world sighed a deep "what the fuck?" after hearing that standing US president, barack obama, won the nobel peace prize for 2009.

i think that, yes, he received the award a bit prematurely, considering he was only president for about 12 days when the nominations had to be submitted. but i think this is the first time the world (ok, the nobel committee) has been able to comment about obama as the US president. much of the world despised king bush the W and big dick cheney. international diplomats must be so pleased to have someone in the white house who recognizes the validity of other human beings and their nations that maybe this award symbolizes an acknowledgment of obama's efforts to bring the US back to a positive level of communication and collaboration with the rest of world.

i think the nobel peace prize and its $1 million reward might be a bit much for such a gesture, but i am pleased to hear obama say things like "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

in addition, the obamas hosted a star party at the white house last week!! how cool is that?!

anyway, here is geir lundestad, secretary of the norwegian nobel committee, describing why they gave the prize to obama. feel free to share your thoughts!

angela merkel

germany had nationwide elections on sunday and i heard that 70% of the voting population turned up at the polls! thats an amazingly high percentage of voters!


angela merkel remains germany's chancellor, defeating candidates from over 12 other parties in the election!

UPDATE: i should state that 70% is a *low* turnout for germany, even though it is high compared to many voting countries, including the US where last year's presidential election saw a 57% voter turnout. (thanks sabrina!)

grizzly bear chair

wow. this grizzly bear chair was a gift presented to the 17th president of the united states, andrew johnson, in 1865.


all i'm saying is... sarah palin.

war on drugs

in this video, dr. carl hart, a psychologist at the university of columbia, discusses some interesting ideas about the public's perceptions of drug use and abuse, and comments on some of the existing drug policies in the US. i've always thought the "war on drugs" was improperly directed. it seems to waste a lot of money on petty issues (i.e. arrests for marijuana possession) instead of focusing resources and energy on dealing with more hazardous substances.

an office without a computer?

does it seem a bit odd to anyone else that the president does not have a computer on his desk? maybe its just me.


the photo is from the official whitehouse photostream and commemorates obama's first 100 days in office.

dick cheney helps economy?

once again, the onion finds a way to hysterically encompass many of the US's political issues into one solid headline:

Cheney Dunk Tank Raises $800 Billion For Nation


if only it were that easy (and that fun)...

a gaza story

suleiman baraka is a palestinian astrophysicist working at virgnia tech with NASA. during an interview a couple days ago with democracy now, he shares a devastating account of his family that currently lives in gaza. his 11-year-old son was killed after a bombing, his extended family is still suffering thru the attacks.



there are over 1,100 such stories.

finally - a new US president!

this happy day is finally here: bush is out, obama is in. i'm extremely excited!! the world has high expectations for obama, which are nearly as high as what he seems to have set for himself! its unrealistic that he will accomplish all the changes he seeks, but i honor his conviction and determination, even if i dont agree with all of his suggestions. i'm ready to enjoy this inaugural day. i'm looking forward to no longer instantly rolling my eyes in disappointment (to say it lightly) every time my president opens his pie hole.

these nice images show the inauguration preparation (from the big picture):


the US capitol building where the official inauguration is taking place today, january 20, 2009, using abraham lincoln's bible.


nasa will participate in the inaugural parade! astronaut michael gernhardt will drive the new lunar electric rover, pictured above, which is current design for a mission to the moon in about 12 years! also participating are the entire crew that flew on space shuttle endeavour in november 2008 on the STS-126 mission.



up to 120,000 passengers an hour can be carried on washington dc's metro system... using these fancy tickets!


and please, someone explain to me the appeal of wax figures!! i just dont get it! they always seem more creepy than anything.

anyway, enjoy the day!!

obama: before and after

i found senator barack obama's speech from the 2004 democratic national convention. this was the first strongly publicized moment in obama's national political career that i remember. it's a 16 minute video where he's ultimately supporting then-candidate john kerry, but he talks for a long time about his life, inspiration, and philosophy - before he started to move toward the center, as candidates unfailingly do.



four years later, we are treated to an intimate view of how the obama's spent election night 2008... from an election night series at flickr.


president- and VP-elect, joe biden.


listening to mccain's gracious concession speech


support


(apparently the above video has a few lines cut out, here's the full speech which is a lot lower resolution)

election cookies

this is some dedicated baking as a contribution to the project from 52 to 48 with love! i like that each state is individualized and that texas has a little blue dot in the center marking austin!

electoral aftermath

congratulations Barack Hussein Obama for being elected the 44th president of the USA!

(wow)

i'm pleased. so pleased that i slept in after staying up rather late to watch the results (with a keen eye on ohio). i didnt make it late enough to see the speeches, but thought they were both appropriate and inspirational when i watched them this morning.

looking at ohio's results county by county, i'm still amazed at how distinctly separated the cities and rural areas are. nearly all the blue democrat counties harbor major cities or universities. cleveland went strongly democratic, and i'm pleasantly surprised that cincinnati didnt go republican (or all of ohio, for that matter!).


this seems to represent the majority of the country: urban voters choose democrat while rural areas vote republican.

i was also thoroughly impressed by the accurate results predicted by the fellas at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/. their statistical methods are/were quite impressive! scientifically motivated statistical analysis - it works, bitches!


now i get to go about being one of the few americans that i know around these parts, so i'm constantly (and pleasantly) bombarded by everyone's opinions and questions about how the complicated US electoral system works. i must say i'm feeling more relieved and positive on this side of the elections!

one question that i dont know the answer to - what is the origin of republican states as red states and democratic states as blue? i thought i'd ask my personal blog-i-verse before reverting to the googlipedia ;) yippee!

blue texas?

this is why we should be very skeptical about "projections"...

never take a choice for granted

election haikus

we have stolen much
from future generations
with "freedom" our guise

the world sits in wait
wondering what we will do
let's not disappoint

voted absentee
inconvenience was worth it
time to sit and wait

hope is a good thing
time to think positively
about the future

read election haikus by others here and here.

election eve

is anyone else's stomach all a flutter this election eve? i'm trying to prepare a talk i have to give tomorrow, but i cant stop reading news articles, op-ed's cartoons and general reports of fervor. i voted absentee. nothing left to do but ... wait... and maybe stay up all night tomorrow watching the results come in.

a fateful election

with the US election looming on the forefront of my mind, i found what thomas powers had to say in the new york review of books article, a fateful election, very interesting. i cant seem to decrease his message enough to just share highlights, so i'll print the whole thing here.

The big task facing the next president will be cleaning up the mess left by the last president. How big the task may be is not yet fully appreciated. There is the economic mess and there is the mess we call "the war." Included in the larger mess of the war are active military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; a semiclandestine war of increasing intensity in the Pakistani tribal areas; and continuing military tension with Iran that could open a new theater of active warfare more or less at any time.

Who got us into this mess? The answer is the Republicans, and more particularly the Bush Republicans, who had control of both Congress and the White House for six years and did as they pleased. The Bush Republicans have no one else to blame and neither do Barack Obama and the Democrats. You would think that a presidential campaign could be built around this fact but so far it does not appear to have happened. The change Obama seeks remains oddly bloodless, as if the mess were a found object, not something that someone had done.

But the architects of the mess could not be plainer. The credit crisis, like the savings and loan crisis of twenty years ago, was the predictable result of changes in regulation of banking and financial markets. The rollback of regulations was driven by free-market theories put into effect mainly by Republican presidents. More than seven hundred S&L institutions collapsed during the first crisis and it cost the American public more than $120 billion to clean up the mess. The price of cleaning up the current credit crisis is going to be a lot higher than that. For this money, the public gets nothing but the bitter solace that still worse calamities have perhaps been avoided.

In both cases the government bailout undermines the bedrock discipline of markets—mistakes are supposed to hurt. Shoring up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has the effect of insulating mortgage buyers from the consequences of stupid speculations, and encourages future speculators to count on friends in Washington for a soft landing when the next frenzy begins to heat up. The Bush Republicans stuck to free-market theory while their friends were making zillions, then abandoned free-market theory when the whole financial system threatened to collapse. The bailout in itself condemns the policy of deregulation which made the bailout necessary. But who is holding the Bush Republicans to account?

The cost of the ever-growing credit bailout is no longer pocket change, and may equal the cost of the war when it is all totted up. Figures for Iraq have reached the trillion-dollar range; Afghanistan is heading in the same direction. All of this money, like the money for the credit bailout, and the money for the taxpayer rebate stimulus intended to soften the recession triggered by the credit crisis in the first place, is borrowed money. Some of it is borrowed from Americans, some from foreigners, all of it from future generations. What happened to the Republicans of yesteryear who preached a gospel of fiscal responsibility? Many years ago when the Reagan Republicans were setting the stage for the savings and loan crisis, my speechwriting friend Tom Lewis, an astute observer of politics, summed up the ethos of the Republican Party in a single word: more.

But the biggest legacy of the Bush years is not debt. It is the idea that the United States must, and can, control the political landscape of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. The American military is waist-deep in the first two, knee-deep in Pakistan, and threatening to wade right into Iran as well if the Iranians don't accept our demand to dismantle their nuclear program.

John McCain intends to press the attack on all fronts. Barack Obama, if elected, could march us back out of this suckhole but it will not be easy. I fear he would find himself trapped by our national need to appear to succeed in any contest where Americans have shed blood. It somehow fails to matter that we are trying to do what no country can ever do for long—force strange people in distant places to reshape their politics and society more to our liking. The effort passes as nation-building at the outset, but in the long run counterinsurgency always comes down to the same self-defeating strategy—killing locals until they stop trying to make us go away.

In seven years of war, public debate has never managed to get out in front of events, and it is still trailing behind. The thing to keep in mind is that this all can get a lot worse. The American presence in the greater Middle East is large, unwelcome, and disruptive. We have shattered an equilibrium that kept Sunnis and Shiites from each other's throats for centuries. We have conceded to Turkey the right to send its military into Iraq at will. We have disrupted the understanding between the government of Pakistan and its tribal areas; and we have granted ourselves leave to chase after our enemies in Pakistani territory, an intrusion no government can tolerate for long. Over time the number of our enemies in this expanding arena of conflict and the cost of trying to control them will grow until we are half-crazy with frustration, are on the brink of something dangerously like civil war from arguing at home, and have run out of places to borrow money.

Americans have an odd way of arguing about politics. We don't like plain talk about matters that call for harsh judgments or recognition of failure. But some things are too big to hide or explain away, and so in the end I think voters will decide by a whisker for change.

read more contributions: here.