Women In Astronomy: AASWOMEN Newsletter for August 8, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of August 8, 2014
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer

This week's issues:

1. On Leadership

From: Joan Schmelz via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

When I try to imagine a LEADER in the field of astronomy, it is not usually the likeness of a woman that comes to mind. I said in a blog comment recently that the front in the battle for gender equality has shifted to the senior ranks. I also know that we all need role models to help us navigate in unknown territory. As a senior woman in astronomy, it is my peers who are the emerging leaders. So where do we look for role models? Where do we go to get good advice from the women who have forged the path that we are trekking?

One place to look is the word of business. Although few and sometimes far between, women have been presidents and CEOs of major companies. Here are some quotes from these successful businesswomen that resonated with me:

"Don’t Be Your 'First, Worst' Critic" - Virginia Rometty, CEO, IBM

"I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist." - Virginia Rometty, CEO, IBM

3. Response to "The First Female Astronomer"

From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]

In response to the Huffington Post comment by Mario Livio. En He'du'anna was the first scientist in written history and she was an astronomer who lived in Ur, c 2334 BCE. Mario was 2,000 years off.

The original Huffington Post article can be accessed here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mario-livio/the-first-female-astronomer_b_5568077.html

4. Sign Up to Stay Informed about APS CUWiP

From: WIPHYS Posting for August 4, 2014

A new email list was created to share news, announcements, and deadlines related to the APS Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP). To join the list, email women@aps.org with the subject "Subscription to CUWiP email list". Alternately, join the APS Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) LinkedIn group to stay in the know. Join here:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Conference-Undergraduate-Women-in-Physics-4439529

5. In Science, It Matters That Women Come Last

From: Meredith Hughes [amhughes_at_wesleyan.edu]

by Emma Pierson

People tell me that, as a female scientist, I need to stand up for myself if I want to succeed: Lean in, close the confidence gap, fight for tenure. Being a woman in science means knowing that the odds are both against you being there in the first place and against you staying there. Some of this is due to bias; women are less likely to be hired by science faculty, to be chosen for mathematical tasks and to have their papers deemed high quality. But there are also other barriers to success. Female scientists spend more time rearing children and work at institutions with fewer resources.

One measure of how female scientists are faring is how many papers they write. Papers are the coin of academic science, like court victories to lawyers or hits to baseball players. A widely read paper could earn a scientist tenure or a grant. Papers map money, power and professional connections, and that means we can use them to map where female scientists are succeeding and where inequality prevails.

To this end, I downloaded and statistically analyzed 938,301 scientific papers from the arXiv, a website where physicists, mathematicians and other scientists often post their papers. I inferred the authors’ gender from their first names, using a names list of 40,000 international names classified by native speakers.1 Women’s representation on the arXiv has increased significantly over the 23 years my data set covers.

To read more, visit

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-science-it-matters-that-women-come-last

6. Why Lego's First Female Scientist Kit is Selling Out

From: Meredith Hughes [amhughes_at_wesleyan.edu]

by Aimee Picchi

When it comes to stating the obvious, sometimes it takes a child to make the case.

Take 7-year-old Charlotte Benjamin, who earlier this year wrote a letter to Lego to point out a major fault with its minifigures: "There are more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls." On top of that, the female minifigures did things like go to the beach and shop, while the boys "went on adventures, worked, saved people, and had jobs."

Several months after Charlotte wrote her plea, the toymaker has come out with its first minifigure set featuring scientists who are also women, designed by geoscientist Ellen Kooijman. The three tiny plastic figures are a paleontologist, an astronomer and a chemist, and they come with props that include scientific instruments, such as a telescope and a microscope. It turns out that Charlotte was onto something: Shortly after going on sale, the $19.99 minifigure set is already sold out at the Lego store.

Women In Astronomy

Friday, August 8, 2014

AASWOMEN Newsletter for August 8, 2014

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