AASWomen Newsletter for August 21, 2020

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of August 21, 2020
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Alessandra Aloisi, and Jeremy Bailin

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]

This week's issues:

Leta Stetter Hollingworth, item 2
University of Nebraska Press

1. A female Ph.D. student’s cautionary tale and the need for peer mentorship

2. Meet The Forgotten Female Scientist Who Debunked Theories Of Male Superiority

3. Wives, Physics, and Nepotism in Academia

4. How to Showcase Your CV in a 2-Page Resume

5. Reckoning with Our Mistakes

6. Women less likely to receive pay for college internships

7. The X-Files and the Scully Effect - fake aliens, real-world phenomenon for women in STEM

8. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

A Data Driven Approach to Ending the Wage Gap

Originally printed in Quartz:

More than 20 years that have passed since the National Committee on Pay Equity first called for action on the gender wage gap. But not much has changed. Women continue to earn less than men, and research shows that women often have less successful salary negotiations, sacrificing tens of thousands of dollars in future earnings. As a woman who works in the tech industry, I often find myself asking: What will it take to truly drive change and close the gender wage gap?

For me, the answer is data.

After I graduated with a PhD in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley, I was interviewing for a job as a data scientist in San Francisco. My prospective new boss said, “I know you make about $14,000 a year as a graduate student at Berkeley, I’m going to offer you more than that.” And he did! Imagine my excitement when my starting salary was much more than my graduate stipend.

At the time, I had no idea what I should be making, nor did I know how to negotiate, as my last “job” had been in a completely different industry. What’s more, I had no other comparable offers to use as a baseline. I attempted to a higher salary because I was told that you always should, but I was ultimately unsuccessful.

Read the full story at Quartz.