Guest Post: Men, Women and Self-Promotion in Astronomy

This is a cross-post from Rob Simpson's blog Orbiting Frog.

We’re running the fifth .Astronomy conference later this year in Boston. .Astronomy is a small (and awesome) conference for astronomers, where you must apply to participate. Although the tone is relaxed, spaces at the event are in short supply (there are only 50 places). You don’t have to talk at .Astronomy, and there are only a few speaking slots, but it’s a pretty friendly crowd and you can talk about a wide variety of things. So why did only 2 women submit an abstract (out of 27 female applicants) versus 30 men (out of 65)?

We would like to create a broad group of speakers but it’s hard to select talks that don’t exist. Did we inadvertently create a bias toward male speakers by soliciting abstracts on the sign-up form? If so, that’s a worry because it’s how a lot of conferences do this.

Unconscious Bias: A Personal Story

I have given a seminar on Unconscious Bias a few times recently. Some of you have heard it! During the introduction, I try to convey the idea to the audience that we all have biases, and we are (for the most part) unaware of them. Unconscious bias can have a detrimental effect on job/fellowship applications, proposal/performance reviews, award nominations, and promotions – in short, it comes into play any time we are evaluated. In general, men and women BOTH unconsciously devalue the contributions of women, so it is important to understand that unconscious bias is not discrimination and it is not prejudice. In order to emphasize that this is not a talk about male chauvinist pigs versus feminazis, I tell the story about the discovery of my own unconscious bias.

Challenging the Status Quo in Utah

I read an interesting article in the on-line Daily Herald about efforts to attract more women to science and technical fields at Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem, Utah.  The study contains a number of specific and reasonable suggestions for how to improve the current situation.

The article is written by Barbara Christiansen about a study by UVU professors Cheryl Hanewicz and Susan Thackeray.  The study was done to address the problem of women scoring lower than men on math and science standards tests when entering UVU.  Here are the numbers:  37% vs 43% women vs men meeting the standards for math and 25% vs 33% for science.   One of the motivations for the study was that the Utah legislature has recently approved $10M to enhance STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education and career opportunities in the state and the desire is apply these funds equitably.

AASWomen for June 7, 2013

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 7, 2013
eds. Caroline Simpson, Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, and Nick Murphy

This week's issues:

1. Two Years at Lick Observatory

2. Career Profile: From Astronomer to Tenure-Track Faculty

3. 'Women Programmers' and the Gender Bias in Science

4. Postdoc Pay: A Women's Issue

5. Women in Science Wednesday

6. App Camp for Girls

7. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

9. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Career Profile: Astronomer to Tenure Track Faculty

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with Meredith Hughes, an astronomer turned professor. She is a first-year, tenure track faculty at Wesleyan University, an undergraduate focused institution with a master's program in astronomy. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. We plan to post a new career profile to this blog every first and third Thursday of the month.

Two Years at Lick Observatory

When I found out that guest blogger, Sethanne Howard, had worked at Lick Observatory in the 1960s, I immediately asked her if she would write about the experience. Such a story not only plays to my love of the history of astronomy, but also to my other love of women in history. I had been thinking that we know a lot about a few famous women astronomers, but as a community, we know very little about the careers of others. Sethanne reminds me that this story represents only two years of her career, but having read, Eye on the Sky: Lick Observatory's First Century, and James E. Keeler: Pioneer American Astrophysicist, this story was impossible to resist! -- Joan Schmelz

I spent two years at Lick Observatory – Let me share with you what Lick was like way back when. First a little geography. Lick Observatory sits atop Mount Hamilton outside San Jose, California. Mt. Hamilton is part of the Diablo range of mountains. There is a 26 mile crooked road that winds its way through the mountains to reach the summit at 4200 feet. That road is – to put it bluntly – a challenge to drive. It is full of sharp u-turns on a road about one and a half cars wide. I forget what the shortest time from ground to summit is – but it was around 25 minutes. The road is so curvy because when the Observatory was built and equipment brought from the city below to the summit, it was brought by mule train. The mules could handle only so much incline. The road follows the old mule train road.

It has a history filled with legend and astronomy. Founded in 1888 and paid for by the James Lick estate which pushed for the largest telescope in the world. That was true for a time until the Yerkes 40" refractor came online around 1897. Lick had a 36" refractor (James Lick is buried in the pier). Lick was the wealthiest man in California and his donation to the telescope in today’s dollars ($1.2 billion) is still more than modern private investments. The world’s astronomers found their way to Lick to work under the dark skies, well above the inversion layer. One could see half dome in Yosemite off in the far distance across the valley. The skies are still dark but the inversion layer has risen. When I was there the inversion layer was just beginning to creep over the mountain top.

What Can I Do? CSWA Town Hall

I often get questions from graduate students and postdocs related to how they can help CSWA. They know they don’t have the time to commit to being a full-fledged committee member, but they believe in what we’re doing and want to do something to support women in astronomy & help create a female-friendly workplace. We have had some great suggestions from CSWA members, CSWA alums, and AASWOMEN readers. Today’s suggestions is especially timely because the CSWA Town Hall, “Unconscious Bias, Stereotype Threat, and Impostor Syndrome,” is taking place TODAY, Tuesday, June 4, at 12:45 - 1:45 pm in Wabash Ballroom 3 of the Indiana Convention Center.

Today’s suggestion: Invite your department chair/boss/research supervisor to attend the CSWA Town Hall.

Hope to see you there!