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AAUW -- Solving the Equation: The Variables for Women’s Success in Engineering and Computing (2015)

6/25/2015

The report asks why there are still so few women in the critical fields of engineering and computing — and explains what we can do to make these fields open to and desirable for all employees.

More than ever before, girls are studying and excelling in science and mathematics. Yet the dramatic increase in girls’ educational achievements in scientific and mathematical subjects has not been matched by similar increases in the representation of women working as engineers and computing professionals. Just 12 percent of engineers are women, and the number of women in computing has fallen from 35 percent in 1990 to just 26 percent today.

http://www.aauw.org/research/solving-the-equation/

AAUW -- Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (2010)

6/25/2015

In an era when women are increasingly prominent in medicine, law, and business, why are there so few women scientists and engineers? AAUW presents compelling evidence that can help to explain this puzzle. The report presents in-depth yet accessible profiles of eight key research findings that point to environmental and social barriers — including stereotypes, gender bias, and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities — that continue to block women’s progress in STEM. The report also includes up-to-date statistics on girls’ and women’s achievement and participation in these areas and offers new ideas for what each of us can do to more fully open scientific and engineering fields to girls and women.

http://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few/

Erving Goffman -- Stigma (1963)

6/25/2015

Erving Goffman introduced the word “stigma” to describe the phenomenon of excluding persons with disabilities, morally unearned. They are marked with shame and disgrace.

People who do not have “ordinary and normal” characteristics are stigmatized.

During the Christian Middle Ages, criminals, slaves or traitors were tattooed, branded, or physically mutilated (including blinding) to mark them as undesirables. It was a mark of shame and disgrace. A person with a stigma is sub-human, inferior, or morally bad.

Society categorizes people as ordinary and natural based on certain characteristics and expectations. These categories become unconscious and automatics. They comprise a virtual social identity. A person who does not have normal characteristics will be perceived as tainted, bad, dangerous, or weak. These attributed evoke stigma, or shame.

There are three types of stigma. First, due to physical deformities. Second, due to qualities of character such as dishonesty, addiction, or unemployment. Finally, there are stigmas of race, nation, and religion. Children learn stigmas in school, and taunt without inhibition. The stereotypes are specific: blind people are not supposed to make jokes, or enjoy dancing.

The central feature is social acceptance. Stigma “spoils the social identity.” It is a form of “social death.” The victim internalizes the stigma in self-hate. As one said, looking in a mirror, “I saw a stranger, a little, pitiable, hideous figure.”

It disrupts every social interaction. “Looking for a job was like standing before a firing squad. Employers were shocked that I had the gall to apply for a job.”

[From L.M.C. Brown:]
During difficult economic times, there is increased aggression toward stigmatized groups. “Some people are stigmatized for violating norms, whereas others are stigmatized for being of little economic or political value.”

Not all “otherness” or “difference” is stigmatized. Stigmas reflect the values of the dominant group, which determines (consciously or unconsciously) which human differences are undesired and devalued to the point of stigma.

People with disabilities are constant reminders of the “negative body” – what the able-bodied are trying to avoid, forget, and ignore.

Western civilizations prize personal autonomy and independence. Excessive dependence and helplessness is associated with being child-like. Women are expected to be attractive. Adults should have children. Negative cultural views are reinforced by the media, clergy, health personnel, development agencies, and literature.

DOES THIS APPLY TO ME?

If you don’t have a visible disability now, and you live a long time, you may have one before you die. “Stigma” can describe how we treat the poor, older females, older people with infirmities. Immigrants we find strange.

http://www.amazon.com/Stigma-Notes-Management-Spoiled-Identity/dp/0671622447/

Inspiring women

6/25/2015

Why only women, you might ask? Because Ginger Rogers danced every step as did Fred Astaire, but backwards and on high heels. And he's the famous dancer. It's harder to be a woman.

Who's on your list?

ARTS/MOVIES/LITERATURE

Margaret Atwood
Judy Blume
Pearl Buck
Ellen DeGeneres
Judy Densch
Isak Dinesen
M.K. Fisher
Hannah Gadsby
Sally Hawkins
Lillian Hellman
Ursula K. Le Guin
Bette Midler
Helen Mirren
Maggie Smith
Anna Deavere Smith
Meryl Streep
Betty White
Oprah Winfrey
Virginia Woolf

WORLD TRAVEL/DISCOVERY

Alexandra David-Neal
Madame Blavatsky

POLITICS/LEADERSHIP

Angela Merkel
Catherine the Great
Rita Colwell
Eleanor Roosevelt
Hillary Clinton
Elizabeth Warren

ACADEMICS/RESEARCH

Karen Horney
Jane Goodall
Margaret Mead
Stephanie Coontz
Virginia Valian

Monthly update on status of women

6/24/2015

The Institute for Women's Policy Research puts out a monthly email called RESEARCH NEWS ROUND-UP summarizing new research on women’s issues and areas of interest to women and their families. You get the summary and the citation, with a link to a full paper. See more at: http://www.iwpr.org/publications/newsletters

To get this, you need to JOIN IWPR. It's a subscription.

IF you are writing on this topic and want to stay current, this is a good source.

Status of Women in the States 2015

6/24/2015

The Status of Women in the States, a project of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) since 1996, provides new and updated data and trend analysis on women’s economic, social, and political progress in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States overall.

It was released in Spring 2015. The reports include: Employment & Earnings, Poverty & Opportunity, Work & Family, Violence & Safety, Reproductive Rights, Health & Well-Being, and Political Participation.
You can look at the whole country on one indicator, or full profiles of individual states.

http://statusofwomendata.org/publications/2015-national-report/

also http://www.iwpr.org/

WHAT'S IT GOOD FOR?

When you see politicians from certain states talk about controlling access to birth control, denying higher minimum wages, and generally denying better work conditions for women, poverty, pregnancy rates -- LOOK UP THAT STATE and send some data to that politician. Keep them honest. The worst states for women are the poorest, most restrictive, and -- ahem -- tend to be Red and Southern.

Allan G. Johnson -- Privilege, Power and Difference

6/24/2015

Examines systems of privilege and difference in our society. It explains racism, sexism, income inequality, poverty. How systems of oppression work. How to think critically about inequality and oppression. Also, how to turn our beliefs in justice and equality into practice.

It is read in sociology and philosophy in college, and anytime.

Johnson lives in Connecticut and is available as a speaker.

Web site at http:///www.agjohnson.us

This book on AMAZON

Careers, fantasies

6/24/2015

When we talked about “careers and you” in middle school, I thought I wanted to be a surgeon or a nuclear physicist, because they earned a lot and they had infinitely interesting work.

When I was in college in the 1960s, I met a female surgeon in the airport. She said she was one of four female surgeons in the country. I asked her if she would recommend that career. She said you have to expect harassment all the way, and lots of push-back. “You’ll have to be very, very tough.”

I didn’t feel tough. I learned there were quotas for females in medical school. I had no idea how you financed a dream like that. My major was literature, because that door was open and fun.

Recently I did a reality check. Late in life I am aware of MANY careers that I would have liked. Who knows if I would have liked being a doctor? Many are unhappy because of paperwork, pressures to turn over patients, etc.

Here’s what might have worked had I known about them:

Surgeon
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
Mediator
Think tank/policy analyst & researcher
Successful novelist
Herbal medicine
Documentary film maker
Journalist
Translator/interpreter at UN level
Graphic artist
Science data simulation expert
Girl Scout professional
Forest ranger
Prosthetics designer
Doula/nurse practitioner w/refugees

Many kids head for careers that someone in their family already has. They choose majors in college having no work experience, with no idea what it costs to live, well or simply.

Advice I wish I’d gotten early:

Open your mind to a wide range of careers that match your personality. At twenty or so, your work experience is limited, even through your family and friends. Before you commit to a career and invest in years of preparation, get an assessment of personality and your fit with certain kinds of work and environments.

One example is the Birkman Method (https://www.birkman.com/). Or the Strong Interest Inventory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Interest_Inventory). Also Myers-Briggs for generally, how you interact with the world (http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/).

For example, I know a number of ex-lawyers who passed the bar and three months in, found they hated the work, the conditions of work, or the culture. Teachers who love to teach and find out they can’t stand a room full of kids every day. People in academics who discover that they really like doing projects for clients more than writing papers and putting up with academic politics. (That was me, a very unhappy starting academic.)

A few hundred dollars can save you regretting years and thousands spent on a degree.

Here's looking at 100

6/24/2015

A psychic told me I would live to 100 and my reaction was: NO, NO, NO!!!

If the aging body is in unfortunate shape now, think 30 years from now: lumpy-dumpy, wads of loose fat here and there, sore joints, bald head, slow brain.

Are there role models for being 100 with dignity, grace, and acceptance? Finding joy in the soul and brain you’ve got, and ignoring the mirror?

One person comes to mind: Stephen Hawkings. He “lost his youth” to ALS in his twenties, married, had children, and speaks in public hauling his completely ruined body in a motorized wheel chair, using a computer to talk, activated by a single cheek. He smiles a lot.