If you Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Back in the Kitchen.

This is funny.  Truman said this in reference to women in male dominated careers.  This is interesting, as his atomic bomb project employed many women due to their attention to detail in handling experiments.  Other female physicists worked on the projects developing the theories behind ‘fat man’ and ‘little boy’.  (Read:  The Making of the Atomic Bomb)

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education prompted this post.  “Reasons Why Women Leave Science and Technology Careers” from the Chronicle‘s June 18, 2008 edition has sparked quite the debate.  The article communicates that the reasons are similar to ‘the women can’t stand the heat’.  With quotes like, “women leave science and technology careers in droves because of “hostile macho cultures” and risk-taking incentives, among other reasons”, how can we expect to evolve as a society with such stereo-types?!

I have a degree in astrophysics.  I can code.  I do all things ‘anti-female’ and female.  I lost my research position that worked with NASA and several colleagues in Chile in 2002 because an incoming student (male) expressed interest in working with the project.  I then was given another assistantship – polishing telescope mirrors.  Out of anger, and assisted by the fact that one of my majors was being dropped, I left and finished my degree at another university.  Needless to say, my name is nowhere to be found on the paper published in 2005.

I cannot believe that the stereo-types women faced in the early 1940s while working on the atomic bomb project are still prevalent today.  Sure, not all women are golden, but not all of us are weak, lazy or incompetent.  We’re never going to get anywhere with society and education if this stereo-type remains.

I Need my People…NOW.

I just caught myself saying, “This email just takes so long!”  Sure, university email does take a little longer than typical email, but I didn’t always email.  I wrote letters to friends and such, but I have grown so accustomed to instant communication provided by email, text messages, cell phones and instant messaging.  How on Earth did we ever coordinate meeting somewhere without cell phones and text messaging.  Now there are instant messages and email you can take with you?!  Don’t get me wrong, I still love rotary style phones, but I love communicating – and instantly.  I need to communicate to my people.  I feel lost if my laptop isn’t with me or my cell phone dies (which in its old age of 2 years, it does quite frequently at this point).

Wow.  I now understand the theory behind Google’s ‘conversation’ style email.  My students email me in an instant message style of emailing.  We will snap brief, sometimes broken sentences back and forth within a few minutes.  Links, abbreviations and everything except formal letter format clutter our conversation.  Don’t get me wrong, we of this generation do have the ability to write formal correspondence, but where appropriate, we save time.

Off to check on that email I sent 5 minutes ago…

Hello World!

We’re back up and running!  We moved from doteasy to Bluehost.  Amen!  I’ll tweak tomorrow night since tonight I’m dancing to the rockin’ stylings of Abba (Mama Mia).  So, hang on – all will be pretty and techno-lovely Saturday morn.

New features to come:  Talkr or podcasting blog entries – I haven’t decided, but we’ll see.  I’d love to get this stuff podcasted since my posts aren’t the same without my intonation!  Also, WWDC is Monday, so I will be posting my thoughts and Chris and I may even use my new toy to podcast our reactions to the keynote!