My favorite feminists don’t let on too soon….

Hmm. You had to be there.

What greatly complicates the effort to introduce change is that academics view themselves (in general) as extremely open-minded, liberal in their views toward new ideas, and purely rational in all of their decisions.

A recent discussion with a college counselor who advises and advocates for students at a highly selective institution focused on the frustration in dealing with professors whose attitudes seem to date to the mid-1800’s — and the damage this inflicts on students. The counselor noted that many of the younger professors were just as difficult.

But of course — who hired them? Self-perpetuation is one of the key foundations of conservative cultures.

Nevertheless, it saddens me. Perhaps I’m a little unrealistic about this, but it would seem that of all of the disciplines, science should exhibit the least of this attitude. As a lawyer, I could argue for virtually any position, such as the absolute inferiority of women (and, of course, many in my field did for many years, both blocking women from voting and then once women were given the vote, arguing that women could not make good lawyers because they were too soft, or too nonconfrontational, or too interested in starting and raising families to devote the time needed to practice law). Facts in science differ from facts in law. A Don Henley song phrase too uncomfortably describes this distinction: “There are no facts, just data to be manipulated.”

But there seems no room for this kind of attitude in science. To me, science and golf are comparable: although each field has a level of collaboration and no one can truly have all the right answers (Tiger Woods will occasionally miss a three-foot putt and Einstein would explain his reservations about aspects of quantum mechanics with his “playing dice” quote), in the end, it would seem only the results would matter.

If Tiger, as he has, wins a tremendous number of golf tournaments, preconceived notions about him must fall by the wayside. And Einstein would acknowledge that his reservations about quantum mechanics were error. Perhaps I would have presumed a universality for this attitude in science. When I started college in the 70s, less than 1/3 of my fellow first-year students were female; since I was in the first truly mixed class of students at my school, less than 10% of the school’s total student population was female. Even under these conditions, it would have been hard for me to believe that any truly first-rate professor would have adopted the Young Male Colleague’s attitude; yet, I know professors at the time who did because they believed that women had no place at an institution of higher learning and that no serious academic should have needed to concern himself with expanding (and improving) the pool of applicants to be considered.

I would have hoped that thirty years of proof and experience might have changed attitudes. I’m especially bothered by the persistence of these attitudes because I realize it’s my peers from my university years who are now in positions of power at universities around the world who make decisions about the types of grad students and faculty to recruit, admit, hire, maintain, promote, and fire. And, who hear a Young Male Colleague’s comment and think, “See, I’m not such a dinosaur about this stuff after all; even the young bucks think as I do about women in science.”

And the worst moral of the story may be that because of the unspoken agreement of some (many?) of his superiors in the room with the Young Male Colleague, he may eventually move up the ladder much faster than any of the women who may be recruited as a result of any outreach program this university might institute, no matter the quality of his work.

So groovy!

I, on the other hand, met the most enlightened car mechanic ever who not only didn’t try to hose me, but also assumed I was completely capable of minor repairs and addressed me without any sarcasm as Doctor. Funny what throwing around a little word like torque will do to a gear head.

The customer service rep, however, was a dolt and told me not to worry my pretty little head about it and they’d fix it for me.

At least I don’t have to put up with that at work. A full 40% of my surgical residency program is female.

A talk is different from a paper, and both are different from how you think about things in your brain, and the slides of your talk are different from the words you say out loud. At some point I’ll write a post about bad talks.