#sexism in science

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Fellow AFAB nonbinary: In my day job (an office setting, I'm not out as nonbinary), I've gotten overlooked by the men there -constantly.- I did not go back to school, get a master's IT, put myself in massive debt, and take a job that pays less than what I'm worth JUST FOR MY RELEVANT COMMENTARY TO BE GLOSSED OVER IN YOUR ZOOM CALL, MICHAEL

For REAL

like if someone decides you're a woman, they're not going to listen to you, even if you aren't actually a woman

if someone decides you're a man, you're much more likely to be listened to, even if you aren't actually a man

and I am t i r e d

[imaginebetterfutures]

I am officially a cited expert on the history of vaginal anatomy studies! Look mom! I did it!

Okay so here's the story. Way back in ye olde 2014 I was commissioned by The Sweethome (now Wirecutter) to review tampons. As part of my research for that review, I stumbled across some really fascinating old research on vaginal shapes. I wrote about that research for a group blog I used to be a part of, and about the weird little obsession I developed with some long lost research.

All I could really dig up was a set of studies done in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s by a woman named Paula Pendergrass. Pendergrass published a handful of studies about the shape of the vagina, which she measured by doing plaster casts of willing women. And what she described in her work was actually a set of different vagina shapes: the conical, the parallel sides, the heart, the pumpkin seed, and the least fortunately named slug.

But the thing that surprised me most was that after this one small set of studies by Pendergrass, that's it. There was nothing more. And it's not like Pendergrass had answered the question definitively, her work is full of ideas for how to better measure these shapes, and suggestions to collect more data. Why wasn't there anything else here? Why hadn't she continued this work? Why hadn't anybody asked more questions? I needed to know! So I managed to track her down and cold call her house in Arkansas (because journalists like me have no shame) to ask her why she stopped measuring vagina shapes.

Here's what I learned:

There’s no market for this data. Companies that manufacture vaginal products are looking only to confirm that things like tampons fit inside. They don’t care much about the specifics beyond that. But the big reason she highlighted was the one that made me both sad and angry. When she was doing the work, people were grossed out by it. “It’s off-putting to a lot of people, and I’ve had trouble with it since I started,” she said. “People who were embarrassed I was doing this, They said I was a a dirty old woman doing this.” A dirty old woman. For wanting to know the shape and size of the human vagina.

I wanted to chase this story further, but I could never sell it. In part because it's unclear if it matters clinically what the shape of someone's vaginal canal is. And yet... it's just so... INTERESTING!

But I let it go, after that blog post. (Well, that's not entirely true, I actually ordered a dental casting kit and had plans to cast my own vaginal canal using her study's instructions. But I never got around to it.)

FLASH FORWARD TO TODAY. And I get an email from a friend named Perrin Ireland who is apparently helping someone with a book about vaginas. Did I know that my blog was cited in a scientific journal, she asked? No! I DID NOT!!!

But here it is! Gender Bias in the Study of Genital Evolution: Females Continue to Receive Less Attention than Males, Integrative and Comparative Biology, Volume 62, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 533–541. The author, Dara Orbach, writes:

When Pendergrass et al. (1996) demonstrated that human females have differently shaped vaginas, their findings were “offputting”, Pendergrass reported being called “a dirty old woman”, and gynecologists did not recognize the value of the research (Evelith, 2016). While a national research center exists in theUnited States ofAmerica for most major organ systems (e.g., National Eye Institute), female reproductive anatomy is categorized under the umbrella of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The research environment and social taboos have historically and still continue to hinder scientific inquiry in the field of female genital evolution.

Is my name spelled incorrectly? Yes! Do I care? No!

But truly it's nice to know that even though I couldn't chase this story and really report it out fully, it seems to have made some dent on at least one person who is asking questions about why we don't know more about the internal anatomy of people with vaginas.

If you like this, you'll also enjoy reading the one about how I spent weeks trying to build a replica vaginal canal in my kitchen to test menstrual cups on.

[facelesspassport]

Whenever someone tells you that misogyny, "isn't a big deal", just show them something like this. Post like this are everywhere because this shit is so common. Misogyny kills women. If you wanna see the original thread, here:

ps- Fuck Freud

[elektroskopik]

I'm so used to people not taking me seriously or not listening to me that I often immediately become irate when talking about really important issues. I hate that I get like this. In public. It makes me seem unhinged. I'm just so tired of people propping up other people in power who are abusive, narcissistic, and manipulative. I'm tired of hearing about these assholes getting a leg up whilst totally screwing over my friends and colleagues.

The whisper network needs to become louder.

[hussyknee]

Vajra Chandrasekera is a Locus and Nebula award-winner and has been short-listed for a Hugo Award this year. You can find his Tumblr here: @adamantine and his twitter here: @_vajra

[bitchqueenofthebitchsquad]

So the girls can read the Ben Barres article.

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1090402436995473408

[the-beacons-of-minas-tirith]

Terfs really have no brain cells huh

“Intersex does not exist”????

Anyway:

From Ask A Biologist:

From Planned Parenthood:

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity/whats-intersex

From the Intersex Society of North America:

TERFS/RADFEMS STOP BEING IGNORANT SHITS CHALLENGE LEVEL IMPOSSIBLE

[sleepydotcom]

Being a woman in a stem course is so isolating and I feel like no one talks about how casual the sexism is, me and some of the other boys from class will be sitting together and they’ll just ogle at women and objectify them right in front of me or make sexist “jokes” that i have to take or ill be deemed too sensitive. No wonder so many women leave stem i can’t blame them, there was 10 other girls and they’ve all left now so i have to deal with this alone now. I HATE MEN‼️‼️‼️

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I saw something in your review for, I think it was book 54, where you said that you’ve previously compared Cassie to an anti-Susan Pevensie. Where was the post where you made that comparison?

Not on this blog! It was actually a conference presentation I did 10+ years ago. I can summarize what I remember from that paper.

Becoming an adult is a process that's almost uniformly positive for boys becoming men, but a lot more fraught for girls becoming women. Men often have more status than boys; women often have less status than girls. Boys are lauded for developing (hetero)sexuality; girls are both pressured to and derogated for developing any sexuality. Man-ness is a sign of strength; many signals of woman-ness are also those of weakness or immorality.

Point 1 means that a fair percent of coming-of-age stories, including SF classics, struggle with girls' coming of age. Wendy (Peter Pan) resists growing up just as much as her male costars, but ultimately acts as an adult-ifying force on the Lost Boys. Lyra (His Dark Materials) becomes an adult through becoming sexual, even as her male friend Will becomes an adult through becoming independent. Same goes for Bev (It) — her male friends become adults through facing their fears; she becomes an adult through sex.  So on.

Susan Pevensie (The Last Battle) is the example of this problem that's received far and away the most attention. Everyone from J.K. Rowling to Lev Grossman to Margaret Atwood has specifically called out the line where Susan's brother implies that her interest in "lipstick and nylons" has to do with her denial of Narnia. This criticism ignores the leadership roles Susan takes on in Narnia books 2 - 4, fighting in battles and leading diplomatic missions. But I do agree that "feminine adulthood = no more adventures" is an awful thing to convey to kids.

There are a bunch of attempted "fixes" of this moment, from the ham-fisted (Philip Pullman) to the nuanced (Tamora Pierce) to the blandly inoffensive (Neil Gaiman). [I’ll skip most of this part of the paper.]

And then there's Animorphs, and Cassie. I have no idea if K.A. Applegate or her ghosts were influenced by Narnia — I haven't found any direct commentary — but what I love about Cassie's story is that it's almost the same as Susan's, but framed in a different (feminist) way. Both are female heroes who enter an adventure story, wrap up the adventure, and take on adult identities. Both get one last call to action (Tirian using Susan's horn, Jake telling Cassie that Ax is missing) and both refuse that finalmost call, in the process refusing an early and glorious death in battle. Only the two arcs are framed completely differently.

Instead of Peter complaining that Susan has "lost Narnia," Jake tells Cassie she's "a one-woman army" who is "doing what you need to do and were born to do. Part of what we won was freedom for the Hork-Bajir... your job is to protect it" (#54). He and Cassie discuss that she now has the difficult task of living to maintain the legacy that Rachel and Jara and Arbron died for. Cassie isn't punished by not dying gloriously; she's just taking on a different heroic role that comes with no glory at all.

It's also notable that adult Cassie has become more fashion-conscious ("pestered by Patagonia" for endorsements) and more romantic with Ronnie than she was with Jake. But the fashion thing is neutral and bittersweet because Rachel's not there to tease her, while the romance is a sign she's healthy and adult now. It's the boys who run back toward adventure who are portrayed as wrong (Ax getting his crew killed, Marco's false shallowness, Jake and Tobias's implied suicidality). The girl brave and adaptive enough to become a woman is portrayed in a positive light. Similar story to Susan, but with a very different frame. And in many ways more effectively feminist than having Cassie take on the masculine "glory through death in battle" role would be.

There are a bunch of moments where Animorphs pulls similar framing tricks. "Tom joined the Sharing for a simple, silly reason: a pretty girl" (#6) would, in a majority of 20th century SF stories, have been phrased as the girl having seduced him; Applegate instead keeps the agency where it belongs through showing that it's silly to join a cult over a crush. Rachel responds to a boy in her class cat-calling her with "Of course I look good... I almost always do" (#32). When he calls her "stuck-up", she says "That's right, I am. Now you know the difference between good looks and a good personality." She's not denying her beauty or the work she puts into it; she's owning it and also not letting a boy own it.

In conclusion: Animorphs is great.

[mediocrephd]

I remember this happening when I was studying at uni, as well as when I was in college. There was a lot of gatekeeping, superiority complexes, and elitism from physics and chemistry students, and especially from the lecturers! You could definitely feel the tension and unease whenever our class had a chemistry lecture..

I'd also say there was a *lot* of tension between the different degree programs in our department (biosciences). I was studying forensic biology at the time, and as a result shared some classes (genetics ect) with bio-med and bio-chem, who constantly acted superior, arrogant, and looked down their noses at us. It got to one point where a topic was being discussed, and a bio-med student literally said "not that I'd expect non bio-meds to understand". And, damn that solidified the hostility!

But then COVID struck, and we graduated, and now I've changed fields to ecology, so don't encounter that kind of hostility and competition so much these days. But it absolutely left a real unease in me about scientists in "harder" fields like bio-med, chemistry and physics.

I do wonder though, could this have roots in sexism? Because we've all seen in the media how often the scientist in the story is always the "brilliant, but arrogant genius" man who's specialist subject is usually either physics, chemistry, or mathematics based.

And physics, and to some extent, chemistry are often thought of as "difficult" and "masculine" sciences. Whereas biology, especially non-medical biology, is often thought of as the "easy" or "soft" science and is often considered "feminine".

Of course, science is not gendered and the idea of different topics and fields being more or less difficult is ridiculous, as difficulty is extremely subjective.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk (sorry!)

Okay something that bothers me is the fact physics is seen as the more prestigious of the three main sciences, with biology at the bottom and chemistry in the middle. Like. I doubt most people could name a famous biologist, but they could name 5 famous physicists. Why are Albert Einstein and Stephen hawking household names but Norman Borlaug and Jonas Salk aren't?

Not to dismiss the accomplishments of Einstein or Hawking, or their genius, but their actual tangible contributions to society have been miniscule compared to that of Borlaug or Salk who have each saved LITERALLY hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives each. Half the food on your plate was probably grown thanks to Borlaug and Salk is the reason half your siblings didn't die of polio as a kid.

Sure Einsteins theory of relatively is important for modern satellite communications but really though how can it compare?

This is coming from someone who studied physics. I love physics, and years ago when i was at uni I looked down at biology and so did everyone else studying physics. And I know others did too. Retroactively of course I know this was so very wrong.

If society as a whole started treating biology with more respect then maybe more students would go into that field. If we had rockstars of medicine and agricultural science that were household names rather than just physicists? think of how many more lives could be saved, how many more lives could be improved.

I'm not saying physics isn't important, and more scientists of any kind is always good, but proportionally I think societies priorities are a little skewd.

[mindblowingscience]

In 2022, Latinos, as a group, comprised more than 19% of the U.S. population or nearly 64 million individuals. People of Mexican ancestry make up almost 12% of the US population and 62.3% of Latinos. Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Central American Ancestry (MPRCA) individuals represent 4 of 5 of US Latinos but continue to be underrepresented across the board in every job profession in the United States, including STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers. The disparity is even greater for Latinas in academia. To help gain a better understanding of the underrepresentation, an intergenerational group of 16 MPRCA Latinas and allies met to identify major challenges to hiring, persistence, and success faced by early career MPRCA Latinas. Their research, titled "Early Career Latinas in STEM: Challenges and Solutions," was released in Cell. The group identified multi-level challenges that present barriers to MPRCA Latinas (and others) and solutions for Institutions, Departments and Mentors, and Individuals that would benefit MPRCA and the entire academic community. The challenges include financial concerns, caregiver and other family responsibilities, academic inclusion, evaluation of service, especially involving community outreach and mentoring, mentoring needs, and safe environments.

Continue Reading.

[incomingfenderbender]

I’m done with my normal person arc. Im going to be a bitch and voice my opinions until I get doxxed.

[silvereyedowl]

Another actual reason to dislike Big Pharma.

hiiiii, does anyone want to become evil with me?

[hjellacott]

The thing is for me as a woman, admitting that even with regular exercise I'll probably always be physically weaker than most men, doesn't equal saying I'm weak, or that my sex is weak, or that me or my sex are less than or worse than men. Because I'm not a sexist, misogynistic arsehole. Yeah my bones and muscle mass might be inferior - just like a spider is smaller than a human. But some snake's poisons will kill an adult man in seconds, and in the same way, I will bloody hurt a man if I have to, because I've got more brains, more heart, and more ovaries than any of them. Acknowledging science doesn't mean women are the weaker ones any more than acknowledging gravity doesn't mean humans can't ever step on the moon.

[memento-mariii]

As much as I enjoy unethical (pseudo)science in fiction, in real life killing them with my mind is not enough I need to strangle these people with my own two hands.

Your methodology is bad and you should feel bad.

[radykalny-feminizm]

I hate academia wtf

Please professor, tell me how the fact that I have an uterus makes me less capable of being a scientist