Guest Post--Feminism and Science: A strained relationship?

Sheriff here! Below is a guest post by the lovely Dr. Kinky, who was a participant I bonded particularly well with in the summer program I worked for last year. She's been accepted into Smith for next year (CONGRATULATIONS!), and wanted to share some thoughts about sexism, the sciences, and so much more. Without further adieu, here she is! 

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I am 17 years old, a senior in high school and a future Smithie/Pioneer. I plan to major in biology and math and do pre-med. The passion I have for biology sciences is something that is close to my heart. I have a special relationship with it as it what drives me to keep going. I want to achieve a lot in my life, not only for myself, but to show the world that women are capable of being in a field that is so blatantly discouraged for them to participate in. Since my summer before junior year of high school I have been participating in science/biology research programs. I did the Smith Science program for high school students where I met the wonderful Sheriff and was exposed to a whole other world. All the women there had a passion for whatever they were doing and pursued their interests without ever holding back.



After the program and getting to work with a Smith professor after that, I registered out of the Advanced Chemistry I was placed in and opted to do an independent study in biology. The Chemistry was going to prepare me better for the harsh rigor of the pre-med curriculum but biology is what makes me happy. I enjoyed sitting in my junior year advanced biology class every day. I asked my advanced biology teacher to be my independent study teacher/mentor as it was his passion for the subject that inspired me so much. We are working with a Smith professor who has been an immense help to me. On top of my independent study which requires me to be in lab every two Saturdays (which I actually love), I have embarked on the adventure of being a global scholar, which requires me to write a thesis type paper with a mentor (40 pages wahoo!). My mentor is a professor from IUPUI and again has been an amazing resource and wonderful person to me. All the people involved in my project are males in their 50s-60s. They are so caring, full of knowledge and they treat me like a peer. No more, no less. The respect my thoughts and allow me to problem solve for myself. I have never felt like I have been treated in an odd or unsatisfying way by these men. This is such a relief in the sciences compared to what women had to go through even just 20 years ago.

As I am doing my lab research, meeting lots of people and networking  about the things I am doing, I can't help but notice how under-represented women are in the science field. It is crazy. Whenever I have to go to lab, I find myself taking the bright pink nail polish off of my fingers, cutting my nails, putting my hair back in a ponytail and clipping my bangs away, scared to put on eyeliner because I don't want to look like a fool. I also only wear simple t-shirts and jeans. I take off all of my jewelry except for the ring that has been on my finger since I was 13. Is this my lack of confidence to express myself in the field I love so dearly or is it trying to be professional? Is there a message that is ingrained in the female mind that even having a slightly feminine touch to the sciences will affect my reputation? Although I have been told that I am "bold, colorful, and intelligent" by the men in this profession, why can't I express this in the way I look or the way that I dress? Why does professionalism equate to looking less feminine? I was reading in Cosmo magazine that women should try to go for neutral color nail polishes for a job interview because brighter colors give off the impression of being unprofessional. But how does the color of my nails affect my mind and the type of work I am able to produce?

However, the most appalling thing I have heard is when I was in an operating room shadowing a cardiac surgeon and I was standing where the anesthesiologist stands, at the head of the table. The surgeon told me I could ask him whatever questions I wanted to. My first question was why are women under represented in the cardiothoracic surgery field. He proceeded to tell me that there are about 10,000 cardiothoracic surgeons out of which about 100 are women. That is 1%. He said this was because it was a demanding field with long hours and women had to choose between having a family and having a successful career. Excuse my language, but WHAT THE FUCK. Yes, women have the wonderful capacity to have children something that males simply do not possess but it is so sad that a choice needs to be made. That honestly made my heart ache (no pun intended). I couldn’t wrap my head around having to choose between a career and a family, and I still can’t.

I am young and still trying to figure out who I am and although I have a general sense of who I am and the type of person I want to be, there is a lot of self learning still has to occur. These are the prominent issues I see in my society and these are the things I am trying to figure out. Any feedback would be awesome.
--Dr. Kinky

why the specifics of body image ideals are almost irrelevant: forcefeeding in Mauritania

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Lots of body positive sources love to cite the fact that the ideal body type changes all the time: not so long ago, it was considered beautiful for women to have a fuller body type, especially since this functioned as a social marker, indicating she had a husband who was wealthy enough to keep her plump. While obviously many Western countries dropped that ideal long ago in favor of emaciated runway models and airbrushed celebrities, Mauritania never did away with the "plumper is better" ideal of feminine beauty. And the results of it are just as scary and frightening similar to the effects in the United States' (and other countries of affluence) of our skinny ideals.


Reading this article from Marie Claire, which states that in Mauritania, "rolling layers of fat are the height of sexiness," I was struck by the eerie similarities that this country, obsessed with girthiness in its women, has with the West, constantly seeking the next diet or exercise plan to get closer to being the biggest loser. Many of them send their daughters to fat camps, to force feed them and fatten them up as they approach puberty with up to 16,000 calories a day  (what) and threatening them with bodily harm if they don't eat it all; we send our teenage girls to summer fat camp in hopes that they'll shed their extra pounds and gain self-confidence (side note: the prep school in my hometown ran one of these programs during the summers,and I always felt sorry for the girls, watching them walk in the sticky heat of a Pennsylvania July to the grocery store where they weren't allowed to buy anything. The whole thing reeked of sadness). And in both cases, it's justified under the mantle of attractiveness, particularly towards the opposite sex: how will you ever find a man if your body is so revolting as it naturally is (which could mean fat or bony, depending on who is doing the interpreting)?

One woman profiled in the article says she enjoys the perks of being fat (that men adore her body and compliment her all the time), but that she wishes she could diet so she could be more dynamic and healthier and not wheeze as she walks. However, she's scared if she's slimmer that men will no longer find her attractive. Reverse the scenario: Western woman enjoys being thin for the perks, but wishes she could relax about her diet so she could be less stressed and more confident and healthier (constant dieting is B-A-D BAD for you!). But, alas, a softer body might yield less compliments and head turns.

Startlingly, another woman in Mauritania (who noted her struggles with gaining weight, and how she was teased in school by the plumper girls) revealed that recently, her husband told her that he "didn't like sleeping with a bag of bones." She has now started taking pharmaceutical drugs to help her increase her appetite and gain weight. Again, sound familiar?

Point being: the actual specifics of a cultural beauty ideal aren't really the problem. The problem is having an ideal that allows for no personality, no individual expressions of beauty, no room to breathe.

Much love,
The Sheriff

sorry sorry

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The Sheriff has had an absurdly intense string of bad luck lately which has attacked my car (needs a new transmission), my computer (got the Palladium malware), and my camera.

So there is no post today. Sorry! I couldn't pull anything coherent together, and I just respect you too much to throw crap up here for the sake of posting something.

Hope to be back with something Tuesday or Wednesday.

Much love,
The Sheriff

friday links

How one mother worked on re-naming her transgender child with the child's input.

Fantastic questions to ask yourself about your body image to work on improving it.

Puppy love.

Being a plus-sized woman in a skinny-girl world. 

Study finds increased stress and depression among college first-years (study also uses phrase first-years! Impressed).

Be kind to yourself. 

What Victorian women thought of sex.

From SmartPrettyAndAwkward: "When a pen stops writing, you have two options: throw it out, or scribble it around on the paper until the ink appears again. When something stops working, whether it’s a job, your academic major, or a relationship, you have a choice whether to move on or to try hard to make the broken item fixed. But like a pen that has been scribbled back to life, a job/college major/relationship that has stopped meeting your needs before will probably stop meeting them again, no matter how hard you frantically scribble to bring it back to life."


GOP drops its ridiculous attempts to re-define rape. YAY!

I LOVE THIS AD: Scotland tackles the "she was asking for it" myth. Good commentary on it too in the article!

A photo essay of penguins. Yes.

Much love,
The Sheriff

choices, choices

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College is full of choices. And they are almost always blown out of proportion and seen as being Huge, Very Important Decisions that will totally determine how happy you are, how much money you have, and whether you have a fancy pants obituary upon your death. You choose your college (well, more accurately, they choose you), then you pick your major, which is supposed to somehow relate to what you're supposed to do with the Rest of Your Life. At a young, child-like 18 (seriously. I know it's cliche, but the older I get, the more I look at first years in disbelief like, "OMG you can read and drive a car? Are you sure? Do you want me to hold your hand?" I even find myself doing it to the freshmen pledges in Meatball's fraternity), you're somehow supposed to be imbued with the knowledge of what you like, what you're good at, and what will translate into a major with a marketable enough skills to make you ca$h and which will logically lead to a career in your post-graduation, shiny, exciting life.

This post is mostly to assure anyone at any point in this process of becoming an "adult": It rarely works out this way.

Every year at Smith, I've had at least one moderately major meltdown where I sit down and cry and pull on my hair and maybe suck my thumb for a while in fear. Did I choose the right major? Will I ever find a job? I don't even like what I study, WHY would I want to do this forever? I picked a major my first semester at Smith, thinking Government and Middle East Studies was totes what I wanted forever and ever and that I'd get a Really Important Job in DC after I graduated, make big bucks, live The Good Life desired for me by my parents (who have not gone to college and are supportive but also completely fuckin clueless about how scary some of these choices are and wonder why I think college isn't just a cake walk), and never look back.

But then, junior year, I realized that our government does some sketchy shit, and that I don't actually like DC or its culture of yuppies who all wanna be Obama whilst wearing boring suits and panty hose in 102 degree weather with 100% humidity (not hatin' on them, but I realized that that sounds like my personal version of Hell). I had a friend who realized that her degree, while being what she wants to study, would raise a lot of questions from future employers about its practical usefulness (what does a degree in Medieval Studies mean, exactly?). Similarly, I have a friend who majored in something appropriately science-y and important, and she's also clueless about what comes next so it's not just those of us who chose "fluffy" things to study that have no direct link to a career (Comparative Literature? Anthropology? NOT USELESS). And even securing an actual job post-graduation is not free from judgment by well-meaning folks, who accidentally put massive pressure on you and make you feel like an underachiever and wonder if you'll ever do anything Real and Impressive with your life.

Point being? There is really no magical right answer to any of these questions. Sure, I envy Meatball's degree in Pragmatic and Useful Engineering (note: not his actual major), but I know that would've been a terrible choice for me (I am not pragmatic, though hopefully I am useful. I'm still unclear on what exactly engineering is). Your major does not determine your future anymore than where you went to college does (Condie went to a state school!). Listen to your gut, work hard, and make the choices that seem right for you. You do not need to impress anyone other than yourself at the end of the day. I can't guarantee things will be easy or that you'll always know the "right" option to choose, and the economic climate out there, admittedly, is scary. But being stuck in a life that you hate, doing something that you find dull but that you majored in during school because it seemed like a way to get a job with a big salary and benefits and a title, sounds a little scarier to me. It's okay to be scared or anxious about college and what comes next: it doesn't have to be perfect.

IT WILL BE OKAY.

Much love,
The Sheriff

PS--Similar topic and comfort can be found here!

Still Fighting: A Request from the Sheriff

I posted this as part of my Friday Links a while back, but it's sadly necessary to call attention to it again.

Most of us have at least ten bucks we could live without: maybe you'd spend it on a night at the bars, or waste it at CVS on makeup you don't need (no? Just me that does that? Well). I'm asking you to take that ten bucks and donate it to help Sofia stay in treatment for her eating disorder. I got my insurance cut off while in treatment at just 15, and I wonder constantly how much easier the fight against my eating disorder would've been if I'd been able to afford the proper care.

Just click this link, and give ten bucks. Just ten measly dollars given by just half the average daily readers of this blog would give her family another $2000-3000 for treatment! Please consider donating to help her. You'll feel really good about it, I promise. And if you truly have nothing to give, at least pass this along and send her good thoughts.

Much love and appreciation,
The Sheriff

"It's not a girls' school without men, it's a women's college without boys."

I was referred to this article by Beauty-Schooled. For those too lazy to click on the link and to read the whole thing, it's a piece from a British site called MyDaily discussing the benefits of single sex-education despite the fact that only 13% of The Good Schools Guide (which, as it sounds like, is a guide to helping British folks choose the best schools, both state and private, for their kids) were all girls schools.

I had a little difficulty reading this article just because of that phrase: all girls schools. I'm so used to gently correcting people about Smith ("Actually, it's a women's college, thanks."). Granted, they are talking K-12 education, at which age the students involved really are girls so I'll check my desire to correct it.

Frankly, I agree with everything that this woman says. To focus too much of the grades and performance of girls attending single-sex schools misses all of the other, more amorphous benefits that come from being educated with same sex peers. I imagine it would've been a much gentler place to go through puberty and all the delicious awkwardness of adolescence  Although I didn't have the benefit of a single sex education until college, I've seen the huge improvement in my confidence level, my public speaking skills, and my leadership ability (to be fair, I wasn't lacking terribly in any of those departments to start, but now I feel good about them which is just as important.).

Research shows girls tend to stop being shy and embrace more of their competitive side both in and out of the classroom when they go to all girls schools, while boys will scale back their "LOOK AT MY MASCULINITY" act. Girls feel more confident taking on positions of leadership, which will benefit them enormously once they must graduate and leave the haven of their female enclave. Much of the criticism of single-sex education is that it under prepares girls for the pressures of the real world which is obviously co-ed. Look at some of the graduates of Smith College (and other women's colleges boast just a prestigious a list), and tell me that these women couldn't thrive in the real world? Right. You can't.

I don't entirely buy the argument that girls and boys learn differently. It's just too close to jump from that to statements like "well female brains have a harder time with math" and "boys can't process and communicate their feelings like girls do," which sound like bullshit and reflect more of our stereotypes about the sexes than any innately gendered abilities or talents. However, she notes that girls tend to learn better in warmer classrooms, which I would've been all about as I remember my middle school being approximately 53 degrees inside at best, all the time.

Thoughts? Any of you go to single-sex schools for K-12? Was it a worthwhile experience?

Much love,
The Sheriff