We read with interest William Deresiewicz’s article on The Disadvantages of an Elite Education on the American Scholar website. Deresiewicz exposes the shocking truth that there are in fact negative aspects of the culture of elite American universities, and “the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy.” He writes perceptively [...]
This is a story about Subfield A, Subfield B, and the differences between them. It’s a story about how slightly different subfields of science can have surprisingly different work climates. The background is this: we here at Dr. Medusa have scientific roots in two subfields that are quite different for women. Subfield A is my [...]
We were interested in Mad Hatter’s recent posts on women scientists with partners who don’t sympathize with the need to work long hours. For example, she writes: When I first entered grad school, I was surprised by the number of female PhD scientists I knew who did nearly all of the cooking, cleaning, grocery [...]
We cleaned the office at Dr. Medusa HQ today. (It really needed it.) One of our faculty colleagues looked in the door and said, “You cleaned up! It looks great. Will you do my office next?” We laughed, and said something like “Sure, anytime” with all the sarcasm we could muster. He was joking - but he [...]
If you’re a women in science, you probably have times when you become very sick of thinking, reading, hearing, or talking about anything specifically related to women in science. You cry to yourself, “When, when, when will it end?”, while wailing and gnashing your teeth. Well, we can’t tell you when it will end. But we [...]