Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Physics Today, or Physics 2000 BC?

If you've read the December 2006 Physics Today letters to the editor about Women in science...

aaaand
you've finished throwing up...

then you may want to read R Stanek's red-marker revisions to cheer yourself up.

My god, are physicists THAT DUMB?

8 comments:

farsistudent said...

Evalyn Gates is my new hero. I can't believe she had the patience to write a polite, well-reasoned and footnoted response to this crap.

BTW, is there a reason you don't allow anonymous comments? I don't have a Blogger account, and Google stole my name from my gmail account and posted it here. I might say much more if I had a convenient pseudonym...

farsistudent said...

Evalyn Gates is my new hero. I can't believe she had the patience to write a polite, well-reasoned and footnoted response to this crap.

BTW, is there a reason you don't allow anonymous comments? I don't have a Blogger account, and Google stole my name from my gmail account and posted it here. I might say much more if I had a convenient pseudonym...

C W Magee said...

Dude,
Some of these letters are classic examples of what happens when you argue from unstated assumptions. The original author kicks butts and takes names in her reply.

Jenny F. Scientist said...

Hi Astrodyke! I'm for as many uppity women as possible.

And Oh. My. God. I'm printing out the letters for the 'Evidence People are Morons About Women in Science' file.

Foobar said...

Michelle--
Sorry! Anonymous comments are now allowed. My oversight.

So speak up, all you anonymous lovely people!

Anonymous said...

I made the mistake of reading these letters while eating lunch...

,, said...

VERY nice to find a group who can read this stuff for what it is. Bigoted twaddle. I can't believe it got published, but as a female geophysicist ( I, Wagadog ) I had to listen to crap like this for years before I just gave up. And any time I'd make a response like what you people are saying right here -- I was a "whiner", I wanted "special treatment" I "couldn't hack it" according to these bigoted pricks. LOVE the red-felt-pen markup! AstroDyke ROCKS!

,, said...

Can you imagine what would happen if you substituted the word "Black" for the word "Female" in that Physics Today debate?
Why is it that statements that are very easy to recognize as racism when bigots regurgitate their tired old racial stereotypes, yet the same stereotypes are somehow acceptable (acceptable enough to be published in Physics Today, for example!) as "not really sexism" when bigoted scientists regurgitate tired old gender stereotypes that are equally, if not more -- offensive and degrading?