The Association of American Medical Colleges finds that the percentage of medical school applicants who are women has been declining since 2003(from 50.8% to 47.3%) as has been the percentage of medical students who are women (from 49.6% to 47%)

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research reports that the percentage of associate’s degrees awarded to women by STEM field between 2000-2001 and 2008-09 has declined for every field except biomedical and biological sciences where it has stayed constant. Not only that between 2000–2001 and 2008–2009, the number of women earning short-term certificates (requiring less than one year to complete) and medium-term certificates (requiring at least one year but less than two years to complete) in STEM fields declined by half.

Folks we have a problem- a big one!

The Committee is also committed to growing the STEM workforce by attracting broader participation from all underrepresented groups in STEM fields. The Committee directs NSF to maintain Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) and Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) as separate programs at the fiscal year 2012 enacted level.

While many are critical of modern girls, Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette, thinks they are a great improvement over their grandmothers. Writing in today's Evening News she says: "The girl of today plays outdoor games like her brother, and has regular physical training. The old-time ladies' school has disappeared. Generally speaking, girls now have as good educational advantages as boys. They learn to be self-reliant and capable, and the knowledge that later in life they can have useful careers stimulates in many a noble ambition.

"A volume would be needed to deal with the great changes that have taken place in the social position of women and in their training from infancy to womanhood during my lifetime. What a change there has been from the time when to be healthy and active, to be intelligent and intellectual, to be ambitious to take part in the world's work,
was to be unladylike, unwomanly, unsexed !

"Yes, women are changed, and for the better both for themselves and others. Some there doubtless are who abuse their greater liberty and deserve adverse criticism, but the vast majority are worthy of their larger opportunities and increased responsibilities."

Ah I've always loved the Pankhursts; even named my cats Emmeline and Christabel! Hat tip to Laura X for the story

Click here to learn more about the challenge and to submit your entry. Even if you decide not to submit your answer, just trying to answer the question so a kid will get it; will make you a better science communicator-- I promise.

every girl can recall, at least once as a child, coming home and telling their parents, uncle, aunt or grandparent about a boy who had pulled her hair, hit her, teased her, pushed her or committed some other playground crime. I will bet money that most of those, if not all, will tell you that they were told “Oh, that just means he likes you”.

On a somewhat serious note today because of a conversation the other day:

I am sure every girl can recall, at least once as a child, coming home and telling their parents, uncle, aunt or grandparent about a boy who had pulled her hair, hit her, teased her, pushed her or committed some other playground crime. I will bet money that most of those, if not all, will tell you that they were told “Oh, that just means he likes you”. I never really thought much about it before having a daughter of my own. I find it appalling that this line of bullshit is still being fed to young children. Look, if you want to tell your child that being verbally and/or physically abused is an acceptable sign of affection, i urge you to rethink your parenting strategy. If you try and feed MY daughter that crap, you better bring protective gear because I am going to shower you with the brand of “affection” you are endorsing.

When the fuck was it decided that we should start teaching our daughters to accept being belittled, disrespected and abused as endearing treatment? And we have the audacity to wonder why women stay in abusive relationships? How did society become so oblivious to the fact that we were conditioning our daughters to endure abusive treatment, much less view it as romantic overtures? Is this where the phrase “hitting on girls” comes from? Well, here is a tip: Save the “it’s so cute when he gets hateful/physical with her because it means he loves her” asshattery for your own kids, not mine. While you’re at it, keep them away from my kids until you decide to teach them respect and boundaries.

My daughter is `10 years old and has come home on more than one occasion recounting an incident at school in which she was teased or harassed by a male classmate. There has been several times when someone that she was retelling the story to responded with the old, “that just means he likes you” line. Wrong. I want my daughter to know that being disrespected is NEVER acceptable. I want my daughter to know that if someone likes her and respects her, much less LOVES her, they don’t hurt her and they don’t put her down. I want my daughter to know that the boy called her ugly or pushed her or pulled her hair didn’t do it because he admires her, it is because he is a little asshole and assholes are an occurrence of society that will have to be dealt with for the rest of her life. I want my daughter to know how to deal with assholes she will encounter throughout her life. For now, I want my daughter to know that if someone is verbally harassing her, she should tell the teacher and if the teacher does nothing, she should tell me. If someone physically touches her, tell the teacher then, if it continues, to yell, “STOP TOUCHING/PUNCHING/PUSHING ME” in the middle of class or the hallway, then tell me. Last year, one little boy stole her silly bandz from her. He just grabbed her and yanked a handful of them off of her wrist. When I went to the school to address the incident, the teacher smiled and explained it away to her, in front of me, “he probably has a crush on you”. Okay, the boy walked up to my daughter, grabbed and held her by the arm and forcibly removed her bracelets from her as she struggled and you want to convince her that she should be flattered? Fuck off. I am going to punch you in the face but I hope you realize it is just my way of thanking you for the great advice you gave my daughter. If these same advice givers’ sons came home crying because another male classmate was pushing them, pulling their hair, hitting them or calling them names, I would bet dollars to donuts they would tell him to defend themselves and kick the kid’s ass, if necessary. They sure as shit wouldn’t say, “he probably just wants a play date”.

I will teach my daughter to accept nothing less than respect. Anyone who hurts her physically or emotionally doesn’t deserve her respect, friendship or love. I will teach my boys the same thing as well as the fact that hitting on girls doesn’t involve hitting girls. I can’t teach my daughter to respect herself if I am teaching her that no one else has to respect her. I can’t raise sons that respect women, if I teach them that bullying is a valid expression of affection.

The next time that someone offers up that little “secret” to my daughter, I am going to slap the person across the face and yell, “I LOVE YOU”.

Who Benefits?

The recent press about the billion-dollar lawsuit brought by the Abramson Family Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania against Craig Thompson, the current president of Memorial Sloan Kettering once again brings up the troubling issue of who owns research results. Is it the investigator, the university or is it the funding organization? When the research is funded privately this is a matter to be decided by contract.

In the Abramson case, the suit declares that the contract between Abramson Foundation and Thompson mandated co-ownership of discoveries and developments in order that monetary profits are shared and the Foundation can reinvest in its mission and “fund untold advancements in cancer treatment for generations to come.”

When the research is funded by public funds, no such agreement exists. The United States has purposefully entered into a social contract whereby the government lays no claim to results obtained and products developed through the research that it funds. Under this scheme, researchers and their universities are able to operate and staff laboratories in the development and pursuit of creditable ideas. Whatismore, they are able to do this without putting the money out up front. And that is fine.

There are great benefits to this agreement as federal funds enable progress and innovation on a scale that would not, without this magnitude of support, be realizable. However, there are downsides as well. Money made based on the research is shared between the researcher and the institution but not with the public who funded the work.

It does seem, however, that including the public as a shared beneficiary of monetary gain is warranted. As in the Abramson case, if the research pays off big time (we think a billion dollars is big time!) something should be reinvested directly in the American people (and generations to come) who helped make the discovery possible.

Yes I know that this one wasn't about race (and it's even Black History Month. Next one will be.

They have two underlying principles:
NIGMS Aims and Expectations for Research Training
Societal Benefits of a Diverse Workforce

You gotta read their statement about "Societal Benefits of a Diverse Workforce". Read the whole thing (it's not that long).

Action: Champion and articulate the societal benefits of a diverse biomedical and behavioral workforce that mirrors the diversity of the U.S. population.

NIGMS has a long-standing commitment to the precept that our nation is best served by a biomedical and behavioral research workforce that is diverse and inclusive. The Institute recognizes that for our society to benefit from its investment in biomedical and behavioral research, all segments must be actively involved. This includes being engaged in the research and in the establishment of the priorities for which research should be supported by government funding.

As biomedical research becomes more interdisciplinary and more of a team endeavor, excellent training will utilize the diversity in the trainee pool and develop the skills and abilities needed for working with people of different scientific, social and cultural backgrounds. Research has shown that diversity in teams fosters innovation and contributes to greater creativity. Diversity balances biases, providing alternative perspectives and experiences for exploring new problems. In these ways, diversity contributes to the scientific advances that improve our nation’s health and maintain its global competitiveness.

By its nature, diversity is an institutional rather than an individual quality. Therefore, NIGMS encourages grantee institutions to find more effective ways to attract trainees from diverse backgrounds and develop the talent of all trainees in order to eliminate the disparities in educational and research training outcomes currently associated with gender, race/ethnicity or other factors. Through its support, NIGMS will encourage efforts to improve the quality of training in skills that enable and utilize diverse perspectives and expertise. NIGMS will also encourage institutions to set their own ambitious objectives for achieving diversity, and it will assess how they are progressing toward meeting those objectives.

Go NIH! And thanks to FarierScience friend Rick McGee for letting us know about this.

As does any contest, it has rules. One is that you keep your intellectual property rights but you do give the Department of Labor an "irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free license"

There are prizes (what's a contest without prizes?), actually eight of them but they only tell us about one of them "scholarships to attend an eight-week immersive program on digital product innovation and entrepreneurship hosted by General Assembly, a campus for technology, design and entrepreneurship." Ok that one might not be hugely motivational but I'll bet the other prizes are better. Oh wait- it's the government-- forget the bet. But it's a good idea, so you do it and you win, let me know and I'll send you cookies and I won't require an "irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free license."

Anyway back to Alice Duer Miller. In 1916 she published a fabulous series of satirical poems under the title "Are Women People?". (Which along with 38000 other books you can download for free from the wonderful Project Gutenberg.)

Sorry I'm feeling this is a very disjointed post. What I really want to do is introduce you to Alice Duer Miller's poems so like me you can marvel at how, almost 100 years later, current they feel. Here is just a taste:

Father, what is a Legislature?

A representative body elected by the people of the state.

Are women people?

No, my son, criminals, lunatics and women are not people.

Do legislators legislate for nothing?

Oh, no; they are paid a salary.

By whom?

By the people.

Are women people?

Of course, my son, just as much as men are.

Our Idea of Nothing at All

("I am opposed to woman suffrage, but I am not opposed to woman."—Anti-suffrage speech of Mr. Webb of North Carolina.)

O women, have you heard the news
Of charity and grace?
Look, look, how joy and gratitude
Are beaming in my face!
For Mr. Webb is not opposed
To woman in her place!

O Mr. Webb, how kind you are
To let us live at all,
To let us light the kitchen range
And tidy up the hall;
To tolerate the female sex
In spite of Adam's fall.

O girls, suppose that Mr. Webb
Should alter his decree!
Suppose he were opposed to us—
Opposed to you and me.
What would be left for us to do—
Except to cease to be?

But Then Who Cares for Figures

An argument sometimes used against paying women as highly as men for the same work is that women are only temporarily in industry.

Forty-four per cent of the women teachers in the public schools of New York have been more than ten years in the service, while only twenty-six per cent of the men teachers have served as long.

The Bundesrath of Germany has decided to furnish medical and financial assistance to women at the time of childbirth, in order "to alleviate the anxiety of husbands at the front."

How strange this would sound: "The Bundesrath has decided to furnish medical assistance to the wounded at the front, in order to alleviate the anxiety of wives and mothers at home."

When a benefit is suggested for men, the question asked is: "Will it benefit men?"

When a benefit is suggested for women, the question is: "Will it benefit men?"

Ok I really have to stop now-- but there are lots more.

PIPA and SOPA are bills before Congress- PIPA (the Protect IP Act) in the Senate and SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House. My favorite source of information on web censorship and equal access EFF, describes it this way:

As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet's underlying infrastructure. The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to block users' attempts to reach certain websites' URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the Internet grows increasingly balkanized.

It gets worse: the blacklist bills' provisions would give corporations and other private parties new powers to censor foreign websites with court orders that would cut off payment processors and advertisers. Broad immunity provisions (combined with a threat of litigation) would encourage service providers to overblock innocent users or even block websites voluntarily. This gives content companies every incentive to create unofficial blacklists of websites, which service providers would be under pressure to block without regard to the First Amendment.

Service providers would be forced to monitor and police their users' activities as well, threatening the DMCA safe harbors that have been vital to online innovation over the last decade. SOPA gives the government new powers to go after sites that provide information about tools that might be used to bypass the blacklists — even though these are often the same tools used by democratic activists around the world to bypass Internet censorship mechanisms implemented by authoritarian governments like Iran and China.

I'm off to e-mail my representative and senators- hope you will too

So in this country we use tests to decide if people are competent. If you don't like it--ok fine-- which tests do you want us to stop giving? The ones that check to see if engineers really know now to build a bridge? The ones that see if our doctors know where our hearts are? The ones that check to see what lawyers, plumbers, electricians even financial ad visors know? Or perhaps the only tests we want to stop giving are those that make us have to admit that we are doing a really bad job educating so many of our poor and minority kids.

As a measurement expert (which well yes I kinda am), when I look at a test, the first thing I want to know is does it measure what is being taught- which is presumably that which we want kids to know (aka content validity). If it does then I don't care how well an old dude with a nice house scores on it. If this is what we think kids need to know then we need to check to see if they know it. And if they don't know it- then darn it we need to make sure that they do learn it. If the test doesn't measure what we think kids need to know, well then we need to change the test..

And you know I'm just going to leave it there because I just saw that author used ideology, politics, hubris, greed, ignorance and the conventional wisdom, all in the same sentence. It's time to stop reading.

"On December 6, 1989, an armed gunman named Marc Lepine entered an engineering classroom at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec. He demanded all 48 men in the class leave the room, lined up all 9 women against a wall, and, shouting "You are all a bunch of [expletive] feminists!", proceeded to shoot them. He went into the hall and shot 18 more people, mostly at random. He finally shot himself.

He had killed 14 women all together, and injured 9 more women and 4 men.

The women who died could have been anyone. They could have been your friends, your mothers, your sisters, your lovers, your daughters, your neighbors, your students, your teachers, maybe even you.

They were killed because they were women."

Remember those who died in the Montreal Massacre:

Genevieve Bergeron, 21, was a 2nd year scholarship student in civil engineering.
Helene Colgan, 23, was in her final year of mechanical engineering and planned to take her master's degree.
Nathalie Croteau, 23, was in her final year of mechanical engineering.
Barbara Daigneault, 22, was in her final year of mechanical engineering and held a teaching assistantship.
Anne-Marie Edward, 21, was a first year student in chemical engineering.
Maud Haviernick, 29, was a 2nd year student in engineering materials, and a graduate in environmental design.
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31, was a 2nd year engineering student specializing in engineering materials.
Maryse Laganiere, 25, worked in the budget department of the Polytechnique.
Maryse Leclair, 23, was a 4th year student in engineering materials.
Anne-Marie Lemay, 27, was a 4th year student in mechanical engineering.
Sonia Pelletier, 28, was to graduate the next day in mechanical engineering. She was awarded a degree posthumously.
Michele Richard, 21, was a 2nd year student in engineering materials.
Annie St-Arneault, 23, was a mechanical engineering student.
Annie Turcotte, 21, was a first year student in engineering materials.

Please honor the white ribbon as a symbol of the fight against violence against women.

December 7, 1989 my then 12 year old daughter went to her junior high school with the names of those 14 women with an in memoriam pinned to her shirt. I cried when I saw what she was doing-- both for the women and for her courage. Each year I think of my daughter and of those women and so hope that we have the courage to fight to make sure this will never happen again