The eagle is for men because they are strong; they fly the highest and are capable of opening clams with their claws. The raven is for women; she is not as strong as the eagle. The raven saw the eagle eating some clams and she wanted some too. The eagle asked if she needed help and the raven said “No I will use physics to open the clams.” She knew how high to fly and dropped the clams on rocks below and ate. The eagle fell in love with her because she was clever enough to take care of herself.

I came up with this story to encourage girls to go into science. This story comes from Haida country as told to me by Meju Morrison, my chinnah “grandfather”. To me this encourages women to be smart.

Thank you Terry. It is a wonderful story.

Since I discovered this I've had to limit myself to the number of 3- 5 minute videos I view a day. After all I have to get some work done. I have no idea how many videos there are (they keep adding them) but every one I viewed so far has been fascinating.

Want to hear biologist and Princeton president Shirley Tilghman. one of the mothers of Black women's studies Beverly Guy-Sheftall, comedian Ellen DeGeneres and so many other women tell their stories? Go for it.

Marriage appears to speed up the advancement of male historians but slow down that of female historians, according to new data from the American Historical Association.

Who could ever imagine- having a wife helps your career, being a wife doesn't. It's amazing that no one ever thought of that before. Oh wait- let me go back- waaaaaaay back- like 1971 back and the classic "Why I want a wife." by Judy Syfers.

She wanted a wife because:

I would like to go back to school so that I can become economically independent, support myself, and if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I am going to school I want a wife to take care of my children... I want a wife a wife to keep track of the children's doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. It may mean a small cut in my wife's income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that.

I want a wife who will take care of the details of my social life. When my wife and I are invited out by my friends, I want a wife who take care of the baby-sitting arrangements. When I meet people at school that I like and want to entertain, I want a wife who will have the house clean, will prepare a special meal, serve it to me and my friends, and not interrupt when I talk about things that interest me and my friends.

Marriage appears to speed up the advancement of male historians but slow down that of female historians, according to new data from the American Historical Association. Gee I wonder why.

As Syfer concludes "My God, who wouldn't want a wife?"

As we mourn those poor babies in Newtown; along with taking our own political action, considering adding to your emails, 'Please send your senators, representative and President Obama a note that says that if they fight for gun control, you will have their backs."

We are all so sad but along with good thoughts and prayers we have to make a commitment that we will make it harder for this to happen again and that means gun control.

If you can do the work of scientific doing research of a quality good enough to get published but you don’t score well on the GRE is the problem with you or the exam?

"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 .

There are, as MTV points out, some things that we all can do help prevent AIDS, and what better day to point this out than World AIDS Day:

+ Use Protection

What’s more important than wearing red [tomorrow sic] is wearing protection tomorrow night. And every night! Condoms are the only method that protect against HIV, STDs, and pregnancy. A pack of condoms can cost more than my favorite sushi roll. BUT some places do offer them for free! Head over to your local Planned Parenthood, for example, where they will literally give you a backpack full of rubbers if you ask. Don’t ask me how I know that.

+ Get Tested

According to the Center For Disease Control (CDC), more than half of young Americans with HIV don’t know they have it. As it takes a while for the symptoms of the virus to show, the only way to know your status for sure is to get tested. It’s quick, painless (if you’re afraid of needles, your doctor can test your spit!), free of charge, and judgment-free. If you think you feel the nurse’s eyes judging you, it’s probably just you judging yourself for that sloppy Saturday night hookup. Sh*t happens...just make sure it happens with a condom on!

+ Get Educated

The only way to prevent HIV is to know how and how not to get it. There are tons of misconceptions about safe sex, like that two condoms are better than one, or that you can’t get STDs if you only sleep with members of the chess club or that innocent chick from Bible study. Learn more about HIV -- the facts, the myths, and how to best protect yourself -- with MTV’s It’s Your (Sex) Life.

+ Educate Others

You’re reading this, but not everybody is as awesome as you are! Now that you know how to protect yourself, share your knowledge with your family, friends, significant others, and 2 a.m. booty calls. You can also spread the world by Tweeting #positivetalk all day.

Now if FairerScience readers are lusting after chess club or Bible study members, I suspect you are watching too much Glee and I really don't want to know. And don't call me at 2:00 am for any reason other than you need me to help in an emergency or the Noble Committee has just called with good news. But "use protection", "get tested", "educate yourself" and "educate others"-those are words to live by.

Woman B: I know right!

Woman C: At least she ditched the big black headband!

Woman D: Yea I really want to Luke this but I just had my drivers lic pic taken. :( I need a do myself!! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Woman E: Thats why the cease fire agreement will only last about 2 days. The hair had little impact on the cease fire agreement, they told the "HAIR" exactly what it wanted to hear and got Hillary back on that plane home so they didn't have to deal with 'The Hair". Yep, 2 day's and they'll both be launching bottle rockets at each other and Hillary will have seen the stylist.

Me: Woman A I think really highly of you but do you really think that while Hillary is doing a pretty darned good job stopping more killing in the middle East,we should worry about her hair? BYW are we worried about Barak's hair or Joe's hair or....

Woman F: Amen with her hair! She's looking bad!

Ah you gotta love it- "insufficiently diverse" that would 100% of the speakers are white guys. The justification-the ever popular "We must remember that Speakers are chosen on merit, what they have to say and how they say it ". The lovely Josh Susser (ok I don't know him, maybe he isn't lovely but I sure hope he is because he busted them with his initial tweet that everyone was white and male) responded to their push back about 'we want the best" by tweeting "Are you saying minority speakers can't get in on merit? Plenty of confs have great speaker lineups that are not 100% white guys."

So their response was (wait I feel like I am channeling a soap opera) was ok fine, we will cancel the whole conference. Wow who knew how powerful the white girl and girls and boys of color cooties were.

Thanks to Josh for busting them. Josh if you are reading this- send me your snail mail address-- I totally owe you cookies! Thanks too to FairerScience friend Mort for letting me know about it (you already get cookies).

The thing that gives me the most hope for the future is that increasingly wonderful white guys are busting other white guys for their-- hmm what's the best way to say this- ok I'll go with lack of diversity. Now that is a reason to give thanks!

*Ruby is an open source programming language.

Have you ever heard of Viola Liuzzo? She was a 39 year old white woman, mother of 5, murdered by the Ku Klux Klan on the last night of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March . She was working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) transportation service ferrying marchers between Selma and Montgomery when she was shot and killed.

How about Fannie Lou Hammer? Mrs. Hammer, an African American woman, who was long involved in voter rights, challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention and spoke to them about how African-Americans in many states across the country were prevented from voting through illegal tests, taxes and intimidation.

And oh my goodness what about Alice Paul? Dr. Paul, a white woman born in 1885, dedicated the whole of her life to women's equality. She was part of the first political protest to picket the White House for women's right to vote. Arrested she commenced a hunger strike, which led to her being moved to the prison’s psychiatric ward and force-fed raw eggs through a feeding tube.

These three women are just a sample of the women and men who sacrificed, suffered and in some cases died, for our right to vote. So folks, I don't care how busy you are, what the weather is like, how much you hate the political ads (with you there) or how cynical you are about the political process. Just vote damn it! Your country needs you.

The bad news: Only 7.1% of the executives in the successful companies were women, which more than twice the 3.1% rate at the non-successful companies.

This is from a new report "Women at the Wheel" (no not that "Women at the Wheel"; this one is answering the question "Do Female Executives Drive Start-Up Success?"). It found that companies have a greater chance of either going public, operating profitably or being sold for more money than they’ve raised when they have females acting as founders, board members, C-level officers, vice presidents and/or directors.

The Wall Street Journal article about the report brought out some of their own good news/bad news. I think my favorite is:

Attitudes about women are changing rapidly in the technology industry, where female participation continues to increase. This year, while two Bay Area investment firms (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Pantheon Ventures) were sued by women for gender discrimination, the board of Yahoo Inc. named a pregnant Marissa Mayer as the company’s president and CEO.

Anyway you can get the whole report for free by filling out a form.

Thanks to FairerScience friend David Mortman for pointing this out.

There are thousands of people at the conference and an unusually high concentration of unattractive women. The super model types are completely absent. What is going on? Are unattractive women particularly attracted to neuroscience? Are beautiful women particularly uninterested in the brain?

He closed with the ever popular "No offense to anyone". Because of course that makes it all fine. He was busted big time by Drug Monkey in a wonderful post "Professors Behaving Badly". Crediting Drug Monkey, other science bloggers posted on it including Janet Stemwedel from Adventures in Ethics and Science who wrote about the importance of calling out bad behavior and gave a five point plan you gotta read.

Today it hit Inside Higher Ed. Great right? Not exactly. Inside Higher Ed wrote about the "women-in-science blogosphere", quoted from posts by Janet and the fabulous Isis and got a quote from Janet Bandows Koster the executive director of AWIS. What the author, Scott Jaschik, did not do was quote from or even mention Drug Monkey, the MAN, who first posted about Maestripieri's bad behavior.

I'm glad the story hit Inside Higher Ed; I find it really telling that only women are quoted and the man (did I mention Drug Monkey is a MAN?) who broke the story was ignored. By not including him and only quoting women, Inside Higher Ed makes this a woman's problem not a science problem and that is a much more important issue than Dario Maestripieri's stupid comments. No offense to anyone.

But I can't let the day go by without writing about one role model-- and frankly Anita Borg is an easy one. Anita was a friend who died way too young. Anita- yes the woman, who started Systers, the Grace Hopper Conference and of course the Institute that is named for her.

The above is Anita the legacy, which is wonderful. For those of you who didn't know her - Anita the woman was something else-- funny, snarky and always on target. Anita used to say if women had designed cell phones- the phones would have been integrated into bras. And BTW she always appreciated the view of an attractive man leaving on a motor cycle. I miss you Anita and am so glad that you were part of my life and of our society!

Well Science Live! is going to have a chat with amazing coauthor Jo Handelsman. I'm going try to get my meeting to take a break and listen-- hope you can too.