Sunday Morning Medicine is on vacation. Happy Holidays!
Sunday Morning Medicine
Sunday Morning Medicine is on vacation. Happy Holidays!
Girls, STEM, and My List of “Ingenious Inventors”
By Carolyn Herbst Lewis
There is much talk these days about girls and STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In 2009, only 24% of scientists and engineers were women. This is not surprising, given the fact that women comprise only about 17% of the students earning degrees in these subjects, as compared to the 79% of students earning bachelor’s degrees in education. There are material benefits to building careers in STEM. A woman in a STEM-related career earns, on average, 33% more than a woman in a non-STEM field. Given the continued gender wage gap, and the high numbers of women in poverty in this country, it makes sense to encourage an interest in STEM. How to do so has been the tricky part. Colleges and universities — as well as prospective employers — actively recruit women to enroll in STEM programs. But getting young women interested in these fields has been more difficult. The old maxims that girls don’t pursue these interests because “Math class is tough,” and their brains are not “hardwired” for it, no longer suffice. Researchers have found ample evidence that demonstrates that it is a combination of gender conditioning and a lack of role models that make girls feel that they don’t “belong” in STEM. This isn’t just about finding gender equity in the workplace or the college classroom, then; it’s also about reframing the gendered messages we send to young girls and women about femininity and science.
Conference Report on History of Science Society 2013 Annual Meeting
By Heather Munro Prescott
Last weekend I attended the 2013 annual meeting of the History of Science Society in Boston, Massachusetts. I tweeted periodic comments throughout the conference. Here are some further thoughts:
On Thursday afternoon, I started off with the Special Public Engagement Session: Science in the Streets, cosponsored by Boston University Center for the Philosophy and History of Science. This session consisted of two interdisciplinary panels aimed at exploring “innovative ways of connecting ordinary citizens with science, and how the history of science can inform and enrich these efforts.” Presenters included Brian Malow (the science comedian) and Ari Daniel Shapiro of the science podcast The Story Collider. Conevery Valencius Bolton from the University of Massachusetts, Boston did a fine job as an emcee for the session.
A Golden Girl’s Guide to Growing Old
By Cheryl Lemus
A few months ago, I decided to stop dyeing my hair. There were a couple of reasons behind this decision. In March, I started my new job as assistant professor of history for an online university, which means I work from home. One of the advantages of this position is that I don’t have to get dressed. Working in yoga apparel and/or PJs is oddly liberating, although I have to remind myself to wash my face and brush my teeth. There is a freedom in forgoing a professional wardrobe, but I began to wonder if I still needed to color my hair, which I’ve done in one way (Sun In) or another (Clairol #108) since I was 13. Now that I work from home, the box of dye is sitting in the bathroom. I think laziness is driving my decision more than wanting to make some sort of statement about embracing middle age.
Sex and Disability, Part 2
By Adam Turner
This is the second post in a two-part reflection on some of the issues raised by a September BBC news story, Judge Approves Man’s Sterilisation in Legal First. (See part one for a synopsis of the story.) In part one I listed three reasons why people often believe adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) should not have sex or sometimes even be in romantic relationships. I discussed number one in part one, and will now look at numbers two and three.
Lady Doctors and Their Feminine Charms
By Carrie Adkins
Researchers at the University of Montreal recently reported that female physicians consistently outperformed their male counterparts when it came to providing high-quality care to elderly patients with diabetes. The study was extremely specific in its focus – it evaluated doctors’ level of compliance with three particular guidelines for long-term diabetes treatment – and fairly nuanced in its findings, attempting to account for factors like the ages of the physicians in question. It concluded that female doctors were more likely than male doctors to schedule regular eye exams, insist on frequent check-ups, and prescribe the combination of medications recommended by the Canadian Diabetes Association.
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-The history of yoga.
-Let’s revisit 90s mall culture.
-Medieval pets had names too.
-The fright of marrying an ugly man.
-Unsettling drafts of Cold War billboards.
The Links between Optional Parenthood and Reproductive Rights
By Heather Munro Presscott
Last summer, Time Magazine published a cover story declaring “Childfree Adults Are Not ‘Selfish,'” in which Carolina A. Miranda recounts her decision to not have children: “This should not seem that radical. But 52 years after the advent of the birth control pill, and more than a century after the word ‘feminism’ was first coined, a woman’s decision not to have children remains fraught. It is also very public, relentlessly scrutinized by psychologists, politicians, statisticians and the media, who gather to discuss what it may mean — for women, for the funding of Social Security, for Western civilization as we know it. This past winter, a pair of Newsweek writers — of the dude persuasion — went on a gloom-and-tirade (sic) about declining birth rates and the self-involved young adults that are causing them.”
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-Hunky history: the male nude.
-The man who forgot everything.
-The Victorian version of the GIF.
-Baseball’s forgotten experiment.
-Ancient grills: gem-studded teeth.
-Campy photos of Communist spies.
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-Nazi bride school.
-A haunting WWII memorial.
-1948 photo essay of a “career girl.”
-A history of knives, forks, and spoons.
-What’s it like to live in a house museum?
