AASWOMEN Newsletter for March 06, 2015
Issue of March 06, 2015
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer
This week's issues:
1. Let's Talk about Street Harassment
2. Update: AAS CSWA Survey of Workplace Climate
3. LGBT Physicists: The Interviews
4. NSF Report on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in the Sciences
5. The Gender Breakdown of the Applicant Pool for Tenure-Track Faculty Positions
6. How a Space-Obsessed Schoolgirl Battled the Odds to Become a Top Scientist
7. Feminist Academics Take Note: Women are Not All White and Straight
8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
10. Access to Past Issues
1. Let's Talk about Street Harassment
From: Jessica Kirkpatrick via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
The issue of street harassment has gotten a bunch of attention in the media lately. According to stopstreetharassment.org:
Gender-based street harassment is unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation.
Street harassment is a problem in general, but is especially prevalent on college campuses (where many astronomers work), is especially scary at night and in isolated places (when and where astronomical observing happens), can affect how safe someone feels traveling alone to unfamiliar places (like conferences and observatories) or how late they feel comfortable staying at work. Street harassment is something, that while might seem like a non-astronomy issue, actually can have real impact on the professional life of an astronomer because it affects one's ability to travel freely through the world without fear of violence or abuse.
Read more at:
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/03/lets-talk-about-street-harassment.html
Back to top.2. Update: AAS CSWA Survey of Workplace Climate
From: Christina Richey via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
Update: The AAS CSWA Survey on Workplace Climate will be closing on March 15th (at midnight, EST). We have received over 400 responses already and would like to thank everyone who has participated thus far. For those who have not filled out the survey, please do so as soon as possible. Also, for those who volunteered for the follow-up interview portion, Dr. Kate Clancy will be contacting you in the next month to arrange those interviews. Preliminary results will be presented this summer.
Read more at:
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/03/update-aas-cswa-survey-of-workplace.html
And take the survey at:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CSWA_Workplace_Climate_Survey
Back to top.3. LGBT Physicists: The Interviews
From: Elysse Voyer [elysse.voyer_at_gmail.com]
By Toni Feder
In the March issue of Physics Today is a story about how the American Physical Society (APS) has put together an ad hoc committee to look into issues relevant to physicists who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), or other sexual or gender minority. In the interviews below, seven scientists tell what it was like coming out professionally, how their sexual or gender identity interfaces with their careers, and how the environment could be improved in science, technolog y, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Read the interviews here:
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.5.9034
Back to top.4. NSF Report on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in the Sciences
From: Daryl Haggard [dhaggard_at_amherst.edu]
About this report:
Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering provides statistical information about the participation of these three groups in science and engineering education and employment. Its primary purpose is to serve as an information source. It offers no endorsement of or recommendations about policies or programs. National Science Foundation reporting on this topic is mandated by the Science and Engineering Equal Opportunities Act (Public Law 96-516).
The full report is here:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2015/nsf15311/digest/nsf15311-digest.pdf
Back to top.5. The Gender Breakdown of the Applicant Pool for Tenure-Track Faculty Positions
From: Meredith Hughes [amhughes_at_wesleyan.edu]
by Todd A. Thompson
The demographics of the field of Astronomy, and the gender balance in particular, is an important active area of investigation. A piece of information missing from the discussion is the gender breakdown of the applicant pool for faculty positions. For a sample of 35 tenure-track faculty positions at 25 research universities advertised over the last few years in astronomy and astrophysics, I find that the ratio of female applicants to the total number of applicants is ~0.2, with little dispersion and with no strong dependence on the total number of applicants. Some discussion is provided in the context of the fraction of women at the graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, and assistant professor levels, but strong conclusions are not possible given the limitations of the study. Current and future faculty search committees will likely be interested to compare their numbers to this distribution to decide whether or not they could be doing more to attract an applicant pool that is representative of the community.
Read the full report at:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.01333
Back to top.6. How a Space-Obsessed Schoolgirl Battled the Odds to Become a Top Scientist
From: Meredith Hughes [amhughes_at_wesleyan.edu]
by Nicola Davis
Her childhood was divided between 13 schools, and she has dyslexia. But Maggie Aderin-Pocock has since designed a host of space instruments, and now presents the Sky at Night
Read more at:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/21/maggie-aderin-pocock-interview-bbc-nasa-space
Back to top.7. Feminist Academics Take Note: Women are Not All White and Straight
From: Meredith Hughes [amhughes_at_wesleyan.edu]
by Natalya Din-Kariuki
University feminism initiatives, like Oxford?s women in the humanities, at first glance seem valuable in their intentions and goals. However, the vast majority of faculty-led initiatives share the naïve assumption that ?women? and ?feminism? can be talked about without conversations about race, class, disability, sexuality, and other axes of oppression.
Without these perspectives, you can combat only the sexism experienced by a dominant group ? which tends to be white, cisgender, able-bodied and financially comfortable.
Read the rest at:
http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/mar/03/feminist-academics-take-note-women-are-not-all-white-and-straight
Back to top.8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
To submit an item to the AASWOMEN newsletter, including replies to topics, send email to aaswomen_at_aas.org
All material will be posted unless you tell us otherwise, including your email address.
When submitting a job posting for inclusion in the newsletter, please include a one-line description and a link to the full job posting.
Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above.
Back to top.9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
Join AAS Women List by email:
Send email to aaswlist+subscribe_at_aas.org from the address you want to have subscribed. You can leave the subject and message blank if you like.
Be sure to follow the instructions in the confirmation email. (Just reply back to the email list)
To unsubscribe by email:
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To join or leave AASWomen via web, or change your membership settings:
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Back to top.10. Access to Past Issues
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
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