Response to comments on last post

This time, when I tried to reply, google said "comment is too large to process".

Ha! Maybe that's why my replies get eaten so often! I am too verbose.

Oh well, at least this way I can spread out and relax... plenty of space to be as large as I want!


J,

I totally get what you're saying. There was a time, when I was a bit younger, when I would have given anything to be surrounded assholes if it meant competition was out in the open and I could be my own assholish self too.

I was just so sick of the gossipy back-stabbing passive-aggressive nonsense.

I wanted the risky, exciting, moving things forward as fast as possible. I didn't care if we were a pack of snarling, barking dogs. I wanted to run with the pack if it was going somewhere. I was tired of waiting for my slothful companions to get off their lazy asses.

But I'm a little older now, and I'm tired. I wasted my youthful energy letting science crush my creativity into minimal publishable units.

I regret it, and no I wouldn't do it over again if I could.

I would do something else if I could go back and be 21 again.

But not now. I'm not going to run off now and join the dog army. I really don't have the energy to fight any more of that kind of fighting.

And I'm not convinced it's the best way to be creative, either. Maybe for a different age group, it works. But I think I grew out of it.



Anon 9:50,

I think you're missing the point. We're not saying it's a conspiracy- that's a different concept.

What we're saying is that it's the sum of accumulated unconscious biases of many individuals.

That it's true that because of these commonly held unconscious biases, men get more help getting their work done, and getting their papers submitted, and have an easier time getting their papers accepted.

We're not saying it's a lot different. We're saying it's a little bit different.

But consistently, it's different.

Even if it's only a tiny bit of help, and a tiny bit easier, those 1% here and 3% there.. those amounts add up to a big advantage when it comes to "well his CV looks better than hers".

Just think, if every time you went to submit a paper, and you were within the 3% range of it getting accepted, and somebody handed you a "3% off free" coupon. How many more papers would you have? If that saved you a round of resubmitting each time? A round of fighting with your advisor about which journal to send it to? Each time?

What would that save you? Six months? A year? Each time?

Over the course of a career, that's going to add up to a whole lot of CV lines.

And nobody seems to really get it at the hiring level that we're talking about apples and oranges. That for us to come up through these ranks is different than it was for him.

That even if nobody means to have these biases, they exist, and it makes it harder than it needs to be.

That when we do have a good CV, we get criticism amounting to the simple doubt that a women couldn't possibly have done that well on her own - AS IF THE MEN EVER DID IT ALL ON THEIR OWN!

Because nobody who gets to that level did all on their own. Everybody had student help, and technical help, and PI's who helped get them fellowships and invitations to give talks and had them lecture for classes. Men get that kind of help and it's considered par for the course.

Why is it unfair if women ever ask get any help at all?

The point is that we're never going to be able to overcome these biases without more help and without forcing people to notice what we've seen. That we're not making it up, it's not imaginary. It's real.

My point is, I know it's a pyramid scheme. I'm just saying that for women it's a tiny bit sharper, just a tiny bit steeper to climb. And maybe that tiny bit makes all the difference when it's barely scalable in the first place.

I read an article this week that said the next big hurdle for equality can only be cleared by getting men on board to help change things.

Denying that there's a problem doesn't help. You, sir, may think that you are not sexist.

But you are not helping.