Trans-view of gender bias

[astra_nomer]

This news is a tad old by now, but there's a very interesting article in last week's issue of Nature (requires subscription to read full text) written by Ben Barres, a scientist who used be known as Barbara Barres, about how sexism in the scientific community keeps women from succeeding. He cites a number of studies documenting gender bias in addition to his own anecdotes. A particularly choice one:

Shortly after I changed sex, a faculty member was heard to say, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's."

The NY Times had an interview with him. (thanks to fredrickegerman for the tip.)

Comments

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I also find this bit of the interview significant:
Q. Were there girls at M.I.T. then?
A. Very few, but M.I.T. from its very start took women.

In part it's the language, that "girls" is more acceptable at older ages than "boys" is. But language and culture both push on each other.

On the other hand, I can see an explanation for the "his work is much better than his sister's" as a difference between early work and late work. Kind of like Megan Lindholm changing her pen name to Robin Hobb and getting paid more, not to try to pretend to be male but just to start over with a new identity when her talents had grown.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

I've never been quite sure what to call female college students -- I've found myself using both "girls" and "women." So I try to make up for it by calling the males "boys." :)

Re: early vs. late work -- That depends on how much a length of time "shortly" is. If the incident happened within a year of changing genders, I'd say that's not a long enough time for someone to make significant strides in one's career.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

It's not that I suspect that he'd advanced a lot since his last presentation as a woman, so much as it's possible that he advanced a reasonable amount during his time as a woman. So Barbara's body of work includes some junk and some good stuff, and Ben's body of work includes a small amount of good stuff. If you aren't thinking very hard, it looks like Ben is better than Barbara from that.

I do agree that sexism is a plausible cause; I just compulsively look for alternate explanations for anything.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Could have cultural roots, in that women spend a lot of effort trying to appear younger even when they aren't that old, whereas men don't start until their hair is falling out.

Which could be based on the biological attractiveness of a younger and presumably more fertile woman vs. an older and thus more fit (what, not eaten by a tiger yet?) man. Those damn genes.

Similar thing: whether women are referred to by first or last names. For example, you sometimes see men's names shortened to last names "get Jones on the phone!" but you almost never see a woman's name shortened that way... or a child's.

Luckily now you're Dr. Nomer and Dr. Frost, which still sounds good. ;)

[desireearmfeldt]

...except in English schools (possibly not any more), when children *are* referred to by last name. I have some reason to think this is true for girls as well as boys, but my evidence is rather tenuous. :) Not sure how much those customs still hold.

But yes, the traditional convention is that when referring to women by last name, the title is never dropped, whereas doing so for a man is...familiar, in either a positive or negative way. First name is even more familiar, for either gender, but traditionally familiarity gets invoked on women sooner than on men.

Don't think so, old bean...

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

I think use of last names is a boy's thing there, too. I've never run into an example of women doing that.

[nuclearpolymer.livejournal.com]

My choir teacher used to call all the students by their last name. Except me, because the cognitive dissonance apparently made his brain hurt. (Recall my pre-marriage last name.)

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Or, could be because women and children are often lumped in the same category. As in, "women and children first." Goddamned pedestal.

There's also the issue that "Mr. Jones" is value neutral, whereas "Mrs. Jones" is married, "Miss Jones" is not, "Ms. Jones" is a feminist bitch, and "Dr. Jones" is a pretentious bitch.

Luckily, I don't mind being a pretentious bitch.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I think Ms. has actually gained a lot of ground not through people calling themselves that, but through people being forced to address women that they don't know the marital status of. At work, when people address me formally, it's always Ms. Baldwin because they have no idea if I'm married or not. (When they address me informally, 15% of the time they call me Linda, but that's a different issue.)

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

It has been interesting to watch that unfold on tv shows such as ER; Susan was always called Susan, but now Abby is called Lockhart as often as she's called Abby.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

I used to commonly get called by my last name. It was mostly by other guys, and it was almost always by other people whose last names had a good ring to them.

I was a bit of an exception, though, and I guess it was a combination of my vague tomboy nature and the excellent resonation of my last name.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

I meant "resonance". Doh.

[ilai]

Oh yeah, I read an article in the Boston Globe last week about Ben Barres too, which had the same quote.

Too bad Nature is subscription-only...

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Maybe you can access it through MIT's library system?

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, maleness improves character and ability by 15% automatically. Scientific fact.

However a new study indicates that you can get the same improvements merely by carrying a hot dog in your pocket. A kosher hot dog, if you're jewish.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

Eww. Given the options, I'll stick to working 15% harder.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Does it have to be a front pants pocket, or will any pocket do? How about carrying it in your purse?

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

One also wonders if any sausage will do, or strictly hot dogs. What if you're vegetarian? Will a tofu dog do?

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Any pants pocket turns out to be okay, including those doofy pockets on cargo pants. Purses, however, don't work. And tofu dogs are right out, those just make you appear to be 15% more effective but it's all fake and you'll be found out eventually.

[ilai]

There are so many directions this conversation could take that seem just plain wrong... :-)