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

[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.)