Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist--WaPo

[bloom]

As seen in Editorials:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=221988&mesg_id=221988


Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist
Biologist Who Underwent Sex Change Describes Biases Against Women

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 13, 2006; A10

Neurobiologist Ben Barres has a unique perspective on former Harvard president Lawrence Summers's assertion that innate differences between the sexes might explain why many fewer women than men reach the highest echelons of science.

That's because Barres used to be a woman himself.

...

After he underwent a sex change nine years ago at the age of 42, Barres recalled, another scientist who was unaware of it was heard to say, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's."

And as a female undergraduate at MIT, Barres once solved a difficult math problem that stumped many male classmates, only to be told by a professor: "Your boyfriend must have solved it for you."

"By far," Barres wrote, "the main difference I have noticed is that people who don't know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect" than when he was a woman. "I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201883.html?referrer=email

[ThomCat]

1. Male privilage is so obvious

I have a hard time with people who try to deny its existance. When I first heard about the concept of male privilage it was a "duh" moment.

I think the biggest problem is that you will have a very hard time convincing most people of something if they directly benefit from not understanding it.

[ismnotwasm]

2. What a fascinating perspective!

I'm not a scientist, but my understanding is our brains are very responsive to environmental stimuli. So while statistics may show one thing today, with more and more women getting into science, becoming mathematicians or physicists, what will happen to those cognitive differences? How can a scientist say-- This is the way it is, (so to speak) without proper sample groups for study? Last I checked, it's only been in the last few decades or so that women have broken through, and entered the scientific community in force.

Men have made the scientific headlines for centuries, even though there are women who have made significant discoveries. The "proper" woman as baby-maker-hearth-keeper did a lot of damage. Damn Patriarchy.

[bloom]

3. I think there is something

just like out in the world - where for women's accomplishments to be noticed - historically - they have to be even more significant than usual.

And the way that things are considered important historically - is that the thing in question affects others. When men ignore women and their accomplishments - there is less likely that they will become historically important - simply by virtue of being ignored.

When what men do is paid attention to - by theoretically everyone - and when what women do is mostly noticed by some women and a few men - there is less likelihood for it to have an impact on society or history.

That's how I see it anyway.

I'm thinking I should go with an initial thing, as well. Be genderless.


It stinks. It shouldn't matter.


I try to support women artists and musicians and other professionals. I figure it's the least I can do.

[spooky3]

4. This is interesting. Too bad WaPo didn't include a link

to the full article in Nature. I would like to read that too.

[lukasahero]

5. My thoughts exactly!

I found it in Nature online but it's subscription only. :( Guess I'll have to find the magazine. I am very much interested in this especially since my husband started reading that damn book by the woman who "dressed" like a man (and had a nervous breakdown at the end of it because "she" couldn't handle being a man. :eyes:) Sometimes even my husband is a bit obtuse.

[Warpy]

6. I found out halfway through my first semester in engineering

school that my initials always got a full letter grade higher than my name did, even when the grading should have been pretty cut and dried.

A symbolic logic professor was openly hostile and pitched a fit when he had to part with an A for a female student--me.

I guess things haven't changed. I guess I should have considered sexual reassignment surgery and lived my life as a gay man. There would have been far less discrimination.

[benevolent dictator]

7. I'm short and boyish looking

and the difference in my experience in just walking down the street, compared with those of some of my friends, is astounding.

I have to assume that most guys just think that I am a guy, because most do unless they hear me talking. I am very rarely honked at or yelled at or said things like "hey baby!" to. It really doesn't happen unless I'm walking down the street with one of my more "feminine" looking friends. Then I tend to either be ignored or we're both called "dykes" or other such names. But men will constantly honk and yell and shout things like "let's fuck" out their car windows. It always shocks and appalls me, especially since I'm so not used it it. (Not that anyone should be, but you know.)

It's really ridiculous though. I recently buzzed my head, I've never really had any trouble with it. A few years ago, one of my more "feminine" looking friends buzzed her head and said that people would literally throw shit out of car windows when she walked down the street.

I must also be straight-boyish looking. Another of my friends who just "looks queer" (either a really butch lesbian or a very gay man, depending on the day) was walking down the street in a tshirt that had the college football team on it. A car stopped and some frat guy yelled, "You're not a fuckin' football player!" and proceeded to whip a beer bottle out of the car window at her face. She had a black eye for weeks.

It sucks. I'm just kinda glad that my natural "style" (or lack there of, hehe) makes me look like a 13 year old boy, because I'm sure I would catch nothing but hell if I didn't. Short small people are easy targets.

(Also, my first and middle initials are M. R. heheh, I wonder if my grades would go up if I started writing M.R. before my last name on papers...)

[Warpy]

8. Try it

The exceptions for me were English and literature classes. Female students were expected to excel in them, so the grade disparity wasn't there as it was with every "male" class I took.

[benevolent dictator]

9. I think I will.

I'm an engineering major, so my classes are very heavily male-dominated and ones that I'm not "supposed" to do well in.

[bleedingheart]

11. I broke the curve on my first engineering test...it pissed off a lot of

guys...

the average was 35/100...I scored an 85...

that didn't go over well..I remember profs being opening hostile to women in the engineering school.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I wasn't in engineering, but I noticed how badly the women students

in my department were treated. It was as if the profs were trying to get them to leave.

For a couple of years, I was my advisor's only advisee, and he basically ignored me. I thought that was just the way he was, until a male student came in to study in the same field and was assigned to the same advisor.

All of a sudden, my advisor couldn't do enough for this new student. He hired him as a research assistant, told him that he'd order any books that he wanted for the library, and got him a TA-ship teaching beginning Japanese. (My lack of such experience was a real hindrance in finding a job.)

I stuck it out, as did one of my friends whose advisor was pointlessly nasty to her, and we congratulated each other heartily at our Ph.D. ceremonies.

My parents went to talk to my advisor, and he said, "I guess we were a little tough on Lydia."

Ya think so???

The last bit of pointless nastiness that my friend suffered at the hands of her advisor was his not recommending her for one of the few jobs in her field that was open that year. Instead, he recommended another student who wasn't even in the right field.