14-year old raped, lashed to death for “adultery”

This is what major news stations should be talking about. Not sports, not the weather, and not our partisan politics, but the fact that there are people in the world who think it is right to lash a 14 year old to death after she was raped, calling it “adultery”.

This girl was harassed and raped by a man three times her age. He was sentenced to lashes as well, but escaped early into the beating. She wasn’t so lucky – she collapsed after 70 lashes and died in the hospital. What’s worse is that doctors tried to claim her death was a SUICIDE. Is this the 21st century?

We, and I, are far too comfortable in our society where abortion and illegal immigrants are the worst of our cultural disagreeances. Our country has its problems, and many of them are horrible, but to think that this happens on a regular basis makes me feel overjoyed to live here -and sickened that this is a regular occurrance in other parts of the world. People need to be made aware of this.

An estimated 5000+ women are the victims of honor killings annually.

Ode to Summer

The advent of warm weather is reminding me of how much I love it. My mood is attuned to the temperature – cold days leave me feeling subtly introverted, while hot days give me an almost delirious sense of happiness. Walking outside into heat…delicious, enveloping heat…it feels like drowning in bliss.

But I think the temperature I like the best is right around 72 degrees F. This is the temperature at which I feel nothing. My skin doesn’t feel hot or cold. It’s like I don’t even exist. I am in perfectly in balance with the whole world..kinda like my legs just sprouted out of the ground.

Days like that make me so glad I decided to stay in California. I honestly wonder if I could be happy anywhere that was cold most of the time.

PS: trying this BEDA thing (Blog Every Day in April). We’ll see how it goes…

Things I am Going to Do This Summer

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Summmmmmeeeeeeerrrrrrrr is coming!!!

-Read all the interesting books that I have been putting off for four years because I had school books to read.
-Learn to play the goddamn guitar FINALLY.
-Sit outside and enjoy the weather.
-Go to the beach a whole bunch.
-Take lots of pictures for fun.
-Try some new things (gotta make a new list for this…).
-Sleep in when I want to.
-Take a science break.
-Play video games.
-Cook some tasty meals.
-Be in good shape and health.

Looking forward to greener pastures…

Almost a year ago I wrote about moving to a new lab and whether this was the right decision for me. At the time it seemed to have a lot of perks. Having been there for 6 months, I regret the decision in some ways…well, most.

For starters, I find that even though “you don’t have to like someone to work with them” (thanks, PI), that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to happily work with them. I do not enjoy having someone monitor my schedule. It is incredibly stressful to have every hour of every day allocated in some way. Jesus, is this how it’s like having a real job? Well, I have my hours tracked when I’m at work, and that doesn’t bother me…Maybe it’s just in a lab setting that it bothers me. I don’t know. But some days the next four months seem impossible.

Also, I have learned that I will thoroughly investigate any potential supervisors I have to the extreme. Even if they seem nice to begin with.

The unhappiness I feel at working in this environment is cutting into how I feel about the work itself. I don’t know if I’m being weak by letting that happen, or if I need to take more charge of how I feel about things, but it’s depressing either way. I need to get out of here and into a lab where I’m happy and can work normally. Unfortunately that will have to wait for grad school.

Malleable humans, changing technologies

Today in Gender and Technology we discussed how technology is shaped by society in a variety of ways. For example, (older) bridges in New York were purposely built too low for buses by the architect, who didn’t want poor people – who rely on public transportation – coming into the nicer, more upper class areas of the city. I think that any type of technology is likely shaped by a variety of factors, but I am interested more in how technology shapes us.

Technology has and always will drive the evolution of a society, in my opinion. Although we may create technologies as a result of our needs and desires, in a way, we have these needs and desires because of previous technologies. (Kinda sounds like a which-came-first question.) The use and existence of certain tools has allowed various populations of humans to “evolve”, in the societal sense, differently than others. In the developed world, our heads are down to our phones and laptops quite often, because we are always working. But we do not work because our iPhones give us the capability to work non-stop; rather, the fact that our devices are portable and accessible 24/7 practically forces us to work as a result. We cannot help but be connected.

To make the choice to not facebook, or not text, or not check email regularly, is a choice to stand out from the progression of the population. The vast majority of us who are “wired in” will continue to move along more and more quickly as technology progresses, and if you’re not connected, you just get left behind.

I guess the question of what shapes what (do we shape technology, or does it shape us) is more of a see-saw. We make technologies that suit us, and then as the rapidly progress we have no choice but to grad hold and get dragged along into whatever lifestyle comes along with it.

Does Barbie Still Think “Math Class is Tough”?

(Wrote this for a class post, but expanded into something bigger. Just copied it over.)

In 1992 the first talking Barbie proclaimed that math class was tough. Thankfully we’ve come a long way from then…or have we? Sex differences are still wildly exaggerated and as a result, some people take them to heart.

I actually want to write about my personal struggle with the idea/theory of sex differences. As a feminist, scientist, and female, I have a very hard time accepting that something about my body could possibly hold me back in even the slightest way compared to a man. It frustrates me and every inch of my being wants to refuse that it can’t be true, that I am an equal, that there is nothing a man can do that I can’t do equally or better. But the scientist part of me makes me wonder if my denial is good science on my part. Is it ethical of me to ignore possible biological data that would go against my agenda and desires? Of course not; I would denigrate anyone who purposely ignored facts in their own interests. Yet when it comes to evidence that might in any way hold me back, it is very hard to accept.

I was thinking more about the slight differences between men and women and how they are portrayed. For example, the “women are more verbally talented” and the same with men and math. This is an interpretation of data that leads many women to go into the “soft sciences” like psychology or sociology and men to go into the “hard sciences” like math and engineering, which require spatial skills. Let’s assume that there are minor differences between men and women and the above is true. Society accepts that women, in their natural state, are slightly less adept than men, on average, at math (but not at ALL incompetent, and still very able to hold their own with the same training and personal work). What do you suppose the outcome of this conclusion would be/has been? And what SHOULD it be?

I would argue that for the most part, we HAVE accepted that interpretation of the current evidence. And our response as a society has been to simply accept that women will always be just a little bit less good at math-related things. Here is where the gargantuan problem arises: In an equal and fair society (perhaps one that valued women’s dreams and aspirations as much as it did men’s) we would help encourage and develop women to make up that little extra ground so that they would be equal on the playing field as men, and be able to successfully contribute to the field. Furthermore, their ideas and perspectives as women would be valued as such. But instead…

Instead, the concept of women as less good at math, etc. has been used as an excuse to value their well-rounded education slightly less. Since women are naturally handicapped, it is easier to shunt them to the soft sciences and let the natural experts – men –  handle the heavy thinking over in the math department. And remember – this is all based not on absolute fact, but on interpretations of what little data we have (there are still plenty of things to be discovered in neuroscience). When you consider the idea of a natural handicap, the fact that women are such a minority in maths and physics becomes clear. Few women want to enter a field where the odds are already against them, and they will be ridiculed and rallied against for being in a man’s world.

In summary, I hope we can all strive to further women’s education by teaching our little girls that math is just as fun as reading, and that building things with K’Nex or Tinkertoys can be just as exciting as dressing a doll (and vice versa with our little boys). Because once we have a generation of young girls who realize their full potential – not just as women, but as human beings with minds and a passion for understanding the world around them – the planet is going to suddenly become a much better place.

on being female in public

Reason #xxx for being a feminist: I should be able to be in public without fear of being stared at or made uncomfortable by another person’s direct attention.

What happened: I was studying at a Barnes and Noble cafe. I was wearing a summer dress and a little jacket and I had makeup on. Nothing crazy. So I study for a while happily. An older man, at least 40, comes into the cafe and sits down a few tables away from me. I glance up, and as he is in the motion of sitting down, his eyes are on me. I go back to studying and for the next 15 minutes, 4 out of the 5 times I glance up, he is staring at me. Not an accidental glance, or even a coy flirty look. STARING.

After 15 minutes I can tell this guy is not going to stop and I am getting really uncomfortable so I get up to leave. I purposely take the long way out of the cafe so I can avoid him. As I walk out I look at him one more time. He has turned away from his table to watch me walk out. what. the. fuck.

So I walk out feeling uncomfortable by this man’s presence and his actions toward me, and even afraid that he might follow me out to my car because he was watching me so intently, but the thing that made me most upset was that I didn’t have the guts to say anything to him. I wanted to say loudly across the room “Would you like to stop staring at me now?” or  walk past him and say “Just so everyone in the room knows, this man has been making me really uncomfortable by staring at me. Let it be known he is a pervert, considering he’s twice my age,” and walked out. But I didn’t, because I was ashamed. He totally got away with making me feel uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure he knew I had absolutely no interest in interacting with him, because I never met his eyes for more than half a second. And I had to leave my space and interrupt MY study time because of him. Is something wrong with this picture?

Why is it even my responsibility to leave? Shouldn’t I be able to exist in public without feeling the pressure of someone’s eyes on me? I’m sure someone is thinking “well, you dressed up and you looked cute, so you oughta know that’s a consequence.” Heck, I’m even saying it a little bit to myself. But then I remind myself that it ISN’T my responsibility to change my appearance so that others change their reaction towards me. I can dress however I want because it’s not for anyone else. That man shouldn’t have been staring at me or even thrown me more than a glance. Fuck him.

The next time this happens, I am going to try as hard as I can to work up the courage to say something. I can’t keep hiding in a shell and let people like this control me, whether inadvertently or purposefully.

passion vs publishing

As my third year as an undergraduate comes to a close, I think more and more about the grad school process and how to best increase my chances of getting in somewhere top-notch in a good location with an awesome faculty member and lab. For the most part this is pretty straightforward: gotta have good grades, experience in a lab, etc. But I still have a few things I’m not sure about.

For example, I am making the transition out of one lab and into another for a variety of reasons. But I don’t know if it’s the right decision…and the bad part is that everyone seems to have different ideas about what is best for me. Ordinarily I would go with what I thought was best, but in this case, I just don’t know. I guess it comes down to which goals are more important to me: the goal of getting published, or the goal of doing something i am passionate about and interests me. At this point in my education/career, which takes priority?

Maybe at another point in time, it would be easier to decide. Or would it? I wouldn’t want to have a career, or a project in grad school, that I wasn’t passionate about. But it’s also important to further my career by publishing and producing actual work. Hopefully I won’t be in that position where I have to decide as I am now.

I think I’ll end up sticking with my original decision to transfer. Even though this project has finally become interesting and I have obtained results, and a paper could be prospective, I’m still not passionate about neurobio. The potential to work on something related to human health is far more exciting. But maybe I can do both. Depends on how my PIs feel. We’ll see….

The world’s newest natural phenomena: boobs everywhere

This is a little outdated. But in case you’re out of the loop, some holy man declared that the reason for all the recent earthquakes was due to women’s immodesty. Blogger Jen McCreight posted a response declaring Boobquake shortly thereafter, a day upon which women everywhere should wear their most immodest clothing in an effort to scientifically test the man’s claims. In the aftermath of this internet catastrophe there has been discussion on whether Boobquake was a feminist event.

I personally believe that it had a feminist aspect to it, but others disagree (and for valid reasoning). To me, the holy man’s claims were just one more way of shaming women who dress as they please (no mention of how many natural disasters shirtless men cause). Boobquake, although more of a joke than anything else, was a way of reclaiming our right to dress just the way we want, regardless of the patriarchy’s claim on our sexuality and appearance.

Those who disagreed with the “reclaiming sexuality” viewpoint said that Boobquake was just co-opting to the desires of dudes everywhere, who must have been thrilled that women were exposing their breasts (not even, their chests) for the sake of defiance. “You’re just playing into the men’s hands!” they said. But this reminds me of victim-blaming in the case of rape, where the classic “she deserved it because she was wearing that short skirt” argument is often used. How can we ever expect to fully claim our sexuality if we do not do what we want with it publicly? The more we hide for fear of inciting the menz, the more we are co-opting into shaming our bodies.

Now, this argument doesn’t neccessarily apply to everything. For example, the recent Facebook-announced  Touch A Boob Week is quite the opposite of reclaiming sexuality. I guess you could argue that it’s still women doing what they want with their bodies (if women granted permission for someone to touch their boobs) but in this case, the organizers are encouraging people to reduce women to their boobs, and then to touch them as if they were some kind of squishy stress ball. And this is all in the name of “raising breast cancer awareness”.

Please.

Objectifying women and reducing them down to body parts is hardly raising awareness for any kind of illness, except maybe sexual perversion and assault. It bothers me that anyone thinks a woman’s breasts are there for someone else’s pleasure. Sorry, you are not allowed to touch my breasts. They are mine, firstly, and besides, I am more than a boob. My breasts are not there to raise awareness for breast cancer. They are not the only part of breast cancer. Breast cancer affects people, not just boobs. How about we try raising awareness for the very sick men and women that have this disease, and not for physically invading another person’s boobspace?

welcome to ThinkASAP

I finally started this blog for a few reasons. Firstly, I am really self-conscious about writing in an informal sense, like with a blog. I tend to overthink the way everything sounds to the point of being a perfectionist, which is just silly. So I’m hoping that doing a lot of writing will loosen me up.

Second, the title. I mostly added the “think” because ASAP was already taken. But I was always concerned that having a blog, at least one that people liked to follow, meant having a topic and sticking to it so people weren’t bored with off-topic posts. And I wanted to write about everything that crossed my mind! So I just resolved it by making a blog that is inclusive of many of my thoughts and opinions; that way, most things oughta fit in. ASAP: Academia, Science, Atheism, Politics. (Add an “O” for the occasional off-topic post, which I hope you’ll oblige me.)

And lastly…I really just love to write. Language, writing and words may be underappreciated by many as mere forms of communication, but to me they are an art. It is an art to be able to share a complex thought with someone using words. Does anyone else think it’s amazing that humans can share ideas to the extent that we do, without being able to telepathically transmit images of our thoughts to each other? It’s beautiful to me that we have developed a mode of communication so through, so extensive, that we can understand what other people are thinking by the way they speak or write. Truly amazing when you think about it.

So, I hope you enjoy what I have to offer. Please feel free to comment away; I mean for this to be a place of thoughtful discussion regardless of our opinions on a topic. Just don’t troll or be an asshat to someone else, and you’re welcome to stay. 🙂