Download PDF The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack
There is without a doubt that publication The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack will certainly constantly give you inspirations. Even this is merely a publication The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack; you could locate many categories as well as types of books. From delighting to experience to politic, and also sciences are all provided. As exactly what we specify, right here our company offer those all, from popular writers and also author on the planet. This The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack is one of the collections. Are you interested? Take it now. Just how is the means? Find out more this short article!
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack
Download PDF The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack
The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack How an easy idea by reading can boost you to be a successful person? Reading The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack is an extremely straightforward task. However, how can many people be so careless to read? They will certainly like to spend their spare time to chatting or hanging around. When in fact, checking out The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack will certainly offer you much more possibilities to be effective completed with the efforts.
As we explained in the past, the modern technology assists us to consistently realize that life will be always simpler. Reading e-book The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack practice is also among the perks to obtain today. Why? Innovation could be used to supply the publication The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack in only soft file system that can be opened every single time you desire as well as anywhere you need without bringing this The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack prints in your hand.
Those are several of the perks to take when getting this The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack by online. However, how is the means to obtain the soft file? It's very best for you to visit this page due to the fact that you could obtain the web link web page to download and install guide The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack Just click the link given in this short article and also goes downloading. It will certainly not take much time to get this book The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack, like when you need to go for e-book establishment.
This is additionally among the factors by getting the soft data of this The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack by online. You could not need even more times to spend to see the publication store and hunt for them. In some cases, you additionally don't locate guide The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack that you are browsing for. It will certainly throw away the moment. But below, when you see this page, it will certainly be so very easy to get and also download and install the publication The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack It will certainly not take often times as we mention previously. You could do it while doing another thing in your home and even in your workplace. So easy! So, are you question? Just exercise what we supply here and check out The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys' Club, By Eileen Pollack what you like to review!
A bracingly honest exploration of why there are still so few women in the hard sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science
In 2005, when Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard, asked why so few women, even today, achieve tenured positions in the hard sciences, Eileen Pollack set out to find the answer. A successful fiction writer, Pollack had grown up in the 1960s and ’70s dreaming of a career as a theoretical astrophysicist. Denied the chance to take advanced courses in science and math, she nonetheless made her way to Yale. There, despite finding herself far behind the men in her classes, she went on to graduate summa cum laude, with honors, as one of the university’s first two women to earn a bachelor of science degree in physics. And yet, isolated, lacking in confidence, starved for encouragement, she abandoned her ambition to become a physicist.
Years later, spurred by the suggestion that innate differences in scientific and mathematical aptitude might account for the dearth of tenured female faculty at Summer’s institution, Pollack thought back on her own experiences and wondered what, if anything, had changed in the intervening decades.
Based on six years interviewing her former teachers and classmates, as well as dozens of other women who had dropped out before completing their degrees in science or found their careers less rewarding than they had hoped, The Only Woman in the Room is a bracingly honest, no-holds-barred examination of the social, interpersonal, and institutional barriers confronting women—and minorities—in the STEM fields. This frankly personal and informed book reflects on women’s experiences in a way that simple data can’t, documenting not only the more blatant bias of another era but all the subtle disincentives women in the sciences still face.
The Only Woman in the Room shows us the struggles women in the sciences have been hesitant to admit, and provides hope for changing attitudes and behaviors in ways that could bring far more women into fields in which even today they remain seriously underrepresented.
Named one of the notable nonfiction books of 2015 by The Washington Post
- Sales Rank: #543893 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-15
- Released on: 2015-09-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x 1.07" w x 6.26" l, 1.25 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 288 pages
Review
“Hard-hitting, difficult to read, and impossible to put down.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Honest, readable, and brave.”
—Library Journal
“Offering an engrossing look at the barriers still facing women in science...Pollack draws attention to this important and vexing problem with a personal narrative, beautifully written and full of important insights on the changes needed to make those barriers crumble...Any young woman or man on the way to college to major in science will find great lessons in this book.”
—Washington Post
“Her memoir rings authentic, its lessons essential. A bitter pill to swallow but a vital addition to the important and frustratingly ongoing discussion about gender equity.”
—Poornima Apte, Booklist
“The Only Woman in the Room is absolutely brilliant—even a sleeping pill and head cold couldn’t stop me from reading it through the night. Pollack’s story reveals so much—I want to give it to my children, my husband, my older sister (a biologist), and every physicist I know, perhaps with key passages underlined. And especially, young women in science: read this book!”
—Meg Urry, President of the American Astronomical Society, and former chair of the Department of Physics at Yale University
“With excruciating candor Eileen Pollack details how society's relentless message that girls lack the intrinsic aptitude for high-level math and physics leaves young women without the confidence to stay the course in the brutally competitive environment of high-powered science. This is a riveting, insider's-account of how unconscious biases make a mockery of meritocracy, why women's equality remains elusive, and why Larry Summers was so wrong.”
—Nancy Hopkins, Amgen Inc. Professor of Biology (emerita), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“In Eileen Pollack’s vivid description of the issues facing women in science, I immediately saw the truth of what I have lived. Pollack is convincing in showing how the obstacles for women in the U.S. are erected by our culture. In the 1960’s my mother had to put up with exclusionary rules that kept her out of a career in science. You would think things might have gotten better for my generation, and for the current generation. But they have not. Eileen Pollack courageously and honestly examines her own life and shows us why.”
—Carol Greider, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and Daniel Nathans Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University
“My remarks on women and science generated much heat—if they helped stimulate Eileen Pollack’s introspections and reflections, they shed light as well. I certainly understand many aspects of the issue better for reading Pollack’s work. We all want great opportunities for all, and as she demonstrates, the world has a long way to go.”
—Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus, Harvard University, and former Secretary of the Treasury
About the Author
Eileen Pollack is the author of the novels Breaking and Entering (a New York Times Editor’s Choice selection) and Paradise, New York, as well as two collections of short fiction, an award-winning book of nonfiction, and two creative-nonfiction textbooks. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories. She is a professor on the faculty of the Helen Zell MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She divides her time between Manhattan and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Even in the 1970s, the sexism I experienced was rarely obvious. I grew up in a privileged, loving home with few barriers that might prevent a bright, confident young woman from succeeding in whatever field she took it in her head to enter. All this led me to suspect that the reasons for the scarcity of female physicists must be subtle, and those reasons must lie buried in the psyches of the women who loved science and math but never completed their degrees or, like me, earned their degrees but left their fields. . . . By trying to understand why I didn’t become a physicist, I hoped to gain insights into why so many young women still fail to go on in science and math in the numbers their presence in high school classrooms and their scores on standardized tests
predict.
What I discovered shocked me. Although more young women major in physics at Yale than when I attended school there, those young women told me stories of the sexism they had encountered in junior high and high school that seemed even more troubling than what I had experienced: complaints about being belittled and teased by their classmates and teachers, worries about being perceived as unfeminine or uncool. . . . The same forces that caused me to feel isolated and unsure of myself at Yale continue to hem in young women today, acting like an invisible electrified field to discourage all but the thickest skinned from following their passion for science, a phenomenon that turns out to be less true in other countries, where women are perceived as being equally capable in science and math as men.
Most helpful customer reviews
51 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
Right mission, wrong flag-bearer
By doubutsu
I care about the under-representation of women in STEM fields, and it pains me to give a book on this topic a low rating. Pollack expertly describes many of the subtle obstacles and pervasive barriers that deter women from STEM, but... These accounts were presented in the context of her own experiences, and I found many of her statements (and her own motivations) counterproductive to the stated mission of this book. Many things she said were outright insulting.
The first sign that something was wrong appeared in the book's preface:
"Even women who grow up to be feisty, successful feminists spend much of their adolescence obsessing about their appearance, romance, sex, and their popularity with female friends. ...girls may dumb them themselves down, hide or repress their interest in classes or activities their peers deem nerdy. They may develop crushes on their teachers and other older men, who don't see them as threatening and are all too happy to reciprocate their affection. A boy might pursue a subject because he respects the man who teaches it, but unless he is gay, he won't fall in love with that teacher, as so many young women do." (p. xx)
My reaction: WHAT?!
Her words reminded me of biochemist Tim Hunt's offensive statement that female scientists shouldn't work with male scientists because "You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticize them, they cry." Pollack's statement implies not only that sexual attraction will create problems for female students of science, but that such problems are common. That will only deter male scientists from mentoring female students!
It only got worse as Pollack revealed again and again that romantic attraction motivated much of her scientific pursuits. While I appreciate her honesty, in this context honesty is damaging, especially because she portrayed her own motivates as commonplace instead of unique to her personality. Her story creates the impression that many women pursue science for male attention, and that romantic tension is a regular occurrence in interactions between male professors and female students. That is not only inaccurate (from my experience, anyway), it is incredibly counterproductive to the mission of getting more women in STEM fields.
This was such a theme in Pollack's story that I started a document to record unsettling and/or offensive quotes from the book. I nearly stopped reading altogether when I reached page 35, when Pollack reveals she had a romance with her high school debate teacher. I was disgusted. Three pages later, she describes how she visited Yale after receiving an offer of admission, and she decided to go there because she was attracted to a male physics professor after watching him lecture.
The last few chapters of the book depict solidarity among women who want to pursue STEM until they're discouraged or turned away, but this comes too late. Earlier in the book Pollack made it clear she disliked and felt competition with other women as a student. She had awe and respect only for men and wanted nothing to do with other women:
"But the women's movement seemed to mean women ended up spending more time with other women, and something called 'consciousness-raising groups,' and the last thing I wanted was to spend more time with women. If women ran the world, society would be less competitive. But I loved competing. How else could I prove to the brilliant, powerful men who rules the world but I was as smart and strong as they were?" (p. 21)
This passage was particularly offensive:
When describing the only other female physics major: "And as much as I enjoyed the sight of her shining, smiling face, I can't say we were friends. If a person's self-worth derives from being the only woman in the field, how much affection can she feel toward another woman who might challenge that claim to fame? Erika's decision to pursue a bachelor's of arts degree rather than the more demanding bachelor of science struck me as cheating. It was as if we had signed up to be marines, and here we were at boot camp, each wearing the same uniform, but Erika got to stay in the barracks and buff her nails while the rest of us jogged fifty miles in the rain." (p. 47)
Holy s***! Majoring in physics isn't easy, even if you're pursuing a B.A. instead of a B.S. The analogy she used--Erika buffing her nails, Pollack jogging fifty miles in the rain--was so insulting. Clearly Pollock thought very well of herself. Far from being a proponent of female representation in STEM, she wanted other women to abandon the field. She wanted to be the only woman in physics because it made her feel smart and special.
At this point, I was disgusted by Pollack, and I often paused my reading to vent to my husband whenever I encountered another offensive passage. But I kept reading, and it became more and more obvious that Pollack's pursuit of physics was at least partly motivated by a desire to attain men.
"Could anything be more exciting than carrying a pristine notebook embossed with 'Lux et veritas' to a lecture hall where I would finally begins the life I had been waiting eighteen years to start? My status as one of only two women in the auditorium struck me as less frightening than erotic; it was like going to a movie with 118 dates. I was even more excited when the professor turned out to be the same dark, bearded young man whose class I had visited the spring before." (p. 53)
"My new powers of understanding might have flowed from nothing more than Professor Zeller's voice murmuring seductively in my head: 'You can do it. Stick it out.'" (p. 58)
"My attraction to my professors kept me working to please them long after I might otherwise have given up." (p. 128)
Despite these criticisms, there were many things I did like about this book. Pollack describes the subtle ways women are discouraged from pursuing STEM, and the firsthand accounts of other women's struggles were great. I heartily agree with the message of this book, and more people need to know why we have too few female scientists. But at the same time, Pollack's own story could be counterproductive. Normally I appreciate honesty, but I wish she hadn't disclosed these things about herself. If readers assume her romantic motives are present in other women, it will exacerbate the problem.
In addition to her apparent disdain for other women (she only respected men's opinions), Pollack also derogates scientific disciplines that aren't physics. This passage angered me:
"As to why there are more female chemists then physicists, my hunch is most chemists aren't looking to explain the universe, only to produce a fabric that doesn't wrinkle or absorb odors, a vanilla pudding that tastes more vanilla-y, a bacterium that eats up oil." (p. 202)
She just insulted the ENTIRE FIELD OF CHEMISTRY! That is so offensive! As if physics is the only real science, the only one that truly requires intelligence and passion.
My last complaint about this book is how woefully it covers scientific research on gender disparity in STEM fields. (Ironic, isn't it?) There are hundreds of psychology experiments on this very issue. She briefly mentioned one study on stereotype threat (without describing the phenomenon of stereotype threat itself), but she completely ignored a vast literature whose inclusion would only bolster her arguments. For example, social psychologist Amanda Diekman has conducted terrific research on why some women avoid STEM and how to change this. (See: htt[...]) But you know what? I bet Pollack doesn't even consider psychology a science.
Again, I'm totally on board with the mission of this book, but I wish it had a different flag-bearer.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Good read
By CB
Glad this has been put in writing. Things are, thankfully, changing!
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
ANYONE WHO TEACHES SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING OR MATHEMATICS SHOULD READ THIS BOOK
By David Keymer
Two hundred some pages into this mixed memoir and study of the reasons why so few women students continue in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Pollack cites a 2012 study by researchers at Yale who sent out comparable but not identical resumes, half under the name of John and half under the name of Jennifer, with letters of recommendation and supporting material, to 127 faculty members in physics, chemistry and biology at six major research institutions in the United States . The faculty members were asked to rate “John” or “Jennifer” on a sliding scale as to their estimate of the candidate’s competence, hireability and likeability and their perceived willingness to mentor him or her if he or she was struggling. On every scale except “likeability,” the “male” candidate significantly outscored the “female,” even though the CVs and supporting materials were equivalent. The professors were asked to suggest a salary range they would be willing to offer their candidate. “John” was offered an average starting salary of $30,238; Jennifer $26,508.
When Pollack reported on this study on a website, one writer, a scientist, wrote back that the results didn’t show gender bias but rather the scientists’ “objective” knowledge that women are, on the average, less able than men. This response, Pollack notes, is a textbook definition of bias: a decision made on gut feeling, or a few anecdotal examples, taking no notice of individual differences. Pollack writes that sentiments like this discourage promising women students from sticking it out in STEM fields. There’s also a culture that makes assumptions about masculine and feminine behavior, blatantly favors the former over the latter, and holds women accountable to a higher standard of behavior than boys both in their studies and their work. It is these subtle and not-so subtle discouragers, from grade school on that drive women out of science and into more “supportive” and “people-oriented” fields.
A large part of this book is autobiographical, where some readers might prefer hard data, but that’s beside the point. Telling her own story enriches personalizes her message. Pollack was one of the first two women at Yale to graduate with a bachelor of science degree in physics. By the time she graduated, she had published articles and presented at a professional (not graduate student) conference. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Yet she didn’t continue on in physics.
It took a while for her to figure out what she did want to do. Eventually she settled on writing. (The encouragement of novelist John Hersey helped.) Today she writes books and teaches writing at the University of Michigan and s he likes the life she leads. But she can’t help wonder if she might not also have liked the life she had dreamed of earlier, as a theoretical physicist, if one of her science teachers had encouraged her.
One difference between men and women STEM students, she notes, is that the men’s self-confidence is much stronger, as is their aggressiveness –they don’t need as much encouragement or mentoring. But it doesn’t mean men have more ability. Pollack describes about some of the programs in place now to encourage young women to continue in STEM fields but says we need an overhaul of attitudes to make the kind of difference we should be making. In the meantime, America continues to lose the better part of half its talent pool as women opt for less stressful and discouraging lives.
Every grade school, high school, college and university teacher of science or mathematics and every high school superintendent, principal, and guidance counselor should be required to read this book.
See all 36 customer reviews...
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack PDF
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack EPub
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack Doc
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack iBooks
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack rtf
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack Mobipocket
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack Kindle
[G279.Ebook] Download PDF The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack Doc
[G279.Ebook] Download PDF The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack Doc
[G279.Ebook] Download PDF The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack Doc
[G279.Ebook] Download PDF The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club, by Eileen Pollack Doc
