‘Science Has No Gender!’ …But Does It Have a Race?

Today, February 11th, is International Day for Women and Girls in Science. Today is a day to promote full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls. I’ve talked about women in science on this blog before, and honestly, I wasn’t planning on writing a blog post at all today. I figured I’d just be repeating myself, and at the same time I’m sort of thinking that I’m preaching to the converted – most of the people that read this (as far as I know), are pretty happy with initiatives to improve working environments and opportunities for women in science.

(A note before I start – when I refer to ‘women in science’, I mean every person that identifies as a woman, whether that’s the gender they were assigned at birth or not. To be honest, celebrating and encouraging non-binary people in science should be included in the International Day… title too, but I don’t think the world (i.e. the UN and UNESCO) have come that far yet. That’s a fight for another blog post, but know it’s something that we as a community should be aware of.)

So, why am I writing this blog post at all? Well, today I had a bloody brilliant day. I went to We’re The Furballs – the dog petting cafe that I mentioned in a blog post a few days ago. I was feeling pretty happy with myself because yesterday I did lots of cool science/art related exploration for my Fellowship, and today was a break day that featured a corgi called Waffles, a toy poodle called Lulu, and a sausage dog called Slinky. I also went book shopping, and found the local Sephora – all in all an excellent Monday. That being said, I stopped for ice cream on the way home from the dog petting cafe, and checked Twitter. At the top of my timeline was a post from Hana Ayoob (if you’re not following her, I suggest you remedy that immediately – she also has a wonderful Etsy store) drawing attention to this:

Science has no gender!

We need 100% of our brainpower to address global challenges.

We need more #WomenInScience.

We need to support women & girls who choose science!

🌐 https://t.co/LEO1A3V12Q pic.twitter.com/Cb6LLSe3Wo

— UNESCO (@UNESCO) February 8, 2019

Does anything about UNESCO’s tweet look a little off to you?

No, I’m not talking about spelling errors or unfortunate hashtags, I’m talking about the fact that every single woman in their graphic is white. This made me really, really frustrated. So frustrated in fact that I pretty much forgot about the whole dog petting cafe thing for about 10 minutes.

The whole “we need more women in science” thing is one thing that irritates me on a consistently low level – telling women that we need them in science is not going to make them build a career in science. When I was a teenager choosing my options for subjects at school, the fact that I might be selecting subjects that would push me into a field where there would be less women than men did not encourage me to choose STEM subjects. I wanted to know that women in science were given the same opportunities as men, and the fact that there was (and still is) a shortage of women in science did not fill me with confidence on that front.

ANYWAY. Back to the issue with the graphic above. It’s terrifying that I feel the need to say this, but all women are not able bodied slim white women. This fact should not come as a shock.

If the 7.5 billion people in the world was represented by just 100 people:

50 would be women
50 would be men

60 Asians
16 Africans
14 people from the Americas
10 Europeans

1 would be dying of starvation
11 would be undernourished
22 would be overweight

So if we’re going by what the world looks like, even 1 out of the 5 women in the graphic being white would be an over-representation.

The representation of women in science in the media needs to change. It’s really not that hard – look at the image below.

Image credit: Intersectional Rosie the Riveter Print from Tyler Feder’s Roaring Softly Etsy store

Every single young girl should be able to find someone that she identifies with, and that she can look up to.

If you’re asked to name a woman in science, only being able to name Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin or Ada Lovelace, isn’t a good thing! All of the women in science that I’m seeing being held up as champions and ‘inspirations’ to get girls interested in science are white. That’s not ok.

I don’t want to work in an environment that is full of white women just like I don’t want to work in an environment that is full of white men. I want to work in an environment that is multicultural, heavily diverse, and full of passionate people of all genders, shapes, hues and sizes, feeling supported in the work that they are doing.

I’ve just written 300 words to explain why working in diverse environments is good for science, but I’ve deleted them because we should not be pushing for diversity because it’s good for science. We should be doing it because it’s human decency. As a cisgender able bodied white woman, I am absolutely done trying to explain the advantages of diversity to other privileged people; opening science up to everyone is just fucking ethical.

From UNESCO’s website: “This Day is a reminder that women and girls play a critical role in science and technology communities and that their participation should be strengthened. The celebration is led by UNESCO and UN-Women, in collaboration with institutions and civil society partners that promote women and girls’ access to and participation in science.”

UNESCO, here’s a reminder that all women and girls play a critical role in science, not just the slim able bodied white women that you have used your sizeable platform to highlight. Do better.

Image credit: Nevertheless We Persist Print from Tyler Feder’s Roaring Softly Etsy store

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Do We Still Need Ada Lovelace Day?

Every year since 2009, on the second Tuesday of October, the world celebrates Ada Lovelace Day. Ada Lovelace is widely regarded as being the world’s first computer programmer, and the day aims to raise the profile of women in STEM by encouraging people around the world to talk about the women whose work they admire. This international day of celebration helps people learn about the achievements of women in STEM, inspiring others and creating ‘new’ role models.

How did the Ada Lovelace Day come about?

From the Finding Ada website:

The inspiration for Ada Lovelace Day came from psychologist Penelope Lockwood, who carried out a study which found that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male role models. “Outstanding women can function as inspirational examples of success,” she said, “illustrating the kinds of achievements that are possible for women around them. They demonstrate that it is possible to overcome traditional gender barriers, indicating to other women that high levels of success are indeed attainable.”

So, in the tenth year of celebrations – do we really need an Ada Lovelace Day?

In a time when people can seriously suggest that ‘separate labs for boys and girls’ might be a good way to stop women crying (biochemist Tim Hunt in 2015), and others are claiming that entire scientific subjects (in this case physics) was ‘invented and built by men’ (researcher Alessandro Strumia just a few weeks ago), it is perhaps unsurprising that I think we need Ada Lovelac Day now more than ever. Though I do have a few caveats..

For Ada Lovelace Day

The general ethos behind Ada Lovelace Day is something that I completely agree with – we should be encouraging people to talk about women working in STEM subjects, and we should be working specifically to highlight their achievements. That’s not because women should be celebrated more than men; it’s because the achievements of men are already being highlighted and celebrated, and they have been for decades.

Dr Donna Strickland

A total of 209 individuals have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics since 1901; only 3 of those were women. One of those women was Dr Donna Strickland who won the award this year, the first woman to do so in 55 years. You might think that demonstrates a step forward – and perhaps in some ways it does, but if at all, it is a tiny, tiny step. To put things into perspective, Strickland did not have a Wikipedia profile at the time of the prize’s announcement.
A Wikipedia user tried to set up a page in May, but it was rejected by a moderator with the message, “This submission’s references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article.” It was determined, had not received enough dedicated coverage elsewhere on the internet to warrant a page. Think that through. This fantastically talented woman did not have a Wikipedia page because of her lack of internet presence.
Strickland said the achievements of women scientists deserved recognition. “We need to celebrate women physicists because we’re out there. I’m honored to be one of those women“, Strickland said by video link at a news conference following the announcement in Stockholm.

Strickland is just one example of the problems that riddle STEM subjects; women are underrepresented and undervalued in comparison to their male peers. Ada Lovelace Day encourages people to find out about women in STEM, and that is a brilliant thing.

Against Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace Day may be focussed on highlighting the achievements of all women in STEM, but the fact that the day is named after Ada Lovelace is troubling for me.

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace, born Ada Gordon in 1815, was the only child of erratic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, and his mathematics-loving wife Annabella Milbanke. Ada had a hugely privileged upbringing; she was raised under a strict regimen of science, logic and mathematics. As a young girl she was fascinated with machines, immersing herself in the pages of scientific magazines of the time in order for her to learn more about the new inventions of the Industrial Revolution. At 19, she married aristocrat William King, when King was made Earl of Lovelace in 1838 his wife became Lady Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. Hence why she is generally called Ada Lovelace.
Lovelace moved in affluent circles, she was introduced to Charles Babbage at the age of just 18. Babbage was a celebrity of the time, and the mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage described her as “that Enchantress who has thrown her magical spell around the most abstract of Sciences and has grasped it with a force which few masculine intellects could have exerted over it,” or an another occasion, as “The Enchantress of Numbers”.

Clearly, Ada Lovelace was lucky – she lived  relatively easy life moving in wealthy circles that enabled her to succeed. By highlighting that I am not taking away her talent, but it’s not difficult to deduce what may have happened to a person of a different socioeconomic class or ethnicity with just the same level of talent and determination. The thing that differentiates Ada Lovelace from others is privilege; her white-ness, her wealth, and her connections.

We are still living in a world where white middle class women are getting more attention that other women. Ask someone to name a female scientist and I’d put money on that woman being white, likely English-speaking, and probably from a pretty middle class background.

Early career researcher, Forbes writer, science communicator and all round inspirational human Meriame Berboucha has described herself as ‘minority squared’.

Being a woman👩🏻‍🏫 in physics⚛️, I am a minority, and being a woman of colour👩🏻‍🔧 in physics, means I’m a minority in a minority – something I like to call MINORITY SQUARED

Just because you’re a minority in a field does NOT mean you should give up -keep killing the game🔥 pic.twitter.com/vLOOu2x4fR

— Meriame Berboucha (@MBerboucha) July 24, 2018

In one of Soph Talks Science’s Scientist in the Spotlight interviews Meriame explained, “whenever I give a talk, one of the most common questions I get asked is where are you from?, which when I answer West London, is then followed by but where are you actually from.” That is beyond ridiculous; why does it matter where Meriame is ‘really’ from, whatever that means? Would these people ask white women the same question? I’d guess not.

Ada Lovelace Day contributes to the continuing problem of exclusion of people of colour; let’s highlight all achievements, so how about we change things and rename the second Tuesday in October Maggie Aderin-Pocock Day, Asima Chatterjee Day, Dorothy Vaughan Day, Susan La Flesche Picotte Day, Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day, Nergis Mavalvala Day, Adriana Ocampo Day, or Mae Jemison Day?

What do you think; are you for or against Ada Lovelace Day? Leave a comment below and explain why – I’d love to hear your thoughts 🙂

Inspiring People: Jess Wade

Blogtober is going much more quickly than I anticipated! It feels like I was only posting my last ‘Inspiring People’ post a few days ago, but that ode to Margaret McCartney was in fact over a week ago.. anyway, on to another hugely inspirational women! This post is about Jess Wade. Jess is a physicist and early career researcher based at Imperial College London, she also does a huge amount of fantastic public engagement work, a lot of which aims to promote physics to girls.

Why does Jess Wade inspire me?

Jess Wade

I was first introduced to Jess (I say introduced, I’ve never actually met her – I’ve just done a lot of admiring from afar..) on Twitter, after her campaign to create Wikipedia pages for overlooked women in science hit the mainstream news. This campaign involved Jess creating Wikipedia pages for one woman who has achieved something impressive in science every single day. Now, Blogtober has been going for the grand total of 12 days now, and I’m writing this posts later and later in the day.. it’s currently after 10pm and I’m sat in my dressing gown with a decaf tea (I am so rock and roll). I cannot imagine how much work that this campaign has involved; some of my blog posts don’t take very long to write, others take a long time because they require research – for to make a Wikipedia page requires a significant amount of time and effort. Jess’s enthusiasm doesn’t stop there though, she’s been quoted saying “I had a target for doing one a day, but sometimes I get too excited and do three.” Let that sink in, she writes at least one Wikipedia page a day, but sometimes she write three. THREE. This is a woman on a mission, and I absolutely love her excitement, drive and determination.

In more recent months Jess has also started another campaign along with fellow Scientist Claire Murray. Just a warning, this is another large campaign that will make you question what on Earth you’ve achieved in the past 2 months (my excuse is that I finished my PhD – if it wasn’t for that I’m sure I’d have raised thousands of pounds for an incredible cause… yep…). Jess and Claire have so far raised over £23,000, which will be used to buy copies of Angela Saini‘s book Inferior (I reviewed Inferior last year, you can read that review here) for every state school in the UK. ISN’T THAT INCREDIBLE?! Publishing house 4th Estate have also agreed to match the donations and manage distribution – this is no small thing, and as far as I know it was started by Jess and Claire on Twitter.
Not only is Jess aiming to ensure that girls across Britain know that they can do whatever they want to do (i.e. that it’s not science that’s holding them back, it’s society), but she’s inspired other brilliant women around the world to start these types of campaigns in their own countries. Jess is now working on a further campaign alongside Maryam Zaringhalam which aims to get the book into New York City’s middle and high schools.

This video from BBC Focus is brilliant, it includes Jess Wade along with Angela Saini, Suzie Imber and Aoife Hunt talking about why there aren’t more women in science and STEM subjects more broadly. I would really recommend watching it to get a vibe of how humble, intelligent and funny Jess is.

She’s also a brilliant doodler:

Image taken from https://makingphysicsfun.com/

Find out more

If you’d like to find out more about Jess Wade’s work, I’d recommend starting with the sources below:

Jess Wade’s outreach website, her Twitter page and her staff profile at Imperial College.

A day in the life of a physicist at Imperial College London
Meet the scientist working to increase the number of underrepresented scientists and engineers on Wikipedia
Interview: Dr. Jess Wade does it all – from clever LEDs to increasing diversity in STEM
This physicist wants female scientists to get noticed. So she wrote 270 Wikipedia profiles.
Institute of Physics blog – Interview with Jess Wade

As an early career researcher, I love Jess’s positivity and her can-do attitude. She inspires me to be proactive in the way that I push forward the things that mean something to me – whether that’s public engagement, scientific research, or diversity and equality.

Inspiring People: Margaret McCartney

Margaret McCartney

A few months ago I decided to start a series of blog posts called ‘Inspiring People’. The idea was triggered by the death of Doug Altman; I wanted to tell you about the people that inspire me. Some of them will be researchers, some clinicians, some artists, some patients, and everything in between – hopefully the blog posts will give you an idea of how I approach the research that I do, where I get inspiration from, and who I respect and admire. You might even find a few new sources of inspiration for yourself too!

Today’s inspiring person is Dr Margaret McCartney; she’s a GP based in Glasgow, former columnist for the British Medical Journal, broadcaster for Radio 4’s Inside Health programme, and a fierce advocate for the NHS. She’s also the author of various books focussing on patient health and the NHS – including The Patient Paradox that I’ve read and recommended here.

Why does Margaret McCartney inspire me?

In the post about Doug Altman I talked about the first conference presentation I gave, and how Doug’s laughter and encouragement from the audience settled my nerves. At that same conference, I saw Margaret McCartney speak for the first time. Her presentation was absolutely brilliant. She talked about death, about how we as a society need to accept the inevitability of death, and how we should be working to make death a more dignified process rather than working to keep people alive at any cost. It’s weird to think that listening to Margaret’s talk caused me to really think about death for the first time; we will all die, we have all known someone who has died, and yet we avoid the subject. I left that talk feeling inspired, humbled, and ready to buy every book Margaret has ever written.

Aside from the fact that she talks about really important, and often taboo, subjects, she talks about them in an accessible way – it’s a no holds barred approach, provocative without being actively confrontational. Listening to her, you can tell that she doesn’t take any shit, but she is so honest, intelligent and eloquent, that it’s difficult to pick any holes in her argument.

The video below is one of Margaret’s fantastic talks – this one from 2014 at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford. In this talk she’s discussing screening tests and how the process of having a screening test should not be something that patients go into without knowledge – screening tests have implications and therefore need thought and consideration before the decision to have one (or not) is made. People need to have information available to them in order for them to make the decisions that are right for them.

Find out more

If you’d like to find out more about Margaret McCartney’s work, I’d recommend starting with the sources below:

Margaret McCartney’s blog, her Twitter, and her books

Articles from the BMJ:
Medicine must do better on gender
A new era of consumerist private GP services
If you don’t pay for it you are the product
Can we now talk openly about the risks of screening?
If screening is worth doing, it’s worth doing well
The NHS shouldn’t have to pick up the bill for private screening tests
Hiding and seeking doctors’ conflicts of interest
We need another vote

If you only have time to read one thing, make it this:
A summary of four and a half years of columns in one column

As a researcher, I appreciate her brutal honesty; as a patient, I appreciate her ability to communicate; and as a tax payer, I appreciate her constant push for transparency in the way that our healthcare system is funded, skewed and tainted by industry influence and political games.

Why I Think Scientists Should Take Inspiration from the Likes of Kylie Jenner

I have been gently simmering about this for over a week, so I’m getting my thoughts out – be warned, this is a long blog post. It may not be the most coherent piece of writing I’ve ever done (if anything, I hope it isn’t – that award should go to my PhD thesis – yep, still talking about it!) but I hope it gives people something to think about.

A few weeks ago the New York Daily News Twitter account shared this tweet:

People were not happy. I don’t follow New York Daily News on Twitter, but I was aware of this tweet because people that I do follow (colleagues, scientists, academics, people I think are brilliant (highlights include Louis Theroux and Stacey Dooley), and lots of PhD students) were retweeting it or responding to it. The majority of these responses were from PhD students and scientists describing what they are doing with their lives in increasingly condescending and belittling ways. I’m paraphrasing, but a lot of the responses that I saw were along the lines of:

• “I’m in grad school working to try and find a cure for cancer.”
• “I’m getting my PhD at X institute, and my research aims to improve quality of life for people with X disease.”
• “I do research for X charity which is aiming to improve treatment for X disease, X many people die from it every year.”

Alongside this weird moral one-upmanship, a lot of the responses critiqued the post’s use of the term ‘self-made’.
If you don’t know who Kylie Jenner is, she isn’t someone who has grown up with nothing – she is the half-sister of media giant Kim Kardashian, and she’s featured on the show Keeping Up With The Kardashians for years. Kim Kardashian was first made ‘famous’ by the release of a sex tape in 2007. Since then, Kim Kardashian (now Kim Kardashian West – she married Kanye West in 2014) has launched various businesses, accrued 58.5million Twitter followers, published a book made entirely of selfies, been on the front cover of Vogue magazine, and lots more. It’s fair to say that Kylie Jenner has had a very privileged upbringing.

The responses that really frustrated me though, included jibes about her half-sister’s sex tape, the fact that Kylie posts revealing photographs on Instagram, and that she’s had cosmetic procedures like lip fillers.

What exactly has it got to do with us (as scientists) if she’s showing what is considered ‘too much’ on Instagram? Personally, I think it’s completely up to her, and if she feels comfortable with her body then why shouldn’t she flash a little side boob every now and again?! I don’t do that on my own social media profiles, but it’s got literally nothing to do with me what Kylie Jenner posts. In the same vein – so what if she’s had lip fillers? She was insecure about an aspect of her appearance (which likely came from years of being dragged by the media), she was an adult, and she made the decision to change that. The key bit here is that it’s her decision. Her decision has nothing to do with anyone else.
The reference to Kim Kardashian’s sex tape is troubling because initially it was leaked, she never released it herself. She initially sued the company that had it to prevent its release – she later settled out of court, but this essentially started out as a case of revenge porn. That’s not something that anyone wants, ever. Who are we to question what Kim Kardashian (and the rest of her family) then did to capitalise on it? Plenty of people have had sex tapes released to the public; very, very few of them are now as a successful as Kim Kardashian and co. Their success is not simply down to a leaked sex tape, it is down to well crafted business deals and knowing how to use the media to your advantage.

In addition to this, Kylie has made the majority of her money from her own cosmetics line; Kylie Cosmetics. Many of those same people (overwhelmingly PhD students and early career researchers) that were tweeting their moral superiority in comparison to Kylie Jenner, also regularly take part in campaigns to support women in science, to prove that women in science are just as entitled to hold prominent roles in scientific disciplines as men are, and to break stereotypes about the ‘type’ of person that a scientist is.
This time last year there was a big Twitter campaign to try and get cosmetics company Benefit to change an advertising campaign that suggested that girls should ‘skip class, not concealer’. I wrote about my thoughts on that campaign here (spoiler alert: what a dumb marketing move, girls are perfectly capable of wearing makeup (or not) and going to class as well). In response to that campaign, people tweeted their makeup filled selfies (myself included: below) and discussed how their looks are not linked to their intelligence. So, why are those same people bashing Kylie Jenner for everything she does? I understand that the wording of the original tweet that started this post wasn’t great ‘What are you doing with your life?’ is not a useful or fair quip, but the responses demonstrate that people are not just against what the New York Daily News started, they’re calling Kylie out for simply doing what she wants to. They’re being unfair and condescending to Kylie’s intelligence just as the Benefit Cosmetics campaign was condescending to women and girls that chose to wear makeup.

This constant bashing of media stars like the Kardashians and Kylie and Kendall Jenner isn’t cool. They are a family of strong and powerful women, and they have created an entire empire based on one family member’s sexual encounter with a guy I’m betting you’ve only heard of in conjunction with Kim Kardashian. I’m not saying that I’m a fan of the Kardashians or Jenner and her sister – I don’t want Keeping Up With The Kardashians, I don’t follow any of them on social media, and I care very little about what they do or say. In fact, sometimes the things that they do and say actively annoy me; I’ve previously written about how Kendall Jenner’s pushing of so-called detox teas is shite, the whole Kardashian crowd have been known to advertise vitamin gummy bears, and recently Kim Kardashian advertised the use of ‘appetite suppressant’ lollipops. None of those things are good, and the fact they regularly pedal poor science is damaging, but the backlash against the Kylie Jenner tweet wasn’t about that – scientists and PhD students were using it as a way to show their moral superiority. In the process, I argue that they lost any moral high ground they may have had.

So, instead of calling Kylie out for how she makes money, I think that there are things that scientists and researchers can and should learn from her and the rest of the Kardashian family; their success is not simply down to a leaked sex tape 10 years ago, it is down to well crafted business deals and knowing how to use the media to your advantage.

Using the media to your advantage is something that, in general, I don’t think scientists are very good at. Talking as a scientist, I think we’re too close to our research, too precious about the way that details are reported, and I think we find it difficult to let go of the fact that the public do not need (and often don’t want) to know every minute detail about what we do – often, they want a story, some emotion, and an outline of what we do that they can understand and repeat to their mates. I don’t say that in a belittling way; when I go to science engagement events that’s exactly what I want – I don’t care about how many chemicals you used or how the powder you used had to be weighed in a special container, I want to know what that should mean to me, and how your work could impact on my life.

The Kardashians and Jenners show us how to turn any situation into an opportunity, they demonstrate how women should be confident and proud of their bodies, they teach us about feminity and gender by taking ownership of their sexuality, and perhaps most importantly they are marketing magicians. Science needs more of that.

To close on a lighter note. Some responses to the Kylie Jenner tweet were brilliant, this was a personal highlight:

 

What It’s like to Organise a Soapbox Science Event

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that I was a speaker at last year’s Soapbox Science event in Edinburgh – if you haven’t, then read the blog post here to find out how the event went, and what my experiences of talking about clinical trials on The Mound in the pouring rain involved.

Anyway, after that event I was thinking about the representation of people there, and how brilliant it was that there were scientists from lots of different institutions. The only thing that irked me a little was that they were mostly from Edinburgh (obviously they were, that’s where the event was…). That year it was the only Scottish Soapbox Science event, so I knew that there were many more brilliant, inspiring female scientists working away on super interesting pieces of research all over the country, and they were not on their soapboxes as I was. Maybe they didn’t know the Soapbox Science event was being held, maybe they were busy that weekend, or maybe they couldn’t make it to Edinburgh; contrary to popular belief, there is a lot more to Scotland than Edinburgh and Glasgow.
A few weeks after the event I was still thinking about it, and I decided I wanted to bring Soapbox Science to Aberdeen.

Now, this was the end of last year, and I knew that my PhD thesis would be due at some point in June/July this year. Still – I figured that I could get things moving, and how hard could organising a Soapbox Science event be, right? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Soapbox Science Aberdeen is happening on Saturday 26th May 2018, as part of the University of Aberdeen’s May Festival. It’s happening, and my thesis is going to be handed in on June 29th. I also start a new job on June 1st. The point of me telling you this isn’t to brag or do that really annoying ‘oh my God look how hard I’m working, look how exhausted I am’ thing – that’s not cool. What I want to do with this blog post is encourage other people to set up Soapbox Science events in their cities, and have a bit of forewarning on what the planning process might entail – it’s totally doable, enjoyable, and incredibly rewarding. Also, I’m currently on a flight to Oregon for the Society of Clinical Trials annual meeting (and a few days of exploring) and I really want an excuse to use the iPad keyboard I got for Christmas, so this seemed like a decent use of time.

There were a few main things that took time; getting word out that Soapbox Science was coming to Aberdeen, and drumming up interest in the form of speakers, and finding money to pay for various parts of the event
That said, neither of those things caused me to doubt the fact that my thesis will be handed in on time. Most of the work could be done providing I had WiFi and a list of email addresses, so I could easily get draft emails put together whilst watching episodes of Friends or listening to podcasts after work or at the weekend. I just made sure I had a list and everything went on it, meaning eventually everything would be completed and ticked off it.

The time investment needed to get people onboard was crucial, and I spent a lot of time taking various people at the University for coffee and convincing them to plaster their office doors with posters, and to get involved in the event themselves/get their PhD students involved/get their MSc and undergraduate students to volunteer to help out on the day. That was fun though, I got to catch up with some of the lecturers I knew from my undergrad, and it was really lovely to see people getting excited about an event that I’m passionate about. In the end, we’ve ended up with a fantastic line up of inspiring women in a diverse range of scientific disciplines, and I’m so excited for people to hear them talk! The speakers have all been wonderful to work with, and I’ve enjoyed making connections with scientists outside of my own discipline – seriously, these people are doing stuff that makes my head explode; figuring out how the city of Aberdeen was made, how we might be able to use the deeper layers of skin to identify people, and how we can learn lessons from flat worms that might one day be able to help humans re-grow limbs. Science fries my head sometimes. The full list of speakers is listed below – for the titles of their talks, head to the Soapbox Science website.

The most stressful part of the entire organisation process was money. I knew right from the beginning that I would need to find grant funding to enable the event to go ahead, and at the time that the call for Aberdeen’s speakers went out, we had no money and therefore no guarantee of an event at all. I applied for 4 different public engagement grants and 2 local community funding initiatives, none of them worked out. We needed about £1500 for everything – the Edinburgh group had very kindly offered to lend us their soapboxes for the event (their event isn’t until June 2nd – if you’re nearby then do head to The Mound and give them a visit!), but we wanted our own because we knew we’d just end up in the same situation hunting for funds to support Soapbox Science Aberdeen 2019.

I applied to the University of Aberdeen’s Public Engagement with Research Enabling Fund, which limits awards to £500. I knew we’d need additional funds on top, but this was a good starting point. We got the funding, which contributed to one soapbox, paid for lab coats and printing, bought badges for the event, and paid for us to print the speaker’s signs that will go on the box on the day. So I knew that in the worst case we’d be able to borrow boxes from Edinburgh and our event would definitely be going ahead – a huge weight lifted off my shoulders – and thank you to PERU for their support. PERU is a huge asset to university, and if you’re reading this and based at the University of Aberdeen (note: they work with researchers from all fields, not just science!), do get in touch with them. They’re a brilliant group of people, super easy to work with and really enthusiastic about the weird and wonderful ideas that researchers come up with to share their work with the world.

We managed to raise the additional funds needed to pay for all 4 of the soapboxes needed for the event with the support of the Health Services Research Unit (where I’m based along with one of our speakers, Beatriz Goulao), the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology (where speakers Dr Donna MacCallum and Dr Delma Childers are based), the May Festival team, the Aberdeen branch of the British Science Association, and the Wellcome Trust’s Institutional Strategic Support Fund. Boxes are all ordered, paid for, and currently getting their final coats of varnish in the workshop of Donnie Fleury from Wood DR (pictured left).

I want to finish this blog post by saying a big thank you to everyone that has helped with the organisation of Soapbox Science Aberdeen – particularly Dr Heather Morgan and Dr Heather Doran who did not laugh in my face when I told them I wanted to bring the event to Aberdeen, and who have both been massive sources of support over the last few months (let it be known that Soapbox Science Aberdeen wouldn’t be happening without late night Twitter DMs, early morning Instagram DMs, and the following emojis: ☺️🤞🏼🎉). Donnie and Linda Fleury at Wood DR have been brilliant to work with from the first phone call when I asked them to make me 4 soapboxes that would be completely weather-proof, and sturdy enough to support the weight of an enthusiastic scientist, through to my brutal honesty about the sheer lack of funds I had to support this odd request. Unrelated – when my boyfriend and I first moved into our flat 3 years, Donnie fitted our bathroom and it was the only thing that went smoothly throughout the entire move, so if you’re Aberdeen based and need literally anything doing in your house (or public engagement event as it seems..), then he’s your man. A cheeky plug for Wood DR; find them on Facebook here, and their own website has photographs of past work too.

For now I will sign off (there’s a rumour that we’re getting pizza and ice cream as the next in-flight meal and I don’t want to risk missing out). If you’re in Aberdeen on Saturday 26th May come and pay us a visit! We’ll be on the Elphinstone lawn at Old Aberdeen between 12 and 3pm; if you’re not based in Aberdeen then head to the Soapbox Science website to find out where your closest event is, show up and support them. You’ll make the hard work of the organisers completely worth it, you’ll remind the speakers why they do what they do, and you likely find out about some cool science that you didn’t know was happening around you too!

Book Review – Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong by Angela Saini

A while ago I posted about the science books that I think everyone should read – but I read a lot so that list of books has probably changed by now. In recent months I’ve seen a lot of scientists posting on various social media sites looking for reading recommendations, or giving their thoughts on what they’ve read recently. I figured I would add in some popular science book reviews into my blog in an effort to provide some more up to date reading recommendations. First up is, ‘Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story’ by Angela Saini.

What the publisher says

From intelligence to emotion, for centuries science has told us that men and women are fundamentally different. But this is not the whole story.
Shedding light on controversial research and investigating the ferocious gender wars in biology, psychology and anthropology, Angela Saini takes listeners on an eye-opening journey to uncover how women are being rediscovered. She explores what these revelations mean for us as individuals and as a society, revealing an alternative view of science in which women are included rather than excluded.

What the critics say

“Angela Saini has written a powerful, compelling and much needed account that challenges deeply rooted preconceptions about sex differences – some blatant misogyny, others buried in thousands of years patriarchy. Inferior shows that both are fundamentally flawed, and beautifully illustrates how science is just beginning to tackle this staggering imbalance.” (Adam Rutherford, author of Creation)

“An immensely readable and compelling book, providing up to date and evidence-based ammunition for readers who want to rebuff tired myths stereotyping men and women’s brains and bodies.” (Professor Athene Donald)

“This is an important book, beautifully written, and with compelling narratives and hard evidence researched through the lenses of anthropology, evolutionary history, psychology, and neuroscience. The evidence for unconscious bias is undisputed – so no matter what you think you think about gender and equality – read this book.” (Aarathi Prasad, author of Like a Virgin)

My thoughts

I listened to this book as an audiobook via Audible – I have a monthly membership that allows me to download 2 books a month; I always use these 2 credits for non-fiction, I prefer reading fiction and listening to non-fiction. Overall, I enjoyed listening to this book, but I did find that there were bits of it that were flawed.

I really enjoyed the parts of the book that were dedicated to sex differences in the brain. This is an area that I’ve always thought was simply bullshit science, but there are talented researchers working on this stuff who believe that there are fundamental differences between male and female brains. To clarify, I still maintain that this is bullshit science, but now I have a whole chapter of examples of poor quality research design to back up my thoughts. I found the final chapter very interesting too; it looked at multiple theories that aim to explain the function of the menopause.

The way that information is presented throughout this book is systematic, each chapter taking on a different concept and presenting, in detail, the research on each side of the argument. What I really liked though, was that unlike lots of other popular science books, this didn’t end with a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘well there are arguments on both sides’. Instead it made a clear statement: “There is no biological commandment that says women are natural homemakers and unnatural hunters, or that hands-on fathers are breaking some eternal code of the sexes.”

My main problem with the book was that I’m not sure how much of an impact it will have; people who are drawn to read it are likely to have the same perspective as the author, and those who believe that women are inferior to men would probably take one look at the front cover of the book, and happily skip over it. That said, maybe the book’s aim isn’t to change minds, maybe it’s just to give women, and their allies, clear evidence for future arguments.

Would I recommend it?

On audiobook, yes. I don’t think I’d have got as much out of the book if I’d read it rather than listened to it – largely because there were some parts of the text that I felt went on for too long to drive the point home that women are not inferior to men. Saying that though, I went into this book as a feminist, I am absolutely certain that women are not inferior to men; this book didn’t have to change my mind, but it did give me some good ammunition for future clashes with misogynists.

Still stuck for science book recommendations? Alice who runs the ‘Mindful of Science’ blog recently uploaded the first in a series of Youtube videos going through her science bookshelf – take a look here.

‘Skip Class Not Concealer’, Said No Woman in STEM, Ever.

Benefit Cosmetics is a huge global brand. With their cutesy packaging and high-street presence their target audience covers young girls (and boys) just starting out with makeup, right the way up to mature women (and men) who have used their products for years.

I bought my first Benefit product at age 14, a particularly gloopy lip gloss in a pink/purple shade that I’m sure made me look like I was mere hours from death. I remember rushing home from school to get changed and apply that lipgloss before my Dad dropped my best friend and I off at a concert at Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena. Since then, I’ve used Benefit products relatively regularly – though the gloopy gloss didn’t last long.

Last week Samantha Yammine drew my attention to Benefit’s latest ad campaign. This ‘skip class NOT concealer’ ad is part of Benefit’s campaign launching their boi-ing concealer range. For someone who has dark circles around my eyes even when I’ve had a solid 12 hours of sleep, I’m the perfect target for this product. I won’t be buying it though.

It’s difficult to find a starting point for how wrong this ad campaign is, but I’ll give it a shot:

• Why can’t we go to class without concealer, is that really so bad?
• Are girls really that precious that we have to choose between going to class and applying makeup? A revolutionary thought, but perhaps we could do both.
• LEARNING IS COOL

Honestly I was so frustrated when I saw this campaign. It’s giving completely the wrong idea to young people; there’s no need to choose between wearing makeup and maintaining your education. I’m 25 years old and have been in education consistently since the age of 5. From about age 14 I’ve worn makeup, I’ve been through the horrendous Maybelline dream matte mousse phase that every girl of my generation went through, seen the rise of the liquid liner flick, and made some horrendous choices with regards to my blusher. None of that meant that I missed classes. I can confidently say that I have never skipped a class because I didn’t have time to apply concealer.

I wear makeup to work every day. My colleagues have never seen me without perfectly preened brows and a subtle contour that ensures my non-existent cheek bones look chiselled but natural. As a makeup wearer, I know for a fact that I have been judged by academics. I once had an argument with a post-doc in a lab that I was interning in – I made a mistake with a calculation, and he said ‘I should have spent more time working than applying mascara’. I was raging, and rightly so.

I continued to wear makeup after that; I also went on to graduate with a first class degree and the prize for the best thesis in my graduating cohort. I’m currently going into the final year of my PhD – and I’m on track to gain the ‘Dr’ title just after I turn 26. Not bad for someone who is proud of the extensive collection of MAC lipsticks I’ve spent my money on over the years.

I’ve decided I’m no longer buying Benefit products. The message they are sending out is damaging, degrading and intimidating. It suggests that our pretty-little-makeup-wearing heads can’t cope with learning, and I’m over it.

I’m going on holiday next week and instead of skipping to Benefit and treating myself to a new bronzer (I’m pasty and blonde, and my tan is best faked!), I placed an order with Charlotte Tilbury. There’s £106 spent elsewhere because of a badly thought-through PR campaign.

I’m hoping that Benefit will at least issue an apology, and hopefully do something to remedy the damage they’ve done with this archaic message. Maybe they could focus their next campaign on empowering young girls to aim higher, build lasting careers, and push themselves?

Women in STEM: Events, Challenges – and Why?

I haven’t touched on any political or religious topics on this blog, I haven’t spoken about money or what I think of Donald Trump, and largely I think people believe that feminism belongs in that same pile of topics you-just-don’t-talk-about. I don’t agree.

Feminism is important, and the process of explaining my views, beliefs and actions to help support other women, especially in the scientific community, is necessary. So this week’s blog post is going to be a bit of a brain dump of thoughts inspired by events and conversations over the past week – the week of International Women’s Day. I hope it ends up being a cohesive piece about why supporting women in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is a positive and useful thing to do, rather than the feminist rant that’s in my head.

Let’s start with some nice news:

This week I was told I’ve been accepted to take part in Soapbox Science‘s Edinburgh event this July. In their own words: “Soapbox Science is a novel public outreach platform for promoting women scientists and the science they do. Our events transform public areas into an arena for public learning and scientific debate; they follow the format of London Hyde Park’s Speaker’s Corner, which is historically an arena for public debate. With Soapbox Science, we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy, learn from, heckle, question, probe, interact with and be inspired by some of our leading scientists. No middle man, no powerpoint slide, no amphitheater – just remarkable women in science who are there to amaze you with their latest discoveries, and to answer the science questions you have been burning to ask.”

I’m going to be talking about clinical trials – why take part in a trial, how participation might be beneficial, and what happens if not enough people take part in clinical trials. It’s not designed to be a propaganda piece, or a talk to try and get people to take part in trials; just an opportunity for me to talk about the work I do and the reasons why I think it’s important, and a chance for members of the public to ask questions and take part in a discussion. There’ll be 11 other women scientists there talking about their own work, and I’m really looking forward to learning about what they do too.

And an online engagement activity for women in STEM:

This month, The STEM Squad are running a photo a day challenge on Instagram – take a look at their Instagram account here. In their own words, they are “An inclusive community of femme-identifying STEM professionals and enthusiasts“. The challenge involves people posting a photograph each day for the whole of March (including #WEARESTEMSQUAD), with the aim of showing the many sides of women in STEM. As I write this it’s currently day 10 and I’ve managed to keep up, I’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone’s posts and following what they get up to each day. It’s so cool to see what every does, how different each career is, and what we all like to do outside of the labs/offices/fields that we’re in day-to-day.

The themes covered in the Instagram challenge are in the picture above, so take a look at the hashtag and join in if you haven’t already!

I was talking to a friend earlier on in the week about the Soapbox Science event and The STEM Squad challenge, and she (very innocently) said, ‘Why is it just for women though? That seems a bit unfair.’

My initial response was to be a bit stroppy – why does every event that involves only women get the whole ‘why not men?’ argument thrown back at it, why can’t we just do stuff as a group of women supporting each other?! The more I thought about it, the more I calmed down. Maybe women in STEM get this weird backlash because people don’t understand the point of why we’re doing these events, these public engagement activities and challenges online. I figured this was a good place to talk about it (Twitter was out because of that time I tweeted about a BBC Three documentary called Men At War and got trolled for at least a fortnight ).

Women are not represented equally in the STEM workforce, in fact the percentage of women in science professional occupations dropped from 50% in 2015 to 41% in 2016. That gives a slightly skewed picture though; 41% isn’t so bad, right? Perhaps, but that 41% isn’t consistent across the board:

• Only 18% of people in ICT professional occupations are women
• Only 8% of people in Engineering professional occupations are women
• Only 14% of people in management positions in Science, Engineering and Technology are women

Being a woman in STEM is not easy – personally I’ve people who are shocked when I say I’m doing a PhD, ‘but you’re blonde!’ like, really? I’m pretty sure that my hair colour has no relationship with my intelligence (feel free to correct me with a methodologically-outstanding randomised trial). Largely though, I haven’t experienced any sort of discrimination at all, just a whole host of supportive and brilliant colleagues with a view weird comments thrown in.

For others though, being a woman in STEM is really tough, and the comments and discrimination women receive puts them off being in STEM altogether, there’s a genuine gender wage gap, and there’s even research to show that women who work in male-dominated workplaces experience heighted levels of interpersonal, workplace stressors.

It’s important to even this gender imbalance out and create equal opportunities for both men and women. Doing events and drawing attention to the problem is one way to try and push that process forward. Creating a positive and welcoming environment for people to learn, ask questions, and actually see what women in STEM look like (see also #actuallivingscientist and #dresslikeawoman), can make a real difference for the next generation of STEM workers.