Scan barcode
A review by kevin_shepherd
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club by Eileen Pollack
4.0
If this had been subtitled “My Trek Through the Misogynistic and Chauvinistic World of Scientific Scholarship” or even “Why I Abandoned My Dream of Becoming a Physicist” I would have been better prepared.
Instead, I came to enjoy Eileen Pollack’s apparent ‘autobiography’ only after my expectations were altered and after my initial disappointment was quelled. At first glance, this was not the scientific study I thought it was going to be. This was an accounting of one woman’s struggle to make a space for herself in a male dominated profession. Pollack’s story, though wonderfully written, was wholly personal and primarily anecdotal. In fact, in some instances she actually perpetuated the myth of ‘Why Women Stink at Science’ rather than refuting it.
And then came chapter eleven. Wait For It…
It is not until after the author details her personal odyssey through the hallowed halls of Ivy League Academia that all of her interviews and statistics shine through. Pollack’s assertion that women are setup to fail is hard to refute. The gauntlet of scrutiny and evaluation required for any advanced degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is excruciatingly testicular.
Update: Since Pollack published this book in 2015, I was curious to see if science, as an industry, had evolved in the few years since. It has, but not much. In a study published in 2020, women comprised less than 30% of the STEM workforce while comprising 52% of the college-educated workforce overall. More tellingly, the number of women in board positions in STEM-related industries was 19.2%, and women made up only 3% of STEM CEO’s. Translation: As a society, we still have a helluva long way to go.
SEE ALSO: Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3908887437
_________________________________________
NOTE: At the end of 2019, The scientific journal Nature made a commitment to address the “entrenched gender inequity” at scientific conferences. They looked closely at conference diversity and what they saw was simply unsatisfactory. Consequently, they introduced a new code of conduct. Now two years later, their decisions have yielded some significant results - the most noteworthy improvement being that women in 2021 now comprise 48% of the keynote conference speakers (compared to 29% in 2016).
www.nature.com
14 December 2021
Instead, I came to enjoy Eileen Pollack’s apparent ‘autobiography’ only after my expectations were altered and after my initial disappointment was quelled. At first glance, this was not the scientific study I thought it was going to be. This was an accounting of one woman’s struggle to make a space for herself in a male dominated profession. Pollack’s story, though wonderfully written, was wholly personal and primarily anecdotal. In fact, in some instances she actually perpetuated the myth of ‘Why Women Stink at Science’ rather than refuting it.
And then came chapter eleven. Wait For It…
It is not until after the author details her personal odyssey through the hallowed halls of Ivy League Academia that all of her interviews and statistics shine through. Pollack’s assertion that women are setup to fail is hard to refute. The gauntlet of scrutiny and evaluation required for any advanced degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is excruciatingly testicular.
Update: Since Pollack published this book in 2015, I was curious to see if science, as an industry, had evolved in the few years since. It has, but not much. In a study published in 2020, women comprised less than 30% of the STEM workforce while comprising 52% of the college-educated workforce overall. More tellingly, the number of women in board positions in STEM-related industries was 19.2%, and women made up only 3% of STEM CEO’s. Translation: As a society, we still have a helluva long way to go.
SEE ALSO: Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3908887437
_________________________________________
NOTE: At the end of 2019, The scientific journal Nature made a commitment to address the “entrenched gender inequity” at scientific conferences. They looked closely at conference diversity and what they saw was simply unsatisfactory. Consequently, they introduced a new code of conduct. Now two years later, their decisions have yielded some significant results - the most noteworthy improvement being that women in 2021 now comprise 48% of the keynote conference speakers (compared to 29% in 2016).
www.nature.com
14 December 2021