Pocketful of Lint

a personal blog

Picture A Scientist

It’s been a while since I’ve last posted! In the past few months, I’ve defended my PhD, interviewed for a job, and started my full-time position — all VIRTUALLY. It’s all been a bit surreal and not at all how I imagined my PhD-to-career transition. I’m very thankful for how it’s all gone down though. I’d been very antsy to finish my PhD and feared that the pandemic and impending recession would mean another 1-2 years. I now work as a patent technical writer for a pharmaceutical company. The company is great, the work is exciting, and I like my coworkers (despite not having met a single one in person). God is good.

Life update aside, I want to share some thoughts about a film I watched recently, called Picture A Scientist.

I highly, highly recommend this film to those who are scientists, those who care about solving gender discrimination, and especially those who don’t think that gender disparity is an ongoing issue today. Sexual discrimination doesn’t just mean unwanted advances. It can also involve issues like unequal lab space between male and female professors or ignoring input from women in meetings (but when a man makes the same point, all of a sudden it’s a great idea).

Some noteworthy things from the film:

  • Francis Crick, the Nobel Laureate who co-solved the structure of DNA, SEXUALLY ASSAULTED a female scientist (Nancy Hopkins) while she was working in the lab of James Watson.
  • Jane Willenbring did field work in Antarctica during her PhD. She was there with her advisor who frequently harassed her, calling her a “sl*t” and “c*nt,” and pelted rocks at her while urinating in the field.
  • Women are under-seen when it comes to things such as promotions and credit for their discoveries yet are over-seen when it comes to proper behavior and not being a “nasty b*tch.”
  • There is ample data which conclusively shows a pervasive problem of the lack of gender equality in science and our implicit biases which contribute to that problem. Importantly, even realizing that we have these biases is NOT sufficient to fix our views. Even if you haven’t experienced or witnessed it yourself does NOT mean that it’s not happening.

I originally read about Jane Willenbring’s story in Science Magazine. More details here: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/disturbing-allegations-sexual-harassment-antarctica-leveled-noted-scientist

Special thanks to Prof. Jenny Yang and Rakia Dhaoui in the UCI Chemistry Department for organizing a screening of this film.

Picture a Scientist is a feature-length documentary film chronicling the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. It is included in the Tribeca Film Festival 2020 Official Selection. https://www.pictureascientist.com/media

Next Post

Previous Post

Leave a Reply

© 2024 Pocketful of Lint

Theme by Anders Norén