Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/27/science-ambassador-scholarship.html
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This is a great thing.
I hope we can also do something to get women represented in the skilled trades. There are very few female electricians, plumbers, or carpenters.
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So I guess for a long time women have gotten the greater share of college degrees. So if not STEM what do women today mostly get degrees in? Business, art, psychology?
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C.A.H. is awesome. They are so for humanity, that the name is an oxymoron.
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See also:
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Do they have to come up with stupid and at best mildly amusing non sequitors to get the scholarship?
Forbes says these are the nine most popular types of major for women, from most popular to least:
- Business
- Health/medical
- Social sciences/history
- Education
- Psychology
- Visual/Performing Arts
- Communication/Communication Technology
- Biological and Biomedical Sciences
- English Language Literatures/Letters
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Are you in a skilled trade? Are you in a union, maybe? Can you actively help recruit women to the field through that?
English, cultural studies, history, too. women’s studies, African American studies. Philosophy (though that’s still pretty male dominated).
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I am in retail now, but I did electrical work for a while when I was younger. Very few women came to work in our shop, and none stayed. I honestly have no idea how to address that. The sexism was more overt there than any place I ever worked.
One of the guys in our shop was union, but apparently only for fraternal reasons. There was no such thing as collective bargaining, or any way to address any grievances we might have other than talking with our bosses. It was a “Right to Work” state. Our bosses didn’t pay us enough, but they otherwise treated us quite well.
It’s satisfying work, and in many places the pay is quite good as well. Sadly, the vocational track in our high schools has largely been obliterated and there is a stigma attached to working with your hands in this country.
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yeah, this was always a problem with industrial and unionized forms of labor, like the trades. I had to help get some oral histories from the Machinists union in order a couple of years ago, and you can totally see both the racism and the sexism.
All I can say is that there needs to be a concerted effort at recruitment and retention, I think. Unions can be effective at doing stuff like that, but they really have to make it a priority. When he was president of the IAM, Wimpy Winpsinger did some of that, trying to get more people of color and women, not only into the field, but also into the structure of the union leadership. It had an effect, I think, but it’s an ongoing process.
The thing I always found ironic about sexism in organized labor was the fact that some of the earliest labor uprisings related to industrialized labor (in the US, no doubt pulling influence from the Luddite revolt) were by women, working in textile factories in Lowell, MA!
That really sucks. That’s the key, isn’t it, how much do they actually take care of you if they aren’t paying you enough in the first place. Being kind is great, but how about pony up the cash! I mean, you’re trading hours for dollars. Right to work is the worst (we have it here, but we still have some strong union activity too - my grocery store is unionized, oddly enough, and there were $15 in town at the fast food joints the past few years).
I think you’re right. Same with agricultural labor. I grew up in a working class household, my dad worked in a factory and my mom did retail. I do knowledge work, but there sure the hell isn’t anything wrong with working with your hands and I respect it, primarily, because people doing that kind of work keep our lights on, make our cars and houses work, keep our roads paved, pick our food, clean our water, etc. Without that labor, mine isn’t really possible on the same level.
I do think that some hands on labor has weirdly been bourgeois-afied… like boutique wood working videos.
I don’t know… Should we start a thread on labor? 
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How bizarre. There are still companies who do well and do good. As opposed to the current normal or what can be called the Trump mode: Take too much money out of the business, rip off employees and contractors, relay on the benefits of bankruptcy and tax breaks.
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I took woodshop in middle school. My dad was into woodworking, so I already had experience with it and I thought it would be nice to be able to work on my own projects without having to wait for him to supervise.
From day one, every male in the class made a pact to get me to quit. A popular form of harassment was to sculpt crude dildos on the disk sander and brandish them at me. I wasn’t allowed to try the lathe, because that was “too difficult” for me.
Being a stubborn little shit, I refused to quit and finished the semester (which made me a “total dyke”), but my enthusiasm for woodworking was somewhat less by that point.
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Nah, an average sense of humor should do.
I am
I actively choose them as my mentors, and am their reliable eyes and ears (for Engineers and other high end licensed professionals) in the field. I’ve also trained a lot more women than men to do my role, which is high end technical work - on the path to high end certifications of the six figure salary variety.
That said, current role is a total sausage factory and I’m actively working to address that as best I can. Problem is my boss, he thinks he has a thing agains millennials, but its about women and he just doesn’t hear that every example he gives is from a former female employee.
I met a awesome smart and motivated college Junior the other week and I am lining up to get her a (well paid) internship with my company next summer if I can.
This isn’t stuff I talk about much, but my field is dominated by men and it annoys the hell out of me.
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As is mine, though the sexism is less blatant, which might make it more insidious. Physicists and mathematicians often fancy themselves more rational than the rest of the herd, and thus are incredibly resistant to acknowledging their irrational sexism.
Few things are as pathetic as a grown man blaming younger generations for his own lack of competent leadership.
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