lumière des étoiles

thanks for making it easier
2008-03-26 9:34 p.m.

Christina Hoff Sommers, a writer (calling herself a "post-feminist"- what the hell does that mean?) frequently paid large sums of money by right-wing think tanks and institutions for commissioned pieces, recently sent my university's president a copy of an article she wrote, along with a personal letter, warning him that "new movements and programs" to diversify and create gender equity in the sciences (she literally wrote "such as those heavily funded by the National Science Foundation" - gee, who is she talking about?) are undermining ininovation and competitiveness. And then he sent her email out to everyone. Like, everyone I sit across from, attempting to extract an admission that there's a pattern of gender-discrimination in their department if all the male professors get their research funded, get all the lab's time/resources/graduate assistants, and the two female professors are left having to do all the teaching and advising, getting no research/lab time or funding (and yet are scolded by P&T committees for not "advancing" enough in their research over the year). So my week just got awesomeER.

It was "awesome" in the first place because I have some weird bronchi thing I can't shake, I'm beyond frustrated with my graduate school situation, I'm being either micromanaged or ignored by one of our grant investigators, and I'm thoroughly exhausted from having spoken at three conferences last week.

But there are girl scout cookies in the house.