The Only Woman inwards the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys’ ClubBy Eileen Pollack
Beacon Press (15 Sep 2015)
Eileen Pollack ready out to move an astrophysicist but switched to a career inwards writing after completing her undergraduate degree. In “The Only Woman In The Room” she explores the difficulties she faced that eventually led her to abandon scientific discipline as a profession.
Pollack’s majority is to a greater extent than oft than non a memoir, as well as an oddly single-sided i inwards that. At to the lowest degree for the role of the book, she looks at everything from the perspective of sex stereotypes. It’s most the toys she didn’t get, as well as the teachers who didn’t permit her skip a year, as well as the boys who didn’t similar nerdy girls, as well as the professors who didn’t encourage her, as well as and thence on.
I had some difficulties making feel of the book. For one, Pollack is twenty years older than I as well as has grown upward inwards a different country. In the majority she assumes the reader understands the context, but frankly I convey no persuasion whatsoever how American schoolhouse educational activity looked similar inwards the 1960s. I also missed most of the geographic, religious, as well as cultural references but wasn’t interested plenty to await upward every instance.
Leaving aside that Pollack clearly writes for people similar her to start with, the residue of the story didn’t brand much feel to me either. The reader learns inwards a few sentences that Pollack inwards her youth develops an eating disorder. She also seems to convey an anxiety disorder, is told (probably erroneously) that she has also high testosterone levels, as well as that afterward she regularly sees a therapist. But these asides never reappear inwards her narrative. Since it’s exceedingly unlikely her problems but disintegrated, at that spot must convey been a lot going on which the reader is non told about.
The story of the majority is that Pollack sets out to rail downwardly her onetime teachers, professors, as well as classmates, as well as listen what they’ve been upward to as well as what, if anything, changed most the province of affairs for women inwards physics. Things did change, it turns out: The fraction of woman individual students as well as faculty has markedly increased as well as many men convey come upward to take in the proficient inwards that. Pollack concludes with a somewhat scattered listing of suggestions for farther improvement.
Pollack does cite some studies on sex disparities, but her sample seems skewed to confirm her beliefs as well as she does non hash out the literature inwards whatsoever depth. She exclusively avoids the to a greater extent than controversial questions, similar whether some sex differences inwards functioning are innate, whether it’s reasonable to assume women as well as men should live on as represented inwards all professions, or whether affirmative activity is compatible with constitutional rights.
Despite this, the majority has its uses. It sheds low-cal on the existing problems, as well as (as Google volition say you) inwards reaction many women convey spoken most as well as compared their experiences. For me, the value of the majority has been to permit me take in my bailiwick through somebody else’s eyes.
I institute it surprising but how different Pollack’s story is from my own, though my interests seem to live on real unopen to hers. I’ve been told from as early on as I tin remember that I’m non social enough, that I don’t play with the other kids enough, that I’m also quiet, don’t integrate well, am bad at grouping work, as well as “will never arrive at the university” unless I “learn to move with others.” I am also the variety of individual who doesn’t plough over a shit what other people mean value I should do, as well as thence I went as well as got a PhD inwards physics.
The occupation that Pollack blames most for her dropping out – that professors didn’t encourage her to push clit through courses she had a hard fourth dimension with – is a occupation I never encountered because I didn’t acquire bad marks to start with. I didn’t convey friends with the students either, but I was but glad they left me alone. And where I am from, academy is tuition-free, as well as thence piece my coin was short, financing my educational activity was never a headache for my family.
Like Pollack, I convey a long string of DSM classifiers attached to me as well as spent several years inwards therapy, but it never occurred to me to blame my profs for that. When doctors checked my testosterone levels (which has happened several times over the decades) I didn’t conclude I must live on a man, but that it’s likely a measure cheque for for certain wellness problems. And since instantly y'all wonder, my hormone levels are perfectly normal. Or at to the lowest degree that’s what I persuasion until I read that Pollock had a vanquish on pretty much every i of her profs. Maybe I’m abnormal inwards that I never fancied my profs. Or that I never worried I mightiness non abide by a guy if I report physics.
Nevertheless, Pollack is correct of course of instruction that nosotros convey a long agency to go. Gender disparities which reinforce stereotypes are nonetheless omnipresent, as well as instantly that I am woman rear of ii daughters I don’t convey to await far to take in the problems. The kids’ teachers are all women except for the math teacher. The parents who scout their toddlers at the playground are almost exclusively mothers. And I acquire constantly told I am supposedly aggressive, sometimes for doing zero to a greater extent than than looking the agency I usually look, that is, mildly dismayed at the bullshit men throw at me. But I’m non quite old plenty to write a memoir, as well as thence permit me acquire out it at this.
I’d recommend this majority for anyone who wants to empathise why some women perceive scientific discipline as well as engineering as extremely unwelcoming workplaces.
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