By way of the Freakonomics blog comes word of an article in Scientific American about why women are underrepresented in science, engineering, and mathematics. Read more.
Meanwhile, check out this article in Slate about why many women leaders, despite doing great things for their constituents, receive little thanks and lower approval ratings than their male counterparts.
And thanks to Feminist Law Professors and Ms. JD for pointing out Ann Farmer’s informative article in Perspectives, a quarterly magazine published by the American Bar Association, about a troubling academic-hiring trend whereby women are increasingly being ghettoized in less prestigious, non-tenure-track jobs.
Finally, advice from the Juggle on how to stay off the mommy track.
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15 Responses to Gender-Bias Friday
lisanyu - February 1, 2012 at 4:55 pm
For faculty your students will think you’re a star as well. I can’t count the number of enthusiastic responses I’ve gotten from students simply by answering their questions in a timely fashion!
bizdean - February 1, 2012 at 5:19 pm
“Will it take less than two minutes to answer the email? Then answer it already.” Those 2 minuteses add up. To serious productivity loss. Email is mail; it is not instant messaging. If your correspondents don’t understand that, phooey on them.If you respond instantly to email, you’re not efficient, you’re a patsy. Everyone in the organization will soon learn that you’re easily manipulated.
patrick_murtha - February 1, 2012 at 7:01 pm
bizdean has a very good point. Being too efficient, too prompt, at answering email or anything else, can create expectations you may not be able to sustain, or want to be automatically associated with, and thus can backfire on you. For one thing, if you seem to be capable of handling a lot, it’s a cinch you’ll be asked to do more. At some point, I decided I wanted a reputation as someone quite competent, quite efficient, but no more than that – certainly not a superhero. Not aiming at heroism makes for a more manageable life.
goodeyes - February 1, 2012 at 7:02 pm
bizdean obviously doesn’t answer email regularly. I’m impressed when email is answered quickly, but at least by the day sent is excellent too. Waiting a few days makes faculty look lazy and not doing their jobs.
Socratease2 - February 1, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Yes, this is some practical advice for those of us with blown up in-boxes, but what about the bigger point of why do we allow ourselves to be controlled by the tyranny of “instant communication?” I will seen as a super hero if I answer everything right away? Really? Who cares? I doubt that is even true, certainly I will be seen as proactive at least, I wouldn’t get too grandiose about it. I could also be seen as a slave to my Droid. I am sick of these expectations to return a text or email within 30 seconds and if you don’t, there is an etiquette problem. As usual, new technology does not allow you to be more efficient and provide you additional free time. What it does is allow you to do more work in a shorter period of time except there is never any time off. If people can’t wait for a reply within a reasonable period of time, screw ‘em. I’ll be a hero to myself.
oh_richard - February 2, 2012 at 9:43 am
Superheros don’t get email (“Sorry about the Joker’s bank heist Commissioner, I didn’t see the Bat Signal. If something was going on, why didn’t you email/text me?”)
Allen and Mann do make the point though that you don’t wander through email, you manage it, which generally means you limit the time it can take, set your priorities, and don’t make email for the sake of email…
barbarashell - February 2, 2012 at 12:17 pm
I like the cat, although I was hoping for a connection between some emails are the stuff of [kitty] litter.
sortaretired - February 2, 2012 at 2:29 pm
I remember reading similar advice for handling paper (some famous time management book, but I don’t remember which one). You can spend more time looking at an email several times than it would take to answer and file or delete it the first time you open it. Because I’m easily distracted, I do have my email set to download only when I ask for it. But I check it pretty regularly and feel more in control of my life if my inbox is kept to one screenful of “unhandled” messages.
Trish Barker - February 2, 2012 at 5:04 pm
The suggestions wasn’t to reply to the email within 2 minutes of receiving it, but rather *when you have elected to read/respond to email* to knock out the ones that can be done in 2 minutes or less.
David Barber - February 2, 2012 at 5:15 pm
This. Bill Gates said the first thing he does on a new machine is turn off email notifications. Set a time, maybe once every two hours, to do email. Do it. Get it done. Move on. And if it’s one of ‘those’ emails, pick up the phone/IM/take a walk. Don’t make a 5 minute conversation into a six day epic novel of one-liner emails.
the_anthropologist - February 6, 2012 at 9:52 am
Years ago, as an African American teenager, I dropped out of high school primarily due to boredom and low expectations from the teachers in a segregated Chicago.
I desperately wanted to learn, but at my own pace and often with what I
found out later was the Socratic Method and critical thinking. I was fortunate. The truancy judge was curious about the goings-on and whereabouts of a child who landed in high school at the tender age of 12. After her discovery that my truancy included forays to the public and private libraries and that the librarians, tired of my interdisciplinary requests for books and journals, taught me the Library of Congress (LC) Classification System, she allowed me to
continue the forays. My court-ordered curriculum allowed me to do two things: continue my autodidactism and see the scaffolding beneath all knowledge, that is, LC.
Today, my e-mails, files, reports, and books are archived under the categories
of LC, with a top file called “Actionable”, which gets cleaned out rather than
lost in the “e-mail trash bin”. Whenever I have “new” material to add to my research files, the scaffolding (LC) allows for a quick file, sort and review.
One of my idiosyncrasies was where I placed my “time-oriented” schedules, or as Minerva Cheevy says, “If it’s a seminar I want to go to, I put it on my calendar and archive the
message.” My time-oriented events and issues are archived under : CLASS B – PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY. RELIGION — BD493-701 Cosmology which includes “space and TIME.”
Kathleen Rand Reed
Anumma - February 9, 2012 at 5:46 pm
I would agree with bizdean, but modify the original “Then answer it already” by changing it to this:
“_At_whatever_time_you_choose_to_process_your_inbox_, will it take less than two minutes to answer the email? Then answer it already.”
hbhanot - March 12, 2012 at 8:42 pm
I like the way cat is hiding
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