I can deal with being a bad softball player, because it is all about having fun, right? Unfortunately there is something severely limiting the fun I'm having, and it has nothing with my inability to throw/catch/hit. It turns out that the rules for Co-ed softball (which I first assumed were just for this league) are disturbingly sexist. I knew some of the "strange" rules coming in - the men and women are pitched different sized balls. But others I only learned at our first game last night. I was pretty pissed off and decided to make it a battle against the power-that-be who make the softball rules. Unfortunately, these are the "official" rules of the Amateur Softball Association. So my battle is going to be difficult.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Med School (sexist) Softball!
I'm playing on the Radiation Oncology team in the Stanford Medical Center Co-Ed Softball league. It is lots of fun - I'm getting to meet many people from the medical side of the department who I haven't interacted with before. Also, I get to play softball and drink beer. It is a touch better than when I was in Junior High playing softball and drinking iced coffee. People are much nicer now than when I was in Junior High. I'm not a better softball player though. I might, in fact, be worse.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Women in Dark Matter
I'd like to compare and contrast two articles:
Women Atop Their Fields Dissect the Scientific Life, NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/science/07women.html
Possible Sighting of Dark Matter Fires Up Search and Tempers, Science (requires subscription)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1144.full
The Times article talk with a few female scientists, one of whom is Elena Aprile, about being a woman in science. The Science article talks about the personality-laden conflicts in the field of dark matter. One of the researchers involved is Elena Aprile, and another is Rita Bernabei.
Dark matter has been a contentious field for some time. Many of the professors in charge of the experiments have "large" personalities and some of the results are contentious. I've seen many dark matter talks given and thought some of the attitudes and phrases bordered on being unprofessional. But when one researcher calls the results of another experiment "pure, weapons-grade balonium" at a large physics conference, it sets a new bar for unprofessional behavior. Seriously, Prof. Juan Collar actually had this on a slide about XENON's results at the APS April meeting. I spoke with some researchers at the conference who aren't connected to the dark matter community and they were amazed. I wasn't as surprised.
Women Atop Their Fields Dissect the Scientific Life, NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/science/07women.html
Possible Sighting of Dark Matter Fires Up Search and Tempers, Science (requires subscription)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1144.full
The Times article talk with a few female scientists, one of whom is Elena Aprile, about being a woman in science. The Science article talks about the personality-laden conflicts in the field of dark matter. One of the researchers involved is Elena Aprile, and another is Rita Bernabei.
Dark matter has been a contentious field for some time. Many of the professors in charge of the experiments have "large" personalities and some of the results are contentious. I've seen many dark matter talks given and thought some of the attitudes and phrases bordered on being unprofessional. But when one researcher calls the results of another experiment "pure, weapons-grade balonium" at a large physics conference, it sets a new bar for unprofessional behavior. Seriously, Prof. Juan Collar actually had this on a slide about XENON's results at the APS April meeting. I spoke with some researchers at the conference who aren't connected to the dark matter community and they were amazed. I wasn't as surprised.
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