The recipe for success for women has been identified as
Look like a girl,
Act like a lady,
Think like a man,
Work like a boss.
(or at least it was until the Bic South Africa advertising poster was pulled due to the public uproar, so I can’t link to the original). This sentence is wrong on so many fronts I find it hard to know where to begin to take Continue reading
Everyone’s a critic. But how good are people at taking their own medicine? Any why should writers strive to embrace and even welcome constructive criticism?
New lecturers are encouraged, possibly even compelled, to allow themselves to be videoed giving presentations/lectures so they can improve their teaching styles. Even before then, early career researchers may be offered that option and it is probably wise to accept. However, I must admit that by the time I was offered the opportunity to scrutinise Continue reading
The government loves to tell us scientists how good we are at doing ‘more with less’. Over at the Guardian, I’ve posted yesterday about how the UK’s core research budget is again under threat, with the possibility of up to 40% cuts to be announced at the Spending Review in November.
I’ve also summarized how things hav Continue reading
I’m sorry, this is yet another piece of writing in the wake of the Tim Hunt debacle. I find I am still very angry. We are, I hope, reaching the end of the saga yet little in the way of concrete actions which will actually help women in science has emerged or is likely to; this is why I am angry. All those shrill commenters who shrieked ‘sexist foul Continue reading
Technology and hands-on exhibits make the Canadian Museum for Human Rights accessible for visitors of all ages
When I last visited family in the city of Winnipeg, Canada, I had the opportunity to do a tour of the outside of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), as it was not yet opened for the public. On this visit, 2 years later, this one- Continue reading
I’m not sure if it’s unconsciously deliberate, but this year – as last – I took a fascinating book about our countryside to read during my week’s holiday away from Cambridge. This year I went to the south end of the Lake District, to a part that was mercifully free of coachloads of trippers. Indeed it seemed devoid of even serious walkers and the p Continue reading
Sometimes when you look at something from a different angle, you see something you’d never otherwise have noticed.
We’ve been trying to grow melons in the greenhouse, without much success: hundreds of female flowers have unfurled, but only a handful have set fruit. Meanwhile, we haven’t been very good about keeping the vines tidy Continue reading
There is momentum building behind the adoption of pre-print servers in the life sciences. Ron Vale, a professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at UCSF and Lasker Award winner, has just added a further powerful impulse to this movement in the form, appropriately of a pre-print posted to the BioarXiv just a few days ago.
If you are a research Continue reading
The Government talks about ‘naming and shaming’ to close the pay gender pay gap, aspiring to close it within a generation. It is perhaps worth remembering when the Equal Pay Act came into force – 1970! 35 years on and we’re still only aspiring to close the gap within another 20 years. This is not aspirational thinking, to say the least. Why do gend Continue reading
