STEM and Women
I don't really think I ever developed a chauvinistic attitude to women in academia; most of my teachers, role models of sort, had been female, including math and science (at least until high school). When I later went to OLL, a former coed college run by the Roman Catholic sisters of Divine Providence, I can't even remember having a single male math or science professor, The other top student in my graduation class was a brilliant female premed major. When I later went to graduate school in Austin, I met some exceptionally bright UT female math students. My first bosses, as a work-study student, with one glaring exception, had been female librarians, I never did develop any "math is hard" Barbie stereotypes of women; in fact, one of my nieces is an eighth-grade math and robotics teacher.In fact, I have done everything I can think to encourage my female relatives to pursue STEM (science technology engineering and math) academics and professional opportunities. For example, my oldest niece, a bight young woman who had participated in magnet school programs during early education,
had enthusiastically written to me during early high school of wanting to major in biotechnology, probably at the (local) University of Colorado. I wrote back an encouraging response. She, however, had issues and made some unfortunate choices. She would end up later choosing to pursue her interests in graphic design. Of course, it's her life and choices, and one tries to be supportive, even if one doesn't understand decisions other loved ones make.
I do get triggered by ideological feminism, in part because I think it presupposes cartoonishly bad stereotypes about men and how they think about women. I wasn't brought up that way in my family of 9, including a mom and 4 little sisters. My blue-collar Dad never made any stereotypical remarks I can remember. If anythings, girls could be quite assertive. I remember this other high school military brat at the bus stop telling me (totally on her own) that she had a 37-inch bust, one inch away from a "perfect figure". How was I supposed to respond to that? Years later, as a young UWM professor, I had befriended a female graduate student running a statistics lab. (I was running some confirmatory factor analyses using LISREL, which couldn't be accessed from my office PC.) She seemed attracted to me and started to share these stories about her professor. One in particular odd story was how her male professor had kept her after class one day, complaining that her very large breasts were distracting other class members. I was at a loss for words. First of all, this young women always dressed rather modestly, usually thick pullover sweaters that masked her curves, not even the hint of cleavage. Second, what did he expect her to do? Unbuckle her breasts and store them in a locker during class? I told her that I thought that conversation was inappropriate, that perhaps the professor was in a bizarre sense attracted to her, and that was itself inappropriate.
But I did get the sense that this lab manager was attracted to me. One day when I came into the lab; she was on the phone, saw me, smiled and waved hello, then turned sideways as if to emphasize the bulge under her sweater. I remember trying to figure out if there would be any political issues asking her out; she was not my student or employee. But I was working in a world where single white male professors were presumed to be likely predators. That was laughable; a junior (untenured) male professor was probably the least powerful person on campus. This was over and beyond the usual fears a geek has of rejection from the opposite sex, of misreading signals, would she let me hold her hand, kiss her, etc. So one day, out of the blue, she casually invites me to an orgy at her place. May Day! We have jumped over that whole "would she have sex with me" thing to having sex with people I've never met. And here I was, a good Catholic boy, dealing with Church prohibitions of sex outside of marriage. (No, I didn't accept, and I don't remember seeing her much after that (maybe I had finished doing my statistics around then.)) I do recall seeing her featured in the student newspaper around the time I was leaving Milwaukee, repeating the weird professor story.
I have had a mix of experience dealing with female supervisors. Some were abominable, with a feminist chip on their shoulder: "it's because I'm a woman, isn't it?", presumptuous claptrap. I will push back on bad ideas, pure and simple, from any boss. I particularly don't care for being micromanaged or having my motives questioned; I remember in one case at a now Equifax subsidiary my boss, a company co-founder, had resigned and recommended me to replace him, basically involving small Unix server/database support for statistical modeling analyses. Besides the proverbial kiss of death (the other co-founder, the CEO, had threatened to sue my boss for jumping to an alleged competitor), I would later learn that there had been a revolt by developers, none of who had ever worked with me, threatened to quit, speculating that I was going to replace their mainframe asses with fresh Unix-savvy graduates. This rumor was completely fabricated. There had been no discussions with management on staffing, and I personally know the managers were more concerned with retaining their industry knowledge and were willing to retrain personnel as expected.
So the company basically filled the spot with an unqualified mainframe female supervisor who (I shit you not) starts out in an introductory conversation with this badass statement to the effect, "I don't care about whatever successes you have had in the past; you get treated just like all the other people reporting to me, and you have to prove yourself to me." I have an older data administrator reporting to me; he is blatantly insubordinate ignoring my tasks assigned to him; she strips him from me, arguing that I'm trying to get him fired. She engaged in all sorts of petty bullshit, like maintaining open sessions on databases to ensure I don't bounce any database without her knowledge and approval.
Now PC, my old boss, said his contract had prohibited recruiting me to his new company. But at this point I was making below market, and in fact my female predecessor in the role had left for a six-figure consulting position in nearby downtown Chicago. And to be honest, she had been an abysmal predecessor, not a DBA but a developer, there were slipped contractual requirements for data loads skipping deadlines; she used the position to prioritize her past role preferences . I quickly had the trains operating on time; our key load, which had been taking a week or longer, was cut to less than 2 days after receipt of cartridges. All backlogs cleared, etc. Developers had been using disks faster than the company could acquire them; management gave me a mandate, and I delivered, with developers screaming about my "bureaucracy".
In the interim I had started to get unsolicited recruiter calls, including from Coopers and Lybrand (a future employer).. So I negotiated a transfer to another business unit. (I had been servicing our largest, oldest client, a credit card issuer.), one including the largest card issuer in South America and a large one-year contract with Southwestern Bell (now AT&T) before deregulation (I still have in my archives a handwritten letter from an SBC executive, thanking me for being their DBA). The swap was made with an Indian-American contractor who was making 40% more than I was. Even though I had extensively documented procedures and walked my less-capable successor at least 2-3 months past my transfer, my former female supervisor tried to block my going to Brazil for several weeks, not trusting my successor to do it in my absence. (The Indian-American eventually ended up getting a higher offer from Oracle Consulting and left.) I just did not like this woman, and it didn't have to do with her gender, although it probably was, in her mind.
In contrast, my first female boss, AK, who ran the social work library at OLL, was nearly the totally opposite, basically delegating the library to me during my hours. The library was sort of a mess; I spent a lot of time "reading the shelves", i.e., patrons would pull out books and return them out of sequence, making them almost impossible for other patrons to find. AK later told me that she thought I would be overwhelmed by the responsibility and quit, but to her surprise I had been up to the challenge and succeeded. I think in the end I ended up leaving for the main library; I think I had pissed off some alumni or professors who called, demanding me to keep the library open past my shift/posted library hours, and I refused. But I thrived under management that set objectives and gave me the space to meet them. Micromanagement/intervention, if anything, is counterproductive, not a dignified way of working with ,motivated professionals.
To be sure, I've had my share of cartoonishly bad male managers, in fact my worst overall back in the 1980's. It's just I don't usually have male managers come back with, "It's because I'm a man, isn't it?" (Internally, it's like "Who the hell do you think you are questioning my professionalism?") My male supervisors have been less likely to micromanage or explicitly threaten termination, which in my view reflects a manager's insecurity. I'm not arguing this is applicable beyond my anecdotal experience.
I'm so annoyed by the constant mushrooming of "women's inequality" threads on social media. There are a number of factors to explain the 77% pay gap, including men's higher-paying occupation preferences or likeliness to accept overtime opportunities. It has nothing to do with paying men more to produce the same widget. So I recently tweeted that I worked with s woman of color with 2 advanced STEM degrees and have a niece-in-law with a Master's in engineering; women's choices have economic consequences.
When I later talked to my colleague in question, she abruptly asked, "Who told you I had 2 Master's?" "You did." It turns out she didn't really intend a second Master's degree but was going for a PhD. Something happened at the university involving the PhD program that affected a half-dozen or so students, including her., from getting a terminal degree. The Master's degree was more or less a consolation prize for the work they had done. She told me the decision embittered her; she had been told she would likely be granted PhD student status by passing just one course at Florida International, but she was embittered by what had happened and chose to end it.
Not that politics was a topic, but at some point she made it clear that she had had to deal with male chauvinist pigs in her STEM pursuits. I didn't press her for specifics, told her I was sorry she had experienced that. I really haven't seen it in the IT profession or academia, but I can't generalize beyond my experience.
To a certain degree, I can relate to her experience getting screwed over by a PhD program. I had initially gone to UT with the idea of earning a PhD. However, a glut of math PhD's let to UT tightening PhD candidacy to 6 exams. I knew of one married couple where the wife advanced but the husband stalled out at 5 exams. In addition, for political reasons beyond the scope of this post (I've described it in past posts), my graduate stipend had been canceled after my first year, which effectively ended my quest for a math PhD; the Master's degree was basically my consolation prize.
BEB Status
For unfamiliar readers, my former doctoral student colleague, Bruce, had a massive stroke at the beginning of June. I've been updating his recovery, based on mostly daily posts from his spouse, Susan.Bruce continues to improve his verbal skills, sometimes briefly joining in on Christian songs. (Bruce and Susan are devout Baptists, and every post reflects on some reading or hymn.) Sometimes it's hard to tell, because Bruce can often be a man of few words, and he doesn't like to respond to what he thinks are stupid questions.
Bruce continues to have nutrition/nausea issues and to experience weakness/trembling with his right limbs (he's naturally right-handed). His swallowing reflexes continue to improve. Susan occasionally brings him ice cream or guacamole, but it seems we're some time away from Bruce's resuming a regular diet. Much of the last couple of weeks has involved intentionally transitioning to a less accommodating wheelchair. Apparently Blue Cross has been more accommodating based on Bruce's progress after nearly cutting off funding.
The New Car
I've now got over 135 miles in 2 weeks (I've got a modest commute to work)with average mileage just under 50 mpg, with over 400 miles driving range left on a tank of gas.The suggestions for improving mileage are somewhat annoying, for example, it suggested raising the A/C setting. Dude, it's like set on 76. I am enjoying listening to Pandora off my cellphone and a Bluetooth connection off the car speakers. And I've got my 5 years of car payments set up.I took the car to my nearest Sam's Club in Baltimore County. I've been flirting with letting my membership go. It was probably 5 or 6 months since my last visit. Boy have they remodeled the store since my last visit. It feels roomier and looks better organized. In the past I bought more produce and frozen goods but my home refrigerator is broken, and I haven't been able to get my landlord to replace it yet.
