Whoever’s seen Hidden Figures ought to know that it wasn’t just a film about racial discrimination, it was also a film on gender discrimination within the field of science. For ages now, many occupations have become slotted as ‘a man’s job’, a woman doing the same will be considered as quite a shocker for the society. News outlets hold the same bias in case you were wondering. Ever noticed headlines that casually say “Female Astronaut …” or “This female engineer…” or “This woman architect…”
When we don’t feel the need to say that “male astronaut”, why do we feel that it is important to give the same gendered narrative to a woman’s achievement? It is almost like society did not expect them to reach the position they did and is giving them a consolation price.
Katey Alatalo, an astronomer working at Carnegie Astronomy, California, read an article featured in the New York Times titled: Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far and decided to shut that sh*t down. Quoting the article Katey pointed out that the techie long-faced sad boys had no idea what they were dealing with had they been a woman who was trying to carve out a career in the tech world or the scientific world for that matter.
So if you want to know what it is like trying to be a woman in a scientific space, then this viral Twitter thread has all the answers for you:
This article has made me super angry. Do you want to know what it is like trying to be a woman in a scientific space? Let me tell you. 1/ https://t.co/Dhdsk9m4JY
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
Just like the struggles of the African-American mathematicians in Hidden Figures, these girls will be told they were not up to the mark for advanced maths!
Your teachers will start telling you when you are young that you are “not ready” for advanced math. 2/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
Not everyone is as lucky
I was just lucky my mother stood up for me with that teacher. Otherwise I would not have been in calculus in high school 3/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
When male chauvinism starts at an early age, you will be left feeling insecure
In college, you will be in classes where your male classmates will tell you how easy the homework was. You’ll doubt yourself a lot 4/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And when you score better, “they learnt it by rote”
to find out they were scoring Cs while you were getting As. Be ready for them to also say things like “women aren’t naturally scientists” 5/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
Those same men will look at you like a possible person to date, when you just want to do your work. You learn to close yourself off. 6/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And when opinion leaders believe that women are inferior, what can we really do?
Then, if you’re lucky, the president of Harvard will give a speech about women being biologically inferior in science 7/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And you’ll get to listen to your peers repeating that all around you. You get into top grad schools, are told it’s because you’re a woman 8/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And women are left to deal with objectification instead of innovation
You go. Then your advisor makes you uncomfortable by staring at your chest 9/ https://t.co/5eo11viX8t
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And a no definitely means that you will be in their bad books from now on
You make it clear they made you uncomfortable. So they isolate you, insult you, and try to drive out of science 10/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And reporting it is useless, stop playing the victim card already!
When it is too much, you report it to the chair. Who tells you that you are overreacting, or lying. And threatens to throw you out 11/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
You put your head down & try hard as you can not to “rock the boat” after the chair did you the “favor” of letting you switch advisors 12/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
When surviving itself is a task
The stress of merely surviving saps you of the creative energy you needed to write and advance academically 13/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
AND that ex-advisor is using his platform to denigrate you and your science 14/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
But there is a silver lining
MIRACULOUSLY you make it out. You graduate, you get your Ph.D. and you get a postdoc 15/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
You work your BUTT off to catch up to peers. Build the networks your advisor usually helps you build and manage to get good science done 16/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
YOU DID IT! You got a fellowship!! You talk about your struggles. Many don’t believe you 17/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
But then the voices of boys complaining about how unfair it was to them, will bring you down
Every day, articles like the one in the @nytimes come out to remind you your voice matters less than a spoiled white boy’s 18/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And those classmates and those harassers come back to your mind. And you wonder_ 19/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
And so you question yourself
Was the cost of having the audacity to want to be an astronomer while also being a woman worth it? 20/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
Most women in science I know share some of my narrative. Do most men? No. They were assumed from kids to be sciencey 21/
– Katey Alatalo_ (@astrokatey) September 23, 2017
Katey’s thread has 10376 retweets and 14,544 likes and has been garnering support from all over the world with both men and women coming to her side to defend what they think is an obnoxious article focusing on male white privilege.
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