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: I used to never wear skirts and heels to academic conferences because I felt the need to blend in, to hide my femininity in order to earn respect from the many male counterparts. This changes now.
: I used to never wear skirts and heels to academic conferences because I felt the need to blend in, to hide my femininity in order to earn respect from the many male counterparts. This changes now.
I will not let the fact that I’m a woman in a gender imbalanced field. When I was deciding between graduate schools, one school was offering significantly more(and had lower living costs). A male advisor insisted I ask the school I really wanted to go to to give me more money...
I was terrified to ask because I didn’t want to come off in a negative way. I asked 5 other professors for advise, and the only 2 hesitant responses I received were from female advisors. Women need to know we DO deserve equal opportunities and we should not be afraid to ASK.
As closing remarks: if you’ve read, thanks, please share. I challenge you to think how you can support the achievement of balance in STEM. Now I will chose not to wear heels to conferences ONLY because they are painful as sh*t, not because I am trying to blend in with the men.
At #ACSSanDiego this week I was in the *severe* minority for nearly every session (computation/chem informatics areas). I can’t help but feel empowered at making it this far, and simultaneously saddened that there still is not this balance in STEM as a whole. In gender & race.
