My dream died, and now I'm here
This is a story about several topics I am interested in discussing.
Women Rights
For all that you know about me, I am probably not a woman so maybe I "have no right to speak about this" but I definitely agree with her last sentence in the quote that follows.
My experience of how other women think or feel about getting treated differently (with assumingly good intentions) is low. Most of my little experience comes from my undergraduate years together with one of my best friends. She absolutely hated Girls' Science Day. It made her feel patronized iirc. She could stand her own ground (even in verbal and physical fights, don't ask me how I know lol) and didn't need anyone to help her with anything (except debugging python virtual environments). She also had absolutely no problem with studying computer science with mostly men. She even liked that: she mentioned she can easier be friends with men than women anyway.
So I wonder ... what do other women think about women-exclusive stuff? I am really interested since as mentioned my experience is rather low. I almost want to ping the (few) women on SN that I know but I will not since that's exactly what I usually avoid: treating people different just because of their gender.1 I'll just hope that if they (or any other women that doesn't mind too much to reveal her gender on the internet) see this post, they'll respond.
I wasn't offered a job because I am a woman. I'm not just assuming that's what happened; I know it because they explicitly told me. The head of the Institute said that since I'm female, I should apply for a scholarship that was exclusively for women in the Natural Sciences. This way, the Institute wouldn't have to cover my expenses.It makes sense, doesn't it? So, I applied for the scholarship and, indeed, received it. However, this scholarship doesn't come with any benefits like pension savings and health insurance. I know that might sound very German, but these things are important to us. Furthermore, I was frequently reminded that I wasn't actually employed by the Institute; I was just there because of this scholarship for women, which was indeed the case. This is one of the reasons I'm against programs or positions that are exclusively for women.I think that treating women differently just reinforces the prejudice that women are less capable than men.
Perverse Incentives in Academia
Funnily, this is also a story about a woman standing her ground against academic bullshit:
The next problem was that the head of the Institute made a lot of money selling textbooks. He wrote very little of these textbooks himself; rather, he gave assignments for parts of the books to students and posts. This is why, in case you've ever wondered, these textbooks are so discontinuous and partly repetitive.He expected me to also work for him, to which I said no. I was then ordered into his office, in which he gave me a very angry speech, accusing me of not being loyal to all the other students who did their part. I told him that I was under no obligation to work for him and didn't care what the rest of the students were thinking. He got angry, and I left after him. He started shouting that I was fired and physically shoved me out of his office.True story: the irony is that he couldn't fire me because, if you remember, he had refused to hire me in the first place. I was paid by that scholarship for women, and that wasn't managed by the Institute but by the office of the University president.I'm not just telling you this because it's entertaining; it was also a rather rude awakening. It made me realize that this institute wasn't about knowledge discovery; it was about money-making. And the more I saw of Academia, the more I realized it wasn't just this particular Institute and this particular Professor; it was generally the case. The moment you put people into big institutions, the goal shifts from knowledge discovery to money-making.
The Role of Government in Science
Where did we go wrong? Why is academia so dependent on government money? Is this a "fiat thing" as many probably like to quickly say?
It seems like this wasn't always the case. I did not have the time to dig into academic history enough to find a good answer to that question myself yet though.
But you get used to this kind of situation, and the overhead isn't even the real problem. The real issue is that the easiest way to advance in academia is to pay other people to produce papers, on which you, as the grant holder, can put your name. That's how academia works: grants pay students and postdocs to produce research papers for the grant holder, and those papers are what the supervisor then uses to apply for more grants.The result is a paper production machine in which students and postdocs are pushed through to bring in money for the institution. Most of that money comes from your taxes.
Transcript generated by youtubetranscript.com and then piped into ChatGPT 3.5 to fix errors.
Therefore might not be 100% accurate so listen to the original.
Footnotes
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This means I am a proponent of hitting back with equal force if a woman hits a man, lol. But I am not sure if I personally would actually hit back. I think I would just shove them since I do sense some kind of biological programming to protect women inside me. But I also sense how easy this is to abuse. ↩