Sunday, March 23, 2014

On Women in STEM and the "Other"

As a woman in STEM, I've come to appreciate reading the perspectives of other women in STEM, whether we work in related fields or not.  This morning I read Xykademiqz post about Honorary Dudeness.  I started to reply, but the reply got long and merged with the thoughts I'd been having about "growing up global."

Then I saw this post by Sociological Images, "To Whom is George Zimmerman a Hero? And Why" and it all came together.

I've come to realize that one of the things that makes me different from many of the Americans I have interacted with is my Brat heritage, growing up military.  Now, we were only ever stationed State-side, so I didn't get the full-up expatriate Third-Culture Kid experience.  Sometimes I call myself a Third Subculture Kid, because the Brat semi-suburban culture was very different from the rural culture my parents were raised in.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Xykademiqz blogs about the experience of teaching female students, and how there's often a sharp dichotomy between the female students she develops a mentoring relationship with and the female students who seem to decide "this professor sucks."