I did not mean to make Pearse sound anti-female-I doubt he would be a
regular on women-in-bio if he was. I quickly listed 3 things I remember
disagreeing with him about, and I realize in rereading (Moral-always
read before you hit the send button!) that I made him sound horrible!
My apologies to Pearse and to those of you who haven't read his previous
posts. Women-in-bio is archived, and you can search the files and pull
up old posts to find out what Pearse really said. I do agree with him
about not squelching alternative points of view in a democracy, drawing
a line at points of view that are destructive to other people (Naziism,
anti-government bombings, murder of doctors one disagrees with come to
mind immediately-I'm sure there are more if I thought a while). My
feelings about students being adults makes my viewpoint on relations
between students and professors different from Pearse's, not my feelings
about alternate points of view.
But I'm more intrigued by the question of "is there a female way to do
science?" I don't think there is such a thing as a female scientific
method, but my experience with fellow grad students, post docs and some
professors has convinced me that there is a female approach to where it
fits in "the big picture". I have met many a man convinced the world
would stop if his corner of science slowed down (read:his funding cut).
I have met several talented women doing cutting-edge research who in
their dark moments want to drop out of science because their research
isn't "saving the world". I have also met a lot of people, male and
female, who fall in between. It just seemed to me that the extremes
were held by one gender or the other. I would be very curious if this
is my own isolated experience, or if others have found this too.
Julia Frugoli
Dartmouth College
presently visiting grad student at
Texas A&M University
Department of Biological Sciences
College Station, TX 77843
409-845-0663
FAX 409-847-8805
