In article <cjfuller-0710971311020001 at c-fuller1.uncg.edu>,
cjfuller at mindspring.com (C.J. Fuller) wrote:
>Laura-You shouldn't feel dirty. They should be ashamed of themselves. In
>the work environment this would be considered sexual harrassment, so they
>feel that they can do this at meetings.
>>I generally try to attract as little unwanted male attention as possible
>at meetings. I turn around my grandmother's engagement ring on my left
>hand to make it look like a wedding band. I go out to eat with at least
>one other person (in New Orleans, we had 14 crazed carotenoid people at
>one table), and I never go anywhere near a bar alone. Even at
>"professional meetings", the same guard has to be kept up.
The discussion on meetings was waiting for me when I returned from my first
ever conference this week and it's been really interesting to compare my
experiences to others. Cindy, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who moves
rings around to get the message across! I usually swap a pearl ring my
parents gave me onto my ring finger on my left hand when I want people to
think I'm engaged so I don't get hassled and boy, was it handy at the
conference! I've never seen so many middle-aged men on the make at the one
time. And they all had wedding bands on, too.
Someone mentioned feeling inferior and dissatisfied after a conference (I've
deleted the message and I'm paraphrasing, so forgive me if I'm not accurate).
I came away feeling the most enthusiastic I've ever been about my project,
and have a hundred really good ideas about what I can do to tie up a few loose
ends that have been puzzling me. I made some great contacts and a couple of
friends and had a really good time to boot.
Dianna wrote:
>At a recent WICB meeting that I attended I went on for a bit about how it
>is really frustrating that THE SAME OLD SCIENTIST BIG WHIGS always present
>the data "for their lab" and the students and postdocs almost never get any
>significant visibility. Of course the students, postdocs and techs are
>often acknowledged and thanked, but who remembers their faces or names when
>the "credits" are only on the screen for 10 seconds? I firmly believe that
>students and postdocs should present their own work even if it is only a
>5-10 minute presentation of the lab's 30 minute session. The lab PI should
>rehearse and grill them before hand so that they make the most professional
>presentation they can and come in under the time limit. (Not that any big
>whigs ever finish strictly on time anyway!) There would not need to be any
>decrease in the quality of prensentations, either. Frankly I have seen
>Junior Academy of Science 7th graders give clearer talks than some I have
>seen at major symposia! At least you know what the 7th grader's hypothesis
>is....
Maybe it's different in Australia, but there certainly didn't seem to be the
bigwig mentality some people here have spoken about. I also suspect that
plant pathology isn't as high powered as some fields. All the students I
spoke to were presenting their own work, either as the first author on a
poster or as an oral presentation and in some cases their supervisors didn't
even present any material (possibly an accurate representation of who is
actually doing the work in the lab while the supervisor hunts for money) but
co-authored the student's paper. One big name from overseas didn't present
anything at the conference, but chaired a session at a workshop and that was
it.
As for me, I had a poster in the conference and did a talk at a three-day
workshop prior to the conference. That was probably enough, especially
considering what a disaster my talk turned out to be! The slide projector ate
my slides then spat them back out in random order, often showing multiple
slides at once. The only slide I could get to work was the acknowledgments
slide, which came up 8 times in a row while I was trying to describe dieback
symptoms in plants most of the audience hadn't seen before and couldn't see
because the appropriate slide had shot out of the projector and was lying
somewhere in the projection booth! I still haven't worked out how I managed
to hold it together, but I gave the talk with half the slides missing and it
turned out sort of okay. At least all the important people in the audience
were impressed with my ability to talk under pressure. One even said I was
the coolest female under pressure he'd seen for a long time. (Although I was
deeply offended at the sexist nature of the remark, I acknowledged that coming
from him, it was about the highest compliment I could have been paid. He
unfortunately holds a lot of sway, so if he thinks I'm okay (despite being a
woman) that's fine by me.)
After that, I'm all conferenced out. It's been nice to get back and get stuck
into it, and read about everyone else's experience of conferences. It had
never occurred to me that students wouldn't present their own work, so it's
been a bit of an eye-opener.
Cheers,
Kylie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'm sure John Howard thinks of the stolen generation
as those cricket tests that Bradman would have played
in had the war not got in the road"
with many thanks to Russell Kelly for the quote.
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