Feeling Stupid Doesn’t Have To Hurt

Many young scientists complain about feeling stupid compared with their peers, and even more suffer in silence. This phenomenon, called Impostor Syndrome, can be quite crippling and even cause people to quit their research careers. It’s frequently discussed these days, particularly in the context of gender balance in science, as women appear to be affected by it more than men. Perhaps it’s yet another reason why women disproportionately opt out of a career in science? I’m not sure I sign up to that idea, but it’s an interesting question nonetheless.

I was reminded of Impostor Syndrome today by an honest post by fellow astronomy postdoc Rita about her own feelings of inadequacy, and I’ve had similar discussions with many friends over the years. In my first few years as a postdoc I suffered massively from Impostor Syndrome in the same way that is described by so many others: fear, anxiety, insecurity, frustration.

Clearly, no one wants to live like this, and the associated anxiety that Rita talks about is common and completely understandable. In the last year or two I’ve thought a lot about these feelings, and I’ve figured out ways of dealing with them.

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“Where did the women go?” – Comments

I’ve followed with interest the discussion on Amanda‘s astropixie blog following her post “Where did the women go?”. She wrote the post after attending a Women in Astronomy workshop in Sydney and summarises the problem (–> women underrepresented in astronomy) and her thoughts. She also gives a list of action point for individuals and for institutes, which are useful to remind ourselves of.

I wanted to post some comments of my own, and after Blogger ate my carefully thought out words, I thought I’d write something here instead. In brief, I find myself siding more and more with the comments made by Rita Tojeiro on Amanda’s post. I find the many discussions of “women in astronomy” issues polarising and not very constructive. While it’s important to raise awareness about unconscious bias, which I do believe exists,  creating an “us vs. them” atmosphere only makes the problem worse.

Personally I want to stand out from all my peers, including those of the XY conviction. As Rita says, we don’t give awards to the best black astronomer, or the best muslim astronomer. Imagine! I don’t want to be a great female astronomer, or a great female science blogger for that matter.

We need to talk openly about the reasons that many scientists, male or female, don’t stick with a career in science, with everyone involved.”Women in science” meetings, to which often men aren’t (made to feel) welcome, tend to revolve around work-life balance issues, such as childcare and dual careers. These issues affect men too. Stronger even: in many cases, the men are the women scientists’ partners! They are the work-life balance, the problematic second body.

I won’t go on too much, as I’ve said it all before, and it’s all been repeated in Amanda’s comments section. I’d like to stress that I do think there are unconscious bias effects at work, and some of the reasons why people leave science affect women more than men. I don’t debate those things. But I think the way we discuss them, the way we try to address them, is not always the best.

And hey, it’s not all bad being a woman in astronomy. Here’s why:

  • No queues in the ladies’ loos at conferences. Where else can you get 2000 people together and only have lines at the men’s bathrooms? Makes me smile every time.
  • It’s far easier to make an impression: you are the albino chimp at the zoo! Who do you the important people will remember in a week – the 50 regular chimps or the one weird albino?

I don’t mean to belittle the issue – but you have to let yourself laugh about it too. Got any others?

 

Postdocs want Bread and Roses too

Postdocs are the workhorses of research institutions and laboratories, the invaluable group glue between seniors and graduate students, and yet we’re a strangely invisible and transient population.  We’re relatively cheap to fund and easily dispensed with when the wells run dry. Once just a quick waystation between studentVille and facultyStadt, the relative overabundance of postdocs (pdf) means that now even the best and brightest have to stick around long enough to pitch their tent in postdocIngham. Some even decide to settle there.

Yet despite postdocIngham turning into a burgeoning metropolis, it remains a curiously unregulated, lawless and fragile society. It remains unrepresented in the Parliament of researchIstan. Why is that so? In this week’s edition of Nature, Virginia Gewin looks at the rise of postdoc unions in the US, their successes and dangers they present. For those without access, I’ve posted the pdf here.

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Plotting Astronomers

(click to enlarge)

The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is one of the fundamental plots in astronomy. I remember it being one of the very first “sciencey” things I learnt about astronomy. It’s a very elegant plot, as it relates two very basic quantities about stars, their temperature and their brightness,  and presents a visually memorable picture. The main known classes of stars each, like white dwarfs or red giants, populate their own corner of the diagram.

And now Stuart has taken the HR diagram and made a human version of it: the Astronomer HR diagram! It’s very neat, and lots of astronomers have been figuring out where they would place on the plot. If I count my SPIE Proceedings papers, not strictly refereed but usually counted as such for intrumentalists, I’m at [17,4500], nicely along the Main Sequence. Counting just my very strictly peer-reviewed papers, I’m at [3,4500], in the new media section. Either’s fine by me!

Image: S. Lowe

The Astronomer’s Mating Call

Every winter is the time for an age-old mating ritual that takes place in the astronomy community: a special courtship dance where graduate students and postdocs parade round, flashing their colourful feathers, trying to appear smarter and savvier than their peers in the desperate quest for a new mecenas who will support their addiction to MacBooks and airmiles. It’s jobs season, when the friendships we’ve cherished for the past year become meaningless and it’s each astronomer to their own.

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