<p>In mathematics, I think perhaps the most important assistance would be to let young women see how ideas originate. In the textbooks, theorems often seem to spring from nowhere. The ideas that led up to them, scratch work, and false starts are never shown. In my opinion, this sometimes makes people (both genders) think, “I could never do that,” when in fact they could do it.</p>
<p>A book that came as a revelation to me was Imre Lakatos’s Proofs and Refutations. Not by a woman, and not about women, but very helpful in this regard, nonetheless.</p>
<p>Am reaching out to all the readers of this thread to point out the many successful women in leadership positions, or who have excelled in many ways. A few to mention in the business and legal arena are: Dr. Rhonda Applebaum (Coca Cola), Angie Chattin (CarMax), Elizabeth Gibbs (Aarons),Juanita Powell Baranco (Southern Company), Carol B. Tome’ (UPS), to name a few, besides the better known women in leadership <a href=“http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-fortune-1000”>http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-fortune-1000</a></p>
<p>There’s also interesting info about the women who lead Google, in various ways. </p>
<p>QM, I had been thinking along the same lines- we get to know results, whether that’s the medal, award, job- and kids miss the grit it takes. It’s not enough to know who’s won Wimbledon, they need to see what it took to get there. </p>
<p>I think we were skipping business leaders a bit because, though those women can have extraordinary academic paths, the work they do has somewhat converted from pure academics.</p>
<p>We will probably know that there has been true change when commentary about women in science can omit Marie Curie, for once; or when the “firsts” stop being exhausted, or look more like the “firsts” in baseball, with a lot of decorative qualifiers.</p>
<p>@Quantmech, that is most definitely true about Harvard, especially in high energy theory. Older grad students have been telling me how often they have a faculty search for an assistant professor in a field, decide they don’t want any of the candidates, and then just poach a professor from another university. Places like Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford can get away with that. Not as much Berkeley because of California’s budget problems (actually I think the former schools have been a bit opportunistic in this situation).</p>
<p>I think they may have designs to do this is my field as there is an open position. I have several preferences as to who this could be.</p>
<p>@lookingforward, I’m not saying having women mentioned would have changed my outcome, but it would have been nice. Honestly, I don’t remember any women mentioned in my first physics class. After I took that class, I honestly did not have any plans to go into physics. After the AP class is when I developed my interest, but even then I was thinking chemical physics. Only when I took honors physics freshman year did I decide physics. Coincidentally, this is when I had a female professor, who is also one of the most well respected physicists in her field.</p>
<p>In #1067, I meant when the “firsts” stop, or else when the “firsts” are exhausted. It doesn’t make much sense as it is! I edited the post as I was typing, but then neglected a final proof-read!</p>
<p>I do understand that there is an advantage in being able to offer young women role models who are like older sisters, or aunts who are not so widely separated from them in age. I will see what I can come up with, though it might take a bit of work.</p>
<h1>990 - texaspg</h1>
<p>*Personally I would recommend all young women on CC to follow molliebatmit’s life as the person to emulate in STEM. She seems to have done alright by being a high school cheerleader who somehow got into MIT (what a mistake right?) and went onto Harvard for a PhD. She might yet invent something but who knows, she might still go become a gym teacher given her cheerleader background. *</p>
<h1>1050- texaspg</h1>
<p>*I am fine with someone on CC who grew on CC being role models. I can live with Mollie or xiggi being role models to kids on CC since they can track their old posts, see what they have been through and still contact them to ask questions and get a real reply back. What is the point of having a role model if all you can do is read about them in books? *</p>
<p>Some don’t have to read about potential role models in books. My daughter-in-law and at least three of her female first cousins are PhD scientists. All of their mothers have science PhDs. I will have to ask my DIL during one of her weekly phone calls (brag alert!) what, if anything, Marie Curie meant to her growing up. My DIL grew up in a very enriched environment.</p>
<p>I certainly agree that xiggi and mollie provide important and positive role models for some students reading this board. Although I don’t “know” mollie well since she doesn’t seem to post on the parent boards where I hang out, I absolutely love the cheerleading/ scientist role model. What a wonderful model for the high school girl who values both academic and social success. And perhaps a useful example for a girl who cares as much about fashion as physics? Maybe she doesn’t have to choose? Another version of “having it all”? : ) My DIL cares about fashion. A lot. So do her cousins. They swap clothes sometimes.</p>
<p>In my (real life) neck of the world, several times recently this poem has been referenced:</p>
<p>
</code></pre>
<p>For me the poem ties back to thinking about what models are available to which children.</p>
<p>As well as Hunt asking if when we are through with talking science, maybe we can talk about poets and college admissions? Though I am willing to wait a month or more for that discussion to read about all these impressive young women and get some great book recommendations. thanks! </p>
<p>I wish this thread could be bookmarked at the top of a forum where it is easy for high school students to find. Or at least the most recent pages. Maybe someone could pull out the role model suggestions and put them in a separate thread when all suggestions are in?</p>
<p>@alh - yes, I would love the summary list of those role models somewhere sticky on CC or otherwise! If we stickied the whole thread, I don’t know how many would stay with us long enough to get to the names, as I think you were implying. :)</p>
<p>That’s great re your DIL and her environment! And, thanks for the poem. And I’m honored that you are going to read my recommended book!</p>
<p>Regarding women who love fashion and STEM, I know that Miss Massachusetts was an MIT student sometime in the 2000s, but I don’t remember who or exactly when. There have also been “Glamour Magazine women of the year” from MIT and as science majors from other places, pretty regularly. (I have to read <em>Glamour</em> for professional reasons… That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. )</p>
<p>@fretfulmother, the documentary “Hard Problems: The Road to the World’s Toughest Math Contest” is worth a look. Melanie Wood provides a lot of insight into the world of math and you can’t help but admire her. If I recall correctly, they do talk about girls in math and Sherry Gong and Allison Miller are also featured. I’m not sure whether they can be found on the youtube version or whether it was a bonus feature on the actual DVD, but it’s worth a look.</p>
<p>*Say, lookingforward, in post #997, “It’s the lack of clear focus, the detours and rambling, cobrat, that lines some up,” are your referring to cobrat’s posts, to mine, or to someone else’s? *</p>
<p>It’s yet another example of my absolute self- absorption that I felt sure it was about me! Though for me there was a very clear train of thought from "poets/college admissions to Ellison to Proust to (previously unposted) thoughts about Virginia Woolf and then Zadie Smith’s On Beauty which riffs on the question: “what makes a poet a “real” poet”?</p>
<p>I am just reading for the rest of the day.
I promise.</p>
<p>Just a brief detour about a Baroness being “significantly above a knight or dame.” It is above knight and dame in both Belgium and England but not significantly so from what I can gather. It is only one step above and there are knights in Belgium but no dame equivalent. In the British Empire, knights and dames are not nobility. In both places, dukes, marquises, counts,viscounts, etc. are above Baron and Baroness. But, it remains that being named a Baroness, Knight, Dame is an honor (even though some people do turn the honor down). <a href=“http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_nobility”>http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_nobility</a></p>
<p>Two great-aunts were STEM Profs…Physics and Chemistry starting in the late '30s till retiring sometime in the '60s or '70s. </p>
<p>The Physics Prof. great-aunt stayed in China after 1949 and rose to become a senior Prof at a Beijing area university before being persecuted by her own students during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I was very close to her and her family growing up and we chatted about Chinese history, her academic career/life in China, and life in general. </p>
<p>The Chemistry Prof. great-aunt started her academic career in China, continued it in the US until her retirement in the '70s, and then decided to try teaching high school chemistry at a private school in a well-off leafy part of Long Island sometime in the '70s as a way to mentor younger students. </p>
<p>She ended up giving up on the last idea after a year or two because she became fed up with the "out of control private HS students she had and felt the admins/parents were condoning the lax classroom discipline, gross levels of disrespect towards other teachers/adults, and poor lab/homework habits compared with the college students she had in China and the US during the late '30s-early '70s. </p>
)</p>