Work-Life Balance 3: Less Navel-Gazing, More Scholarly And Institutional Structure Analysis!

First post in this series can be found here.
Second post in this series can be found here.
In my second post in this series, I gave the men a cookie, and commenter rpf accused me of…gasp!…being too nice!
I believe this is the first time this has ever happened.

Work-Life Balance 2: On Stepping Up To The Plate

First post in this series can be found here.
The third and final post in this series can be found here.
ScientistMother really wants DrugMonkey to step up to the plate already. She says that DM laid out his own responsibility to deal, on-blog, with work-life balance issues and to share the details of how it goes down at his own home. Find the full quote in the comments at her post or here in Doc Free-Ride’s post.
As is generally the case, I have a few things to say about this.

Rearranging Pipet Tips…

A friend of mine (maybe YOU are that friend?) will be soon be leaving a job at Wackaloon Scientific Enterprises where said friend is supervised by sadistic micromanaging douchebags from hell with poor reading comprehension skills.
How best to spend the remaining time my friend must clock at WSE?
I suggest devoting large chunks of it to rearranging pipet tips in their boxes while singing some version of this song.
Oh it was sad,
Oh it was sad,
It was sad when the research went down to the journal.
All the postdocs and techs.
Little grad students lost their lives.
It was sad when the research went down.
Then when your time is up, shake off the dust under your feet, and blow out of Dodge.

Why Are You So Angry?

Thegoodman really, really wants to know.

If you do not consider yourself a failure, that is great. Why then are you so angry about this situation? If it has worked out well for you, what is driving your passionate hatred for our patriarch society?
Like many gender discussions/arguments, your approach has made me feel guilty for being a man. This doesn’t accomplish anything positive since I soon get defensive because I cannot help it that I am a man and I shouldn’t feel guilty about just as you shouldn’t feel guilty for being a woman.

This is hilarious in so many ways. Let’s recap. I explained how petulant whiny white d00ds make the same boring complaint over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, believing themselves to be the first clever souls ever to have come up with it, and then listed several calm responses I often used, each of which, even the pissy one, were intended to engage the petulant whiners in some reflective thinking. Then I described what was going on in my mind while I was spoon-feeding Diversity 101 to the petulant whiners, even though we all know I never allowed myself to say any of those angry thoughts out loud. Because part of my job was, in fact, the spoon-feeding. We may debate whether the spoon-feeding does much good at all, but in any case, I was paid to spoon-feed.
So, my dear Zuskateers. While I’ve been away, occupied with allergies, migraines, and the Morris Arboretum plant sale, you have apparently taken on Zuska’s Outreach Project for D00dly D00ds. I stand in amazement at your handiwork. Through over 250 comments now you have explained, reasoned, provided links, illustrated points, discussed. And Thegoodman, who has trotted out every tired douchey trope we’ve all encountered eighty bazillion times before he showed his sorry self on this blog, is puzzled by the presence of anger. Oh, he occasionally will acknowledge that you are passionate about this subject, in a most condescending fashion – it’s a sweet way of saying “I see you are all emotional about this, and so I can’t expect you to be rational, or draw upon facts, the way I do, but that’s okay, I excuse you, and admire your feminine passion.” Calling what he’s seeing “passion” has two effects: it dismisses the arguments being made as non-logical, non-intellectual, and it downgrades the seething anger many of us are carrying around from dealing with douchey d00ds all our lives to just a quaint little “passion”, something sweetly feminine.
I have news for you, Thegoodman. I am not passionate about discrimination and inequity. I am fucking angry.
So many things in that epic thread caught my attention but I’ll just focus on a few things here.

Wah Wah, Where Is The Stuff For White Men?

A recent conversation with a friend reminded me of yet another of the “death by a thousand paper cuts**” craptastic things I used to hate dealing with in my days in the scientific workforce. You know what I’m talking about. Could be a retreat, a workshop, a seminar, a meeting, a program, maybe even just a discussion, but whatever it is, diversity is the subject, explicit or implicit. On one occasion it was a discussion about whether a tiny little space should be set aside for students of a certain group. On another it was a pizza party for women students. But ever and anon, at such occasions, you will hear the plaintive wail:
“Where is the [meeting/retreat/study room/pizza party/program] for white men?”
At K-State, where I was for a time director of the Women in Engineering and Science Program, I was asked not once but several times “Where is the program for men in engineering?” I had various answers. Sometimes, when I felt pissy, I would say, “That would be the whole College of Engineering.” Sometimes when I felt polemical, I would say, “You know, that’s a good question. It’s good for us to think about why we need a program for women in engineering. Women can do engineering work, but engineering is not as successful in attracting and keeping them as it is with men. So in a sense, the program is more for the college of engineering than it is for the women.” Sometimes, when I felt Socratic, I would say, “That’s a good question. What do you think men need that they aren’t getting, that a men in engineering program would provide?”
But all times, this is what I really wanted to say:
Jesus H. Christ! Every time I hear that “where is the whateverthefuck for white men” I want to say “seriously? Seriously? you think you are the first motherfucking white d00d in the whole motherfucking world to come up with that acid riposte in a diversity-related seminar/meeting/retreat/discussion? SERIOUSLY? Go away and come up with an ORIGINAL white d00d whine and we will think about giving you a diversity cookie. Until then, open up your motherfucking white d00d eyes and take a look around at how the whole entire world is plastered with signs that say ‘White D00ds ‘Specially Welcome Here!’ ‘K? Thx.”
**(The) Knight Higher Education Collaborative (September 2001). Gender Intelligence. Policy Perspectives, 10(2), 1-9.

Solving Gender Equity Issues One Long, Slow, Pleasurable Step At A Time

We are a mere ten years into the 21st century. No jet packs for all yet, but things are moving at a lightning pace at Yale in the policy area.

After more than a quarter century of debate, Yale faculty members are now barred from sexual relationships with undergraduates–not just their own students, but any Yale undergrads.

Well you may ask: can we still nail grad students and postdocs?
Look: PI’s and/or faculty really should just satisfy their sexual needs elsewhere. Not with the students, not with the grad students, not with the postdocs. It is not good for anyone. I know, I know, you know a prof who screwed his grad student and they got married and it was a dreamfest. Spare me. You are completely unaware of all the collateral damage such relationships inflict, and the fact that even such “happy outcomes” are not without conflict and cost for the blissful Mrs.Biggy McSchwingerdick.
But oh, the humanity. What are we to do? Especially now that spring is upon us, and the sap is rising!
For god’s sake, just siphon off a little of that overhead money everyone contributes and give all the d00ds a Travel Jackmaster. At home, in the lab, in the car, the restroom after teaching class with all those horny coeds, whatever. Ladeez may choose from any of a wide selection of vibrators. The Original Venus Butterfly is pretty in pink and oh-so-discreet. Committee meetings will be ever so much more fun.

Whatever Happened To “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”?????

I was catching up on reading at Female Science Professor’s place and came across her post: Women Girls.
FSP, as far as I can tell, seems to be saying that the young ones these days are all hip with the term “girl” for women even into their 30′s because…I don’t know why, it’s a peer thing, and we old biddies wouldn’t understand. We must accept that the times they are a-changing. Girls just wanna have fun?
Perusing the comments, I gather that “woman” is stodgy, or P.C. (!), and too mature and “girls” these days are putting off adulthood, and can’t think of themselves as women.
To this, I say, what a load of horsecrap we have have been sold…

Smile, Boys! It Would Make The World So Much Prettier For Us Women!

The other day, a male friend of mine was at the grocery store in the check out line. He was not feeling particularly happy, and, I guess, was frowning a little. A dude in line behind him tapped him on his shoulder to get his attention and when he turned around, the dude said, in a bright voice, “You dropped something,” and was pointing to the floor. My male friend looked down and said, “I don’t see anything.” The dude then told him, “You dropped your smile.” My male friend was not amused. He turned around going back to his business saying, “Oh, OK.” The man proceeded to walk away mumbling, “Don’t look so serious. It’s only the grocery store.”
That doesn’t sound right, does it?
No, because it really happened to a woman. There, that feels more…normal, doesn’t it?
Isis got a letter from a PhD student who was told in a teaching evaluation that she needs to smile more. Isis gave her some excellent advice but I want to address this whole “needs to smile more” issue from a different angle.