A Christmas Carol – Part III. I wonder as I wander.

 In my last post, we learned that women are less technical but more intelligent than men. Still, I was not happy. To understand why, let me take you back to that enchanted (?) Christmas night. Setting: In a place far, far away, a group of people had gathered to do scientific field work instead of spending Christmas with their loved ones… On a garden path outside a luxurious hotel, I wandered aimlessly while I wondered: What the heck is the point anyway?!

1. Apparently, women should be having babies.

2. Apparently, I do a good job cleaning, because of my natural female instinct*.

3. During this trip, I pretty much did a man’s job. Literally. Because the technician who often goes on this kind of trip wasn’t there, I was responsible for the tasks that he’d normally do. That guy has the advantage not just of being male (?), but also of having more than my whole lifetime of working experience; and of working specifically with technical issues and instruments. Even if I stay in this field and work for as many years as he has worked in this workplace, I would have that many decades of “doing science”, whereas he has that much experience of “technical science support”. Not the same thing. But still, since he wasn’t there, I did the job and (as far as we know) it seemed to work out pretty well. Heck, if I had a man’s self-confidence I might even say that I think I did a pretty good job! This doesn’t stop anyone from spending half the evening talking about how women aren’t technical. Hellooooo! I did X’s job! I’m half his age! I’m a scientist not a technician! I have neither 30 years of experience nor a technical training background to “make up for” being a female! Doesn’t this make me living proof that women can be at least a little bit technical? No, silly girl, of course it doesn’t, because one woman (and another one, and another one) can be an exception to the rule. And besides, perhaps you’re not a real woman anyway**. You know, the kind who has babies before 30… 

Yet again, the length of the post has just about reached my pain threshold (it’s a bit lower, you know, since I’m a woman. Or should it be higher, for that reason?) so yet again I bid you goodbye, and I will try to conclude the Christmas tale before next Christmas… look out for the next post!

* Rendering my years of third level education, scientific training and experience rather useless? More interesting, though, is how this natural instinct never seems to kick in at home... ask anyone who's shared a house, a hotel room or an office with me about my innate tidiness. (You'll probably be rewarded with some blank stares, or possibly fits of hysterical laughter.)

**Let me quickly point out that noone voiced this view at our Christmas dinner table. Neither about me personally nor in a general sense. I think anyone present there would only ever go so far as to saying “women are less technical in general, but of course there are exceptions” – which is of course an enormous lot better than “if a woman is technical, she’s not a real woman”. However, I think that while there's a long way between the first and the second statement, the slope between them is somewhat slippery. If you accept the first – which, to some extent, I sometimes find myself doing – then you have to watch out not to fall into the trap of believing the second. Exaggerated? Logical?