By high school many girls drop science classes despite outperforming the boys who stay.
On Saturday morning, I turned on NPR while I made breakfast for my daughter and me. We had a big day ahead: first the farmers market, then a nearby forest preserve’s migratory bird festival featuring a mist-netting demonstration and the chance to take home and dissect your own owl pellet.
I listened to Scott Simon introduce a piece in a series called Joe’s Big Idea, which is intended to explore “how ideas become innovations and inventions.” The piece was about a scientist, and I’m a scientist, so of course my ears perked up as Joe Palca interviewed Caltech astrophysicist Shrinivas Kulkarni. It started on a great note: Palca asked Kulkarni what is beyond the universe, and they had a conversation on abstract versus practical questions in astronomy. Then, Kulkarni made a statement that is getting a lot of attention.
Kulkarni: “Many scientists are I think, secretly, are what I call ‘boys with toys.’" Slate has the story and twitter photos of women scientists with their toys.
