Topic: ctheory, bbc news, annalee newit
(Personal Note: Annalee Newitz and I are both refugees from US academia, and we're friends. Like her, I have a PhD--mine in comparative literature, mostly French theory--and I'm also an Internet journalist, with the BBC in London. I have often admired Annalee's work as a techie and as a writer. She tells it like it is, and she's fearless.)
CTheory Interview
===================
~Annalee Newitz in conversation with Simon Glezos~
Annalee Newitz leads a life your average geek dreams about. As
Editor-in-Chief of the massively popular science and science
fiction blog io9.com (which gets over 3 million unique readers
per month), Newitz spends her days tracking down new and
exciting developments from the worlds of science and technology,
while, at the same time, getting to immerse herself in the
latest and greatest in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and genre
fiction. ~io9~ provides both news and commentary, with Newitz
herself frequently providing insightful accounts of the
political and social implications of contemporary pop culture.
Given this endpoint, her diverse professional background begins
to make a strange amount of sense. She started her professional
career as a Ph.D. student in the English department at UC
Berkeley. While there she served as one of the founders of the
seminal cultural studies journal/webzine _Bad Subjects_. She
also published two books while at Berkeley, _White Trash: Race
and Class in America_ (Routledge, 1997) and _The Bad Subjects
Anthology_ (NYU Press, 1998). Her dissertation on 'images of
monsters, psychopaths, and capitalism in 20th Century American
pop culture', was later published under the name _Pretend We're
Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture_ (Duke
University Press, 2006). Following her Ph.D., Newitz turned to
journalism, and began writing "Techsploitation" a syndicated
column "about the ways that media mutates and reiterates the
problems of everyday life", as well as freelance articles for
publications such as _Wired_, _Popular Science_, _New
Scientist_, ~The Washington Post~ and _New York Magazine_. In
2007 she co-edited the anthology _She's Such a Geek: Women Write
About Science, Technology and Other Nerdy Stuff_ (Seal Press,
2007), a volume which engaged with one of Newitz's main focuses,
the representation of women in science and technology. She also
served as a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation.
CTheory interviewed Newitz about her work as a blogger and
writer, about the relationship between science and the
humanities, about the relationship between 'high' culture and
'low' culture, and about what makes the future so interesting.
Science and Culture
-------------------
CTHEORY: Your background is as an academic working in the humanities.
You have an English Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where you launched the
seminal cultural studies journal and webzine _Bad Subjects_. You have
written books of cultural criticism focusing on issues of race,
class, gender and sexuality in popular culture. At the same time,
however, you have spent a lot of time as a science writer, penning
articles on new digital technologies and advances in genetics for
publications such as _Wired_. What brought you to science writing?
How do you relate that to your background in the humanities?
Annalee Newitz: Even when I was working in the humanities, I always
wanted to take an interdisciplinary approach to the material I was
studying. My doctoral research explored ways that mass media
responded to -- and shaped -- the political/economic culture of
twentieth-century America. A lot of the mass media I researched was
about science and technology. I'm fascinated by stories about
science, as well as science and engineering in practice. I guess you
could say that I moved from an academic career writing about
representations of science in mass media, to a career in mass media
creating representations of it.
One thing I've always strongly regretted about my education --
getting a Ph.D. in a humanities discipline -- was how little exposure
I got to scientific thought. I felt like people in the humanities
were making a lot of claims about problems with scientific reasoning
and empiricism without actually understanding how useful those tools
could be. And so as soon as I escaped from academia, I basically
immersed myself in science -- especially, in the late 1990s, in
computer science and technology. I became interested in biology a
little later on.
When I was working on _Bad Subjects_ as a graduate student and
adjunct professor, I really thought that good cultural criticism
could change the world. Now I know that good cultural criticism is
nothing without good science to go along with it. It's foolish to
imagine culture and science are a binary, if you're trying to be a
thoughtful person and contribute usefully to public conversations
about where we're headed as a civilization.
CTHEORY: It does seem like there's always a division between those
working in the humanities and those working in the sciences that goes
beyond just matters of focus and specialization. It frequently feels
like there's a mutual suspicion between the two camps. What is it you
think that makes humanities scholars so leery of the sciences? And
what about the opposite direction? Do you feel like there's a
tendency amongst the scientific community to view the work that the
humanities scholars are engaged in as frivolous, or inadequately
rigorous? What do you think could be done (either inside the academy,
or outside of it) to encourage productive exchange between these two
worlds? Do you see signs that this might be changing?
AN: I do think there's a lot of mistrust between the humanities and
the sciences. The stereotype (which holds true sometimes) is that
scientists think humanities types are frivolous and stupid; and
humanities types think scientists are destructive and naive. But I
think most people on both sides are more indifferent to the other
than hostile.
Some of the social sciences do manage to bridge the gap, especially
when you consider how certain fields fit together -- you can easily
conceive of collaborations between fields like linguistics and
computer programming, or between psychology, neuroscience and
robotics. But even when there are collaborations, one area tends to
be emphasized over the other. At MIT, for example, I saw a lot of
incredible collaborations between humanities/social science and the
sciences, but ultimately science was everybody's focus. In other
schools where interdisciplinary work is encouraged, like say UC Santa
Cruz, it feels like social sciences are the focus. I'm not saying
this is bad necessarily -- I think it's terrific that MIT and UCSC
foment interdisciplinary work. My point is just that we still live
with a long history of distrust between the fields that comes out
even in good circumstances.
I do think this is changing. More people want to do interdisciplinary
work, and there are little pockets where radical science/humanities
collaboration is happening. A project I wrote about recently,
Synthetic Aesthetics (http://io9.com/5500485/want-to-redesign-nature-
now-you-can/gallery/), brings together biologists and artists/
designers to do synthetic biology projects. Both sides have equal
input. The idea is that biotech has entered a phase where we are
designing life, and scientists need input from people who understand
culture and aesthetics. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that
is crazy awesome.
CTHEORY: Pointing to another apparent split in your work, you've also
served as editor-in-chief of the science fiction and futurism blog
io9.com since its launch. How do you reconcile this kind of
short-form, popular writing with your more academic writing? Do you
ever find yourself wanting to suddenly insert a discussion of, say,
Georg Lukacs, or reification, into a review of the new Predator
movie?
AN: I often feel like my work at ~io9~ is sort of the "Evil Dead II"
version of my academic work -- you know, same basic plot but with
better effects and a tighter script. I'm not sure if ~Predators~, the
new Predator flick, requires a Lukacsian reading -- it's just
straight-up Albert Memmi colonizer and colonized stuff. Seriously,
though, I have actually written about Lukacs on ~io9~, as well as
contemporary academic critics I admire, like Fredric Jameson, Kaja
Silverman and Constance Penley. A lot of academics and para-academics
read ~io9~ -- in the sciences as well as social sciences and
humanities -- and I love that. I encourage it!
I think academics in the humanities like to pretend their critical
work is really different from pop criticism and writing. There are a
lot of reasons for this, and none of them are particularly persuasive
unless you're an elitist. It always saddens me when I hear somebody
has gotten denied tenure because they've published work in the
popular press instead of tiny academic journals. I love tiny academic
journals -- don't get me wrong. But they shouldn't be treated as the
only game in town. In the sciences, almost everybody works in
industry at some point. There is no great "split" between doing
computer science at Google vs. doing it at Stanford. You might do
one, then the other, then go back again. In the humanities, not so
much.
CTHEORY: I feel like there are two great ironies in this academic
disdain for pop writing. First of all, it seems like the policing of
the boundaries between popular writing and proper, 'academic' writing
is intensifying at the very moment that opportunities for academics
to engage in public discourse through new media platforms are
radically increasing. Secondly, it feels like it's those disciplines
which have been most willing to take pop culture seriously (and are
most critical of naturalized borders and boundaries), that are most
insistent on maintaining the distinction between the two spheres.
AN: That's really interesting. The idea that academics can't be
public intellectuals is a peculiarly American one -- in the UK and
Europe -- which happen to be two places I've observed myself -- there
doesn't seem to be the same prejudice. Of course their tenure systems
are quite different too.
I like the idea that new media is allowing American academics to
become public intellectuals -- I hope we see more professors like
Constance Penley and Henry Jenkins, who participate in the same
culture they analyze. But I'd also like to see more citizen
academics. People like industrial historian Megan Shaw Prelinger or
the cast of Mythbusters -- smart, educated people doing research and
teaching, but in popular venues rather than formal classrooms.
Honestly the Mythbusters crew probably does more to demystify and
rationally explain physical processes in the world than many science
teachers do.
My point is that we need to redefine "scholarship." Learning and
teaching shouldn't have to take place in a reified part of your
consciousness, ~ala~ Lukacs, or in a university enclave.
CTHEORY: I really appreciated your comments about ~Mythbusters~. My
first thought was "We need a humanities version of ~Mythbusters~".
(Actually that's not quite true. My first thought was "How can I
become the humanities version of ~Mythbusters~?") But, following
along from your comments, I think you're right, there's probably
quite a few people who are already starting to fill that role (or
rather carry on that tradition). I'm thinking here of things like
"The Pinocchio Theory" Steven Shaviro's blog
(http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/) of the political theory group blog
"The Contemporary Condition"
(http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/).
However, I want to return to your point about the elitism of
academia, because I think you're absolutely right that is a major
element. But I wonder if this isn't also a result of the increasing
'professionalization' of higher education, through the
rationalization and bureaucratization of things like tenure reviews
and grant applications. I'm reminded of Adorno (someone who had his
own issues with elitism), when he said that "the occupation with
things of the mind has by now itself become 'practical,' a business
with strict divisions of labour, departments and restricted entry"
and that those who challenge these divisions are viewed as "not a
'professional'" and are "ranked in the competitive hierarchy as a
dilettante no matter how well he knows his subject." [_Minima
Moralia_, p. 21] (This would also seem to have something to say to
the question above about the divisions between science and the
humanities). How do you think this contributes to maintaining these
distinctions?
AN: Let me get back to your point about certain disciplines
frantically setting up boundaries between acceptable and
non-acceptable writing. I see two things going on. One is the age-old
high culture/low culture distinction that Frankfurt School types are
seemingly obsessed with. I think some academics in the humanities
really buy into that distinction, and feel quite honestly that pop
culture is a degraded form of art whose entire purpose is to
brainwash the masses into complacency. Fair enough. I disagree, but
whatever.
The other issue, I suspect, is a much more pragmatic desire to
preserve jobs. So many humanities departments are being hit by
furloughs and budget cuts and shrinkage. Unlike scientists,
humanities scholars have few opportunities to sustain themselves and
their students with big grants. So there's a circling the wagons
mentality. A withdrawing into purely academic writing. The
frustrating part is that this means academics are missing out on a
chance to share their work with a broad audience. And they're also
missing a chance to create more financial security for themselves by
doing a little work in the culture industry.
CTHEORY: Do you see anything that gives you hope that these
distinctions might be loosening (As you said, ~io9~ has a large
academic audience)? What do you think is the benefit when there's
this intermixing of 'high' and 'popular' discourses?
AN: Intermixing creates hybrid vigor! I think it's obvious that
innovation and progress tend to flourish in environments where people
can move freely between different worlds. I try to encourage friendly
border crossings as much as possible.
Blogging
--------
CTHEORY: I'd like to shift the focus specifically to your work as
editor-in-chief of io9.com, and talk a little bit about working in
blogging. I want to know what you see as some of the benefits, and
some of the potential pitfalls of the blog format. Back in October,
Gawker Media head Nick Denton sent out a memo entitled 'We're not
running a newspaper' where he expressed his concern over "[a] few
cases recently where we've thought *way* too much before publishing."
and stated that "[a]t some media organizations you might get rapped
for running a premature story. At Gawker Media, you'll lose way more
points for being scooped on a story you had in your hands." Does this
emphasis on speed, on increasing the sheer volume of information,
concern you, or is this perhaps part of what makes this form of media
so vital? Maybe in a more general sense, what do you think are the
implications for a culture that is increasingly organized on the
fast-paced, possibly ephemeral nature of the blog form? What are your
goals and hopes as the editor-in-chief of a very widely read,
influential blog?
AN: I like the interactivity of blogging. Having a lot of smart
commenters helps refine my ideas -- nothing like having 1000 people
tell you that you're wrong to make you a more careful, humble writer.
Luckily ~io9~ is feature-driven, so we're not as affected by the
scoop mania of the news world. Having worked in print and online
media, though, I don't think the obsessive desire for a scoop is
anything new. Scoops come a little faster now is all. The thing I
love about Gawker Media is that I feel like we're encouraged to do
good, old-fashioned, nineteenth-century muckraking. One of my
favorite writers is Frank Norris, who was a novelist but also worked
as a muckraker for San Francisco papers at the turn of the twentieth
century. I'm sure old Frank Norris would loved to have worked for a
Gawker blog. Shit-disturbing is one of the foundational principles of
journalism, so it's no surprise that bloggers are doing it too.
Like newspapers and pulps, most blogs are -- as you rightly put it --
"ephemeral." This definitely freaks me out sometimes. I want to leave
my tiny mark on the universe like any writer does, and I don't have
high hopes that ~io9~ will be preserved very well over time. That
definitely depresses me. But then I think about all those pulp
writers 100 years ago, how much total awesomeness they poured into
the world, even though their books have crumbled into dust. There is
nothing wrong with churning out ephemera that gives people pleasure
and makes them think. I'm honored to do it. If ~io9~ fills your brain
with burning images of a weird future for 30 minutes in 2010, that's
good enough for me.
CTHEORY: That's an interesting point. We have a tendency (clearly
myself included) to think of the present as fast-moving and ephemeral
and the past as marked by permanence and slowness. But the past is
packed with just as much speed and ephemera as the present. One of my
favourite pieces of writing that I stumbled across a long time ago is
a passage in Heinrich Von Treitschke's "Politics", written in the
1860's, where he complains that the increasing speed of mail delivery
is completely ruining the art of correspondences. Suggesting that
anyone who blames e-mail for ruining letter writing is about a
century and a half late to the party.
AN: Absolutely. Every generation has its demonized forms of
communication, which are allegedly ruining the ways we once related
to one another. In the last century or so, I think the speed of
communication has for a variety of reasons been terrifying to people.
It suggests that traditional boundaries of space are being broken
down so quickly that nobody can stop it, nobody can rebuild the old
walls fast enough to keep up with SMS or Twitter or (in Von
Treitschke's case) the postal service.
CTHEORY: I want to go back to your comments on liking the interactive
nature of blogs. From a practical point of view, what role does your
awareness of, and interaction with, the audience (if that's even the
right word anymore) play? You mention being a little more careful and
humble in your writing, two qualities that a lot of writing on the
internet, or anywhere else for that matter, could definitely use. But
what effect do you think it might have in terms of shaping content,
either in terms of the kind of topics you deal with, as well as the
way in which you deal with them. This kind of constant interaction
between the writer and audience somewhat challenges the romantic
image of the isolated genius of the author. Do you think this is a
good thing, making writers more connected to their audience? Or is
there possibly something lost, maybe some sort of sense of autonomy.
Do you worry that sometimes you might be catering too much to what
your audience wants to hear?
AN: I think a lot of the concerns you raise are only going to be
relevant to people in the media transition generation like myself. I
started writing in the 1990s, when print journalism reigned, but I
published most of my work online instead. Still, my experiences
publishing academic books and writing for print publications like
_Wired_ and the ~San Francisco Bay Guardian~ allowed me to see what
the old print culture was like. My whole adult life, I've been
watching print culture transform into digital culture.
Am I ruined, misled, schooled, or exalted by getting audience
feedback on a story instantly? Yes. All of those things. The same way
William Faulkner was ruined by bad reviews back in the slow-writing
days of the 1920s and 30s. I'm not comparing my work to Faulkner's,
by the way -- I'm just saying he's a good example of a guy who was
writing this crazy, modernist, amazing stuff "in isolation" -- but he
kept getting bad reviews and being ignored. So in the early 1930s he
said, "Fuck it- I'll just cater to my audience." And he wrote
_Sanctuary_, the story of a snotty college girl who gets kidnapped by
a bunch of criminal lowlifes, which became a huge bestseller and a
trashy pre-Code movie. And then he went to Hollywood to write
screenplays.
My point is that authors are always in dialog with their audiences --
even Faulkner made decisions based on what he thought his readers
wanted. Though they sometimes pretend not to be, writers are always
making decisions based on the perceived desires of their readers
(even if the decision is to ignore what they know their readers
want).
Does the instantaneous feedback on a blog post change this situation
in a qualitative way? I'm really not sure. I think it probably gives
authors a thicker skin, because they have to read through a lot of
critical responses and learn to filter the constructive criticism
from the pure insults. And sure, it helps you figure out what kinds
of stories garner more attention. But even armed with all our
knowledge about what makes people click on a story, we still misfire
all the time. I'll write something that I think people will love, and
they ignore it. Or I'll write something difficult and opinionated,
thinking to myself that it will get 1,000 views but who cares because
I wanted to write it. And then, weirdly, that story will blow up and
hundreds of thousands of people will read it and get excited. So
audience response always ultimately remains a mystery.
Futurism
--------
CTHEORY: You used a great phrase earlier; that you hope that ~io9~
"fills your brain with burning images of a weird future" (which would
probably make a good new tagline for the site). Futurism is obviously
a big part of ~io9~'s subject matter. In terms of science news, what,
for you, are some of the most interesting developments that you've
been tracking in science and technology, that have shaped how you're
thinking about the future? What about in the realm of science
fiction? What do you look for in a work of science fiction, in terms
of getting some sort of image of the future?
On the other side of things, a frequent refrain amongst science
fiction authors is that sci-fi isn't about predicting the future, but
about investigating the present. What works of science fiction lately
do you think have had the most insightful things to say about the
present, whether that be in terms of politics, culture, economics,
day-to-day life, etc?
AN: When I'm reading the scientific journals for story ideas, the
kinds of research that excites me the most tends to be in the areas
of materials science, biotechnology, synthetic biology and the Earth
sciences. I think that's because a lot of these areas have an
engineering component. You'll find research focused on producing new
life forms, modified organisms, medical therapies, devices for
preventing liquefaction, etc. I like science where the rubber meets
the road in the real world. That's not to say that I'm not fascinated
by astrophysics -- I am -- and I wish we were working harder on
colonizing space and coming up with ways to deal with dangers from
near-Earth objects!
I'm the most disgruntled with neuroscience, especially where it
overlaps with psychology. There are a lot of terrific scientists
working in the field whose work I admire, but unfortunately there are
many people who are basically pseudoscientists, using fMRI studies to
make dubious claims about the biological basis of culture. Even more
unfortunately, these are the kinds of studies that get the most media
attention, too.
I'm definitely a believer in the idea that science fiction is
constrained by the time when it was written. It's sometimes about
possible futures, but of course those futures are viewed through the
windscreen of the present. I think that's why William Gibson started
writing about the present day, but still calls himself a science
fiction writer. I think people like Maureen McHugh, Carol
Emschwiller, Vernor Vinge and Paolo Bacigalupi do a good job
capturing the present and projecting it into the future (or simply
into an alternate present). Pagan Kennedy's novel _Confessions of a
Memory Eater_, which I think is incredibly underrated, is one the
best scifi tales about contemporary neurotech I've read. It's right
up there with _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_.
Despite its problems, I think the ~Battlestar Galactica~ series, and
its spinoff ~Caprica~, do a great job projecting contemporary
anxieties about war into a space opera landscape. The longrunning
show ~Doctor Who~, which is explicitly about time-bending, often hits
it out of the park when it comes to representing present-day issues
in a far-future or alternate history context. And finally, I'm
excited to see more movies in the vein of ~District 9~, which is an
attempt to explore racism and colonialism using science fiction. That
movie made some missteps politically -- many critics were dismayed by
the monstrous representations of Nigerians -- but I think it also
captured in a visceral way the violence and pervasive hypocrisy that
fuel post-colonial relationships everywhere on Earth.
CTHEORY: A lot of your work focuses on increasing the representation
of women within the realms of science and technology (or, perhaps
more accurately, reducing barriers to women in the worlds of science
and technology). I'm thinking here specifically of your edited
anthology and blog ~She's Such a Geek~. What kind of progress do you
think has been made in that area recently and what are some of the
moves that could be made (at either the social or the individual
level) to move us towards this goal?
AN: Five years ago, former Harvard president Lawrence Summer gave a
now-infamous speech where he asserted that women's brains may not be
suited for science and engineering. His words were greeted with
nearly universal condemnation, and probably led to his resignation.
But he also inadvertently helped women in the sciences by sparking a
furious amount of research in the United States on this very question
of women's competence in science.
The National Science Foundation funded a number of studies into the
question of female brains and science, which has left us with very
encouraging results. In fact, there are no provable biological
differences between the sexes when it comes to math, science, and
engineering competence. What we have found, however, is that women
and men can be "primed" to score higher or lower on tests simply by
being told that men score higher on math-related questions.
Stereotype priming turns out to be a major culprit in the
discrepancies between men's and women's scores on standardized tests,
as well as one possible reason why women show less interest in the
sciences. When you're surrounded by messages that say women fail in
the sciences, you're primed to steer away from them. (Cordelia Fine's
amazing book _Delusions of Gender_ deals with these studies in
fascinating detail.)
The good news that comes out of these studies is that there are no
biological "hardwired" barriers to women entering the sciences --
women can learn to be just as good as men are in these fields. The
main barrier to entry seems to be this stereotype priming.
Interestingly, studies have shown that this priming can be shifted
fairly quickly. Women taking a math test who were told that there is
no difference between male and female performance on the test did,
indeed, score comparably with their male counterparts. So it would
seem that even if women grow up with negative messages about science
and math, we can start counteracting those messages at any point and
have some good results. But obviously we want to start priming boys
and girls at an early age, making sure that we buy girls science
kits, educational videogames, etc., and get them excited about
numbers in the same way we do with boys.
Another positive sign is that in some of the most important and
lucrative areas of science, women are making tremendous strides. A
recent National Science Foundation (NSF) study of employment in US
science jobs showed that half the jobs in biology and life sciences
fields were held by women. Roughly 30 percent of jobs in materials
science were also held by women. In terms of priming, we would also
hope to see more images of women doing science in the media -- and we
do. They range from Carly Fiorina (even if you disagree with her
politics, she's a successful tech-entrepreneur-turned-politican) and
Helen Grenier (founder of iRobot, the company whose PackBot robots
are now fighting in Iraq and whose Roombas are sweeping our floors),
to fictional women like the star of TV series ~Bones~ (a geeky
forensic scientist) and the heroic hacker character Trinity from ~The
Matrix~ series. The point is, we're being exposed to exponentially
more images of women working in the sciences, both in real life and
in popular culture.
But we still have a long way to go. Women are paid less than men are
in comparable science jobs, and university women in the sciences are
granted tenure far less often than men. Most science fields,
especially computer science and the physical sciences, are dominated
by men to an embarrassing degree. In the United States, women hold
less than 10 percent of jobs in the physical sciences, and less than
20 percent in computer science. We know it doesn't have to be this
way: These discrepancies don't exist to such an extreme degree in
China and India, nor do they exist in other scientific disciplines.
Our culture has to change. We need to stop priming women (and women
need to stop priming themselves) to think that they can't do some of
the most exciting and important jobs on the planet.
CTHEORY: Once again, crossing disciplinary lines, how do you view
this project as linked up with your work on the representation of
women in Science Fiction (and indeed in regards to other
underrepresented groups)?
AN: Women are discouraged from creating and enjoying science fiction
in the same ways they're primed not to pursue science as a career.
There's a widespread misapprehension that women aren't competent at
science, and therefore it follows that they shouldn't have anything
useful to say about science -- whether they're writing essays or
television shows about it. And yet some of the most influential
science fiction magazines -- from _OMNI_ in the 1970s and 80s, to
_Asimov's_ and _Locus_ today -- are run by women. ~io9~ has always
been run by women. In fact, percentage-wise, ~io9~ is dominated by
female writers. A woman, Mary Shelley, founded the whole damn genre
with Frankenstein. And yet even people who are true science fiction
fans persist in believing that women aren't interested, and aren't
participating, in the cultural branch of science known as science
fiction. The whole situation honestly makes me want to stab my face
with a pencil because it's so blatantly stupid.
But instead of perforating my head, I just soldier on. I'm a woman
who loves science, who grew up playing with computers, and who has
devoted her career to writing about science. It's not like it's
always easy, when nearly every day somebody tells me that I shouldn't
exist (or simply assumes that I'm a man because I write about science
and apparently they can't read bylines). I have a persistent fantasy
that my super power is the ability to bestow reason, and that with a
gentle touch on somebody's shoulder I could get them to open their
eyes and see all the women who love science, who are doing science,
and how their love is being eaten away by a culture that tries to
erase them.
As much as I can, I try to use my work to create a place where women
know that nobody will question their love of science and science
fiction. On io9, for example, we have a thriving community of
commenters where women are welcome. I and the other moderators have
made it clear that we won't tolerate sexist comments, and we will ban
commenters who think it's funny to talk about a woman's breast size
as if that's the most important thing about her. I write about sexism
in science fiction on io9, and so do my (male and female) colleagues.
I want to remind the millions of people who read ~io9~ every month
that their awesome geek space on the web is run by women -- not
because women are superior, but because women are just as into nerdy
stuff as men are. I'd like to believe that ~io9~ is a snapshot of the
future, an example of a workplace where men and women work alongside
each other to talk about the role of science in the world. We need
both genders to make science awesome, and in fact we wouldn't be
where we are today if it weren't for the contributions of both women
and men to the field.
I think a lot about people like Rosalind Franklin -- the person who
discovered the structure of DNA, only to have her revolutionary
finding attributed to a sexist like James Watson -- or Marie Curie,
who won the Nobel Prize twice but wasn't allowed to join the all-male
French Academy of Science. Or Andre Norton and James Tiptree, who
took male names in order to publish science fiction. Those women had
to deal with a lot more crap than I have, and still their love of
science survived. If their love could endure, so can mine. Yours can
too.
----------------
Simon Glezos is an assistant professor in the political science
department at the University of Regina, in Regina, Saskatchewan. He
has published articles in _CTheory_, _Contemporary Political Theory_,
and _The Contemporary Condition_. His first book _The Politics of
Speed: Capitalism, the State and War in an Accelerating World_, is
forthcoming from Routledge Press.
_____________________________________________________________________
*
* CTHEORY is an international peer-reviewed journal of theory,
* technology and culture. Articles, interviews, and key book
* reviews in contemporary discourse are published weekly as
* well as theorisations of major "event-scenes" in the
* mediascape.
*
* Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
*
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* York City), Lynn Hershman Leeson (San Francisco Art Institute),
* Stephen Pfohl (Boston College), Andrew Ross (New York University),
* Timothy Murray (Cornell University), Eugene Thacker (The New
* School), Steve Dixon (Brunel University), Anna Munster (University
* of New South Wales), Warren Magnusson (University of Victoria),
* Paul Hegarty (University College Cork), Joan Hawkins (Indiana
* University), Frances Dyson (University of California Davis), Mary
* Bryson (University of British Columbia), William Bogard (Whitman
* College) Andrew Wernick (Trent University), Maurice Charland
* (Concordia University).
*
* In Memoriam: Jean Baudrillard and Kathy Acker
*
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