Role models

One of the books on last year's Entertainment Weekly's "Top Ten Nonfiction Books for 2010" is a book, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, the subject matter with which I have at least a passing familiarity.  Among other aspects of NASA's space programs, it talks about the Haughton-Mars project on Devon Island, which the Rocket Scientist is part of every year since 1998, the second year of its existence.

The Rocket Scientist is in the book.  He comes across as quite irascible, which he can be when dealing with people who annoy him, especially if he thinks they are being idiots.  The fact that he has to go two weeks working long hours with minimal chances for showers doesn't help either.  Roach makes the rather romanticized statement that he looks like Walter Raleigh, except for the ruffled collar.  Which has led to me calling him, occasionally, the cranky Walter Raleigh.  (He actually looks nothing like Sir Walter, except for the beard.)

There is one problem with Roach's book: it is incomplete in a very disturbing way.  She writes about a number of people in camp, including the cook and the guy who fixes the ATVs.... but not one woman. To read her account, Devon is an all-male club, with the men ruggedly braving the elements for the sake of helping mankind along in its search for other planets.

Funny, she missed the fact that RS's assistant -- heavily responsible for the mechanics of his drill and indispensable to his project -- was a woman.  Not to mention my friend Sarah Huffman, who was the sysadmin, the comms person for RS's project, second in command on the traverse mentioned in the book, and the person who changed the spark-plugs on the ATVs when they were in the field.* There was at least one other woman up there that year. A rather large oversight on the author's part, don't you think?

I have not heard Roach speak about her book, nor read interviews with her.  It may be she offers an explanation about who she left out.  I would hope so, but that still doesn't change the fact that women are missing from her account.  I mean, the cook but not the sysadmin? What the hell? The Rocket Scientist points out that she is free to concentrate on whatever people she feels will make her book more interesting.  If that's true -- and I concede that it is -- the fact that she chose a narrative which eliminates women from the picture she paints says nothing good to me about how she views the world.

Sarah was very unhappy with this.  Not because she was left out (she's very level-headed and that did not seem to bother her too much**) but because of the effect on young girls.  Here was a chance for girls to see how possible it was for them to go into the field and do science and engineering in hostile environments.  Here were two women role models for adventurous girls who were totally ignored.

It is true that there are a lot of women who blaze trails.  But for many girls the roles in which they are capable of seeing themselves are influenced by the roles they see women filling. (This is not restricted to women, of course: its simply that there are so many more roles filled by men that they have a wider range of models to emulate.)  Every woman left out of the accounts is one less woman that a girl can point to and say "Yes, her.  I want to do what she's doing."

This was brought to mind by an article a friend posted to Facebook which discussed a report from the U.S. Commerce Department which stated that women who were getting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) degrees were less likely than men with similar degrees to actually work in their fields, but instead to work in fields like eduction and health care.  According to the TPM website, "The report speculates that reasons for this could be socio-cultural in nature: 'a lack of female role models, gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields.'" [Emphasis mine.]

Girls need role models.  While it is true that we need educators and people in health care, we also need women to be scientists and engineers.  We could be missing the next Marie Curie, the next Annie Jump Cannon, the next Rosalind Franklin.  What a waste that would be.

A waste we cannot afford.



*The prior year, Sarah had been the camp cook as well.  There is a reason I call her "the fabulous Sarah Huffman."
** Have I mentioned that Sarah is the person I want to be when I grow up, even though she's two decades younger than I am?