Tuesday, July 28, 2015

YAMMA - Yet Another Mostly Male Award - AAAS Public Engagement Award

So - I saw an post on Twitter about the AAAS Public Enagement with Science Award






And I went to check it out since, well, I wondered - how could I win that.  And so I thought - I should look at how I compare to previous winners.  And in one way I compare really well. I am male.

Below is a list of past winners (via AAAS). In yellow I highlight those that appear to be male and green those that appear to be female. I note I base my assignment on appearance and names and descriptions of the people including the descriptions from AAAS. I realize that determining someone's gender is not always straightforward and that there are people who do not fit into this binary gender division and I apologize for any mistakes made.
  • 2014 James Kakalios 
  • 2013 Steven Strogatz
  • 2012 Richard B. Alley
  • 2011 Nalini Nadkarni
  • 2010 J. John Cohen
  • 2009 May R. Berenbaum
  • 2008 Kenneth R. Miller
  • 2007 Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • 2006 S. James Gates, Jr.
  • 2005 Jane Lubchenco
  • 2004 Eric S. Lander
  • 2003 John Allen Paulos
  • 2002 Bassam Shakhashiri
  • 2001 Ian N. Stewart
  • 2000 Vaclav Smil
  • 1999 Lawrence Krauss
  • 1998 Christopher Wills
  • 1997 Barry T. Peterson
  • 1996 Alan J. Friedman
  • 1995 Carl Sagan
  • 1994 Edward O. Wilson
  • 1993 Science Theatre
  • 1992 Farouk El-Baz
  • 1991 Stephen H. Schneider
  • 1990 William L. Rathje
  • 1989 Robert D. Ballard
  • 1988 Anthony M. Fauci
  • 1987 Philip Morrison
The totals are 24 men and 3 women (and one group).  Or, for those assigned to a gender, 89 % men and 11 % women.  Could this all be about merit?  I don't think so.  I think there are many examples of areas in which AAAS has problems with gender bias.  For example, consider the recent letter (of which I am a cosigner) regarding AAAS' reinforcement of "damaging stereotypes".


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