If you’re going to start a blog, of course you’ve got to
have a good name. Something catchy, perhaps with a bit of an
insider-message-in-joke. And you’ve got to make sure it hasn’t been taken! The
idea of standing on the shoulders of giantesses is, of course, a riff of the
saying “standing on the shoulders of giants”, a phrase most often attributed to
Isaac Newton (so right there we’ve got a science connection!). Of course, it’s
got a history before that (yes, it’s Wikipedia, but it’s interesting: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants).
The original phrase specifies dwarfs standing on the shoulders of
giants…perhaps we early career scientists are the dwarfs, hoping to gain a
little height to become giants ourselves.
Why change it to ‘giantesses’? I plan on concentrating on
the experience of women in the science, though the process of balancing life
with work, tenure, publishing, etc., are common experiences for all scientists.
I picture as my giantesses many of the recognizable women scientists such as
Marie Curie and Barbara McClintock, but also women that are personally
familiar. These women – relatives in the sciences, college professors, female
mentors – gave me that platform (that shoulder up) for my interest in science
and career.
But before you start your blog, you should probably Google
it (or whatever your internet search preference). I would recommend searching
the entire phrase and not just the main words...let’s just say that there’s
something on the Internet for everyone. I ran across the phrase in the blog post
of a romantic novelist, a blog post by a stay-at-home dad, and describing Katie
Couric’s career. My blog, I thought, preserved the ‘scientific’ origin of the
phrase a bit better.
I also discovered a post on the site Times Higher Education (Ince 1999) discussing the release of a
European Union report on women in science (ETAN 1999). The report (found HERE, scroll
to topic 4) notes that the largest ‘leak’ is from the post-doc to tenured
professor, and that gender bias extended to grants and awards. The group
suggests that rewarding universities or organizations that promote gender
equality could begin to undo this bias.
This report was released 13 years ago, but the problems it describes
persist. Casual conversations with international friends give me the impression
that many European countries are ahead of the US in supporting new mothers and
families. Perhaps those countries took this report’s (and others’) message to
heart, while the US is only starting to get it…
But that’s the subject of many future posts, while we’re
talking names today. Juggling geese? That’s pretty easy to figure out. If life,
love, planning meals, cleaning, writing papers, writing grants, and finding time
to do lab work doesn’t resemble tossing around bundles of feathers with minds
of their own, I don’t know what does! And I did mention the need for a nerdy
inside joke.
Literature Cited
ETAN (1999).
Science policies in the European Union: Promoting excellence through mainstreaming gender equality, European Communities.
Ince, M. (1999). On the shoulders of giantesses?, Times Higher
Education.
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