The XX Factor: What women really think.

To Quote Margaret Spellings ...

The good news in the study Meghan writes about is that both men and women reported feeling more comfortable in professional groups that included more women. Does this mean that men, too, find predominantly male groups more intimidating? Or less interesting? I was in one of the first co-ed classes at the University of Notre Dame and the reaction we got all the time was, “Five guys for every girl; that must be great!” I knew no one who looked at it that way, but it was not all that harrowing, either. We were feminists who wore knee socks and loved the Virgin Mary, and about the craziest it ever got was at football games, some people would sing, “as our loyal sons and daughters march on to victory.’’ And some not.  

 When Domers of more recent vintage ask what it was like being a pioneer, I know they want horror stories and maybe the recipe for hoecakes, but all I’ve got for them is that on rare occasions, some stressed-out defender of the old order would lash out—most memorably when one of the few men in my Women in the Bible class stormed out shouting, “Mary Magdalene was a whore, and that’s all there is to it!” A far bigger issue for me was that only a handful of our tenured professors were female. But that, too, has long since changed, and nearly half of all undergraduates are women these days. So what would I tell those aspiring young scientists who see no one like themselves at the conference? In the immortal words of Margaret Spellings, put on your big-girl panties. And go anyway.