Science Topics on BBC Women's Hour

BBC Women's Hour - Listen again
2011 is the International year of Chemistry - If girls do better than boys at A level Chemistry, why don't more young girls dream of a truly exhilarating career in science. How can we change this? Dr Patricia Fara, a science historian from Clare College Cambridge discusses.
Discussion starts at 34 minutes 20 seconds -http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00xhgms/Womans_Hour_18_01_2011

American equal rights campaigner, Sylvia Ann Hewlett says that evidence gathered across Europe suggests that offering women a lengthy absence from work harms their career.
Discussion starts at 24 minutes 20 seconds - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00xhgms/Womans_Hour_18_01_2011


(taken from UKRC GetSET Women News)

Bedtime story book: Earth to Stella

 Bedtime reading has an important role in our life, and we're frequent visitors to our local library to increase the diversity of the books we read. I'm naturally attracted to kids books about space, and so we read quite a few. Anyway to cut a long story short, I thought it would be nice to review some of them.

Right now we're reading "Earth to Stella" by Simon Puttock and Phillip Hopman (Amazon UK link, Amazon USA link). I don't intend to provide an exhaustive review, but here's list of my likes and dislikes:

Likes

1. The main character is a girl. Having a (imaginary) space adventure. That's unusual - and you won't be surprised that I like it. The picture of Stella in her bedroom shows this is no passing interest either - she has a lot of space toys in her room.

2. The relationship between the girl and her father comes across as genuine and loving. He joins in her imaginary adventure providing messages from "Earth to Stella"

3. I love that her bouncing on the moon ends with "Earth to Stella: no jumping on the bed". It's just cute.

3. There's real scientific information about what the stars look like close up, and that they have different colours.

Dislikes


1. A comet is described as "zooming past with a fiery tail" (and on the page after the correct description of stars). OK this is an imaginary space flight, but I think that's a missed chance to stick in a bit more real science.

2. The bug aliens are a bit weird. Again it's imaginary, but where do they come from?

In summary I mostly like this one, and it does have some real scientific information.

In researching this post (OK by Googling "Earth to Stella"!) I found this list of reviews of children's books by the (US) National Space Society. Looks like a useful resource.

What can men do to help?

While I'm here, looks like the AAS women's session happened yesterday. I found this nice summary over at "Rocket Scientista" of the discussion which focussed on one of my favourite topics: "What can men do to help?".

While I think the experience for men of being in the minority at the womens sessions may be an eye opener for them at how much you notice being just one of a small number of your gender in a room (and I wish more of them would come and experience it), I would love for those meetings to be more representative, as (like Rocket Scientista) I don't think anything is going to change until more men care about the problem too.

Elementary Parenting

A nice post over at the AAS Women in Astronomy Blog by Hannah discussing how much easier parenting is when your kids are elementary school aged: "Elementary Parenting".

This is nice to hear. My oldest will start school in September, and while we'll have a little one in the house for quite some time to come (since the youngest is still just 10 months old), it's nice to know an easier life may be around the corner.

To be honest from this side though school looks more complicated than preschool: we'll have to get her there on time every day. We'll need to sort out after school care, and something different for all the many holidays. I'm sure we'll sort it out, and this might just be fear of the unknown, but it certainly looks more complicated. And I don't think the cost savings will be huge (from the UK) since we get quite a big subsidy for the over 3s already (15 hours free care during the school year). For us it was that transition which made a big difference to our pockets.

Two is hard

Well it's been a long time, and I hate blogs that are just lists of excuses, but I have to say two kids is hard... much harder than one! I'm also loosing interest in anonymous blogging - I find it actually reduces what I can say as I don't want to give too much away. And every (female) astronomer I've met knows who I am anyway so it seems a bit pointless! So I'm not sure where this blog is going in the future, if anywhere......

Anyway enough of that, here's a update:

First the good news - after a wonderful 6 months maternity leave I'm back at work and getting busy with several exciting projects. I can confirm (anecdotally) the increase in productivity pregnant women have second time round - I have 4 (first author) papers published in the last year. I won another grant for 2 more years funding, so I got a promotion and a payrise (still a postdoc, but now a better paid one!). All this makes things look a whole lot rosier.

More good news - despite a slightly bumpy ride, and the annoyance that the new baby can't go to the same nursery as my older daughter the childcare situation is pretty good. The baby is within walking distance, so instead of the mammoth pumping I did for my first baby I just wander over there at lunchtime to nurse. I have been able to get away with no trips away from him yet (and he's 10 months old) with the help of my wonderful husband and parents who have come with me and the baby on a couple of trips I couldn't get out of. Oh and my new grant allows me to claim childcare for conferences, so we have a couple of big trips planned bringing both kids with us (last year for that before my daughter starts school in September - how time flies!).

And the bad you probably know. Funding for astronomy is decreasing or flat. No-one has jobs. I have two years, but my husband's postdoc officially ends this summer. I've been a postdoc for 5 1/2 years so the clock is ticking pretty loudly on my career. Yada yada. The only advice is to try to wait it out - funny thing is it just seems to keep getting worse.....

So the only solution is good research. With that I'v got to get on with work. An exciting paper in the draft phase - my favourite part of research. :)

Oh and Merry Christmas!

Doubting

A recent study presented at the last AAS meeting shows that 60% of female astronomers suffer from impostor syndrome, the (unjustified) "fear of being exposed by colleagues for a lack of knowledge or ability". In comparison, 47% of male astronomers say they suffer from this. Since these fears could be a factor leading people away from astronomy, it may be one of the many things explaining why so few women make it all the way.

I would be curious to see the results of such a study for mother-astronomers. If it's so easy to doubt oneself in general (even half of our male colleagues do it, apparently!), it's probably worse when you add on top of it all the worries and concerns of juggling babies and research.

Coming back to work after maternity leave is both thrilling and deadly stressful. After being away from work, there's the joy of getting back into it, but also the (self-imposed in my case) pressure of performing extra well to make up for the lost time. I find myself in meetings sometimes, wanting to contribute to the discussion, show that I'm back in business, but blanking out because baby didn't sleep well and I'm tired, or because I worry about x or y baby-related thing.

When this happens I get home afterward, and while I play with the kids, I find myself worrying about work, how I need to do more. Impostor syndrome at work, impostor syndrome at home.

These are bad days, but fortunately it's not always like this. A comment on a previous post expresses very well one of my believes about the work/family duality: if I'm happy at work, it benefits everyone, including my kids. Most of the time I'm able to convince myself that my colleagues are understanding, that I don't need to prove myself all the time, that as long as I do my best I can't ask more of myself; I throw the impostor syndrome out of the window. But it takes a constant effort to not let it creep back, doubting is so easy.

I liked reading the results of this study. Because I recognized myself, and because I now know that it's such a widespread phenomenon. Why didn't I know before? Because we're expected to be tough, and we put on a facade most of the time. But really, that's not helping anyone, actually it's probably doing more harm than good. We need to break this vicious circle! So let's make a first baby step here - if you're reading this and it sounds familiar at all, let us know, because everybody likes to know that they're not alone with their problems and worries. At least I know I do!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Astronomum on the birth of her beautiful new baby! We wish you all the best, and look forward to hear about your adventures as a two time astronomom!

We now have five kids between the three of us, including three babies less than a year old - hopefully we will be able to keep these posts coming!

Childcare!

I'm happy to report that things have suddenly taken a turn for the better: we have found some childcare for Baby!

It was a slightly bumpy road to get there. Since nurseries are practically non existent here, which makes the few of them completely overbooked, we really had only two options (1) hire a nanny at home, (2) bring the baby to a "family nursery" (i.e. a woman who takes care of 2-4 kids in her own home). Option (1) was good because it is very convenient, and you get a say in the person you hire, but it's insanely expensive. Option (2) is much more within our budget, but it's the luck of the draw. We had found a person we could have hired as a nanny, and after much work we were offered a place in a family nursery, but we were not comfortable at all with the place or the woman (no specific reason, just gut feeling). So it was between the option we didn't like but could afford, or the option we liked but that would have sucked my entire salary. Talk about a choice... I think this is an example of a situation where the expression "catch 22" applies!

But then we lucked out. A new family nursery opened, a wonderful woman who decided to retire early to take care of children instead. We met with her, and immediately knew that this was exactly what we needed, it feels like she will be the cool young grandma that the kids don't have because we live so far from family. Baby started there right away, and we're now working on the transition. Because it took so long to find childcare, she is now old enough to have separation anxiety, to we have to take our time easing her in.

This means that in no time I'll be back at work full time, while feeling great that the kids are well taken care of. That feeling is priceless, I realize I had it at my previous job, without knowing it until we were put in this uncomfortable situation.

So last week I had my first full day in the office, uninterrupted, without Baby. It felt great. And that day I had a breakthrough with my research, nothing that will make the headlines, but I managed to do something I had been struggling with for a long time. That made for an absolutely wonderful day. Things are really looking up!

6 months later...

Signing back in after a while. Since I last wrote in June, Nr.2 was born, we moved to another country, and I started a new job. Hopefully this will be enough to forgive my silence on this blog!

Let's go back to last June where I left this off. I was getting a lot of work done at the end of my pregnancy, which was making me very happy. Then of course something had to go wrong: my computer died, which virtually put me on maternity leave earlier that I had thought. There were some difficulties with getting the computer fixed, and I only got it back a few days before my due date (I had a "baby or computer first" bet going on!), at which point I was a bit too tired and anxious to do any real work. Then the birth went well - I was again lucky enough to be able to have a totally natural delivery, which means the recovery was quick. Fantastic baby, very awake during the day, good sleeper at night, couldn't ask for more. Big brother wonderful with little sister.

The summer went well, but flew right by too quickly. I will hopefully have time in the coming weeks to write more about my maternity leave, and about how the fears I described in an earlier post proved to be mostly unfounded. I was able to take a good break from work, which was a life saver since we did have to prepare at the same time to move abroad to start postdoc nr.2.

Said move went as good as can be, I guess, considering the inevitable problems with moving to another country with two young kids. Maternity leave lasted 16 weeks, so I went straight to the new job when Baby was 3.5 months old. Boyfriend and I had an agreement with our bosses that we could work half of the time from home until Baby was 6 months old, at which point she was supposed to get into daycare. That went pretty well, she was such an easy baby that we could actually get some work done with her around.

And then the problems started. That will be another post in itself, because there is a lot to say about living in a country where women are expected to stay at home with their kids, so childcare is almost impossible to find. The daycare spot we were promised long ago for Baby was refused to us in the end, so we still don't have any help of any kind with her. Our bosses are wonderfully supportive, but we are both nonetheless starting to feel frustrated not to be able to work more.

We have come to realize that we were living in a kind of bubble - the past 2 years were wonderful; Nr.1 had a great daycare and was thriving, we had good jobs, lived in a really nice place, and still had time to relax, travel, do activities... There were of course ups and downs, but mostly I wasn't finding that combining work and motherhood was especially difficult. The reality hit us in the face suddenly, like waking up after a good dream. I don't know if it's having 2 kids instead of 1, living in a place that is slowly changing but where the system still mostly does not support the working mothers, or if it's because our responsibilities at work are ever greater and the pressure increasing toward landing some real jobs soon. Whatever it is, it's definitely a whole new game now.

But I don't want to sound too dark - all in all, we are still very happy. Baby is still the most wonderful, easy little thing, and my heart melts when I see how she and her big brother are already so fond of each other. Work is extremely stimulating (just wish I had more time for it!), very happy about it. Everything just takes more effort. And there definitely isn't that much time left for anything other that taking care of kids and working... hopefully there will be at least a little bit for blogging!

Pink Stinks

Came across this website recently: Pink Stinks. Looks like a good resource for Mothers (and Fathers) of girls. My daughter does claim (at 2 1/2) that pink is her favourite colour - and I do sometime wonder where that comes from. Most of the clothes she is given as gifts are pink, although we tend to favour more neutral colours, and now with a boy on the way I'm kicking myself that more of the baby clothes weren't neutral. Oh well!

A Minor Inconvenience of Early Pregnancy

(Note: this was written on July 24th 2009, but I've delayed posting until I told all my friends and family about the new baby, since my "annonymity" here is extremely suspect! And in fact this excuse is now a poor one too - what can I say - life happens!)

With both little one, and now little one number 2 (expected this spring) I have suffered from what most people would call minor morning sickness for most of the first trimester. First time around this started around week 7 and went on until week 14 or so, and comprised mostly severe sensitivity to smells (no malls, grocery stores, or takeout were possible, and walking down the street was exciting!), constant mild nausea, increased motion sickness, and vomiting 3-4 mornings every week (for 7 weeks!). I remember clearly being so miserable around week 8 that I begged the doctor to see me, sure there was something wrong. She had nothing useful to say, but showed me an ultrasound image of little one's heart beating, and told me that it was OK to live off potato chips for weeks if that was all I could keep down. The baby would take all the useful nutrients she said, and I could cope with a few weeks of poor nutrition! That all made me feel much better, and is something I'm keeping with me.

This time around everything started much earlier. Almost as soon as we found out I was pregnant the vomiting started. So far I've had less issues with motion sickness, but I had a couple of weeks when I vomited every morning, and occasionally during the day. I've been very worried that it's still so early too - imagining the horrors ahead of me. The worst of the vomit coincided with little one having stomach flu, so I may have had a bit of both - I think the only time I'll ever be even slightly happy that little one was vomiting! Things came to a head one evening of our recent trip away where I struggled through dinner and then vomited spectacularly outside the restaurant. Not good form! Since then I've been feeling much better. Yesterday (8 weeks exactly) was a bad day - vomit both in the morning, and evening (following a smelly bus ride home), and today I feel quite ropey, but no vomit yet.

The point of blogging about this though is to comment on the impact this has on my work. It's very hard to get the energy together to "mess around" with astronomy when all this is going on. I've been doing much better this time than I did the first time when it was all such a shock that being pregnant - before I was supposed to even tell anyone - would make be feel so bad. Most books describe all this as a "minor inconvenience" of early pregnancy. There is also in general very little sympathy. Either you hide it because you don't want people to know, or they're so happy to learn you're pregnant that the fact that you're green and can't eat isn't noticed. Somehow you're not supposed to complain because "it will pass", and after all you're making a baby. The only helpful reading I've found on the subject is in the book "Pregnancy Sucks" (Amazon Link) which I happened across by accident during this period in my first pregnancy. This book is funny, and will probably make you feel better.

After many weeks of dealing with this I can now also give my advice. Accupressure travel bands really seem to work. It might be in my head - but I'll take it. Also if I eat bread sticks (or crackers) and cheese before getting out of bed in the morning that seems to help a lot - and anyway vomiting recently chewed plain food is much more pleasant than vomiting on an empty stomach. I suggest avoiding crepes with nutella and banana, and cherry tomatos. These are not fun coming in other direction. In fact avoid anything acidic or with much of a flavour. And it will pass. Venting about it online might help too...

August 26th Update: I'm just now about 14 weeks, and this pretty much seems to have passed. I've actually even had a couple of mostly nausea free weeks (but not vomit free - this time I have had some odd spells of "stealth vomit" where without warning I just throw up. That was new!). I've even been managing to get a lot of work done. A couple of papers (finally) at the submission stage, and some other very interesting projects going well.

Jan 5th Update: Now just a few weeks from my due date and I have to say this pregnancy has been *much* more productive than the last one. I have submitted 3 papers (still working their way through the referee process) and have another close to submission. I'm really hoping for a few more weeks to finish stuff up a bit more before taking my leave.

And one last update: AstroMaman and AstronomyMommy are both busy with their adorable babies now roughly 6 and 8 months old respectively.

She's an Astronomer Forum

Starting quietly (for now) is the She's an Astronomer Forum, part of the IYA2009 Cornerstone project. The project aims to raise issues related to gender equity in astronomy; the forum is the place they provide for us all to discuss those issues.

7 Depressing Strategies

How do you make the best of a bad situation? Women in the US often cannot afford to even take of the federally mandated minimum 12 weeks leave after the birth of their children. This article from the US News Money section cites that US women offered the federal minimum take an average of 6 weeks off after the birth of their baby (to put this in perspective, most women are not given medical permission to exercise until at least 6 weeks after this major physical event), while those with paid leave take an average of 10.5 weeks.

Never-mind say authors Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio, we'll tell you how to cope with going back to work with a baby who cannot yet hold their head up - they review their book in the article. Interestingly most of their suggestions seem to be completely at odds with the statistics quoted above them. They suggest you aim to be completely out of the loop for "several weeks", but to keep in touch towards the end of your leave. They advise you spend time during your leave finding good childcare, commenting that this can often take up to 6 months.

We're not the only ones

Kim Clijsters, belgian tennis player and mother of one, won the US open yesterday. With an 18-month old, she's only the third mother to ever win a major tournament. Talk about another profession where balancing work and family life is difficult! We astronomers don't have to stay in super physical shape post-baby to stay competitive in our field, but finally submitting that paper can certainly feel as good and rewarding (and be as exhausting!) as winning a major sporting event. I hope I win my own "US open" soon...

Amazing Picture of the ISS

Thanks to The Bad Astronomer for posting some amazing pictures of the International Space Station taken by Ralf Vandebergh (from the ground using just a 10 inch telescope, and manual tracking). I just had to share. Mr. Vandenbergh must have an amazingly steady hand, and huge reserved of patience! The one I reproduce above also shows as an inset the Space Shuttle approaching the ISS.

When I was hosting star gazing parties fairly often (as a graduate student) I would enjoy nights when the ISS was going to be visibly passing overhead. (You can find such information for any given location on Heaven's Above). I was always amused to see the many skeptics, some of whom clearly had trouble believing I could know such a thing. We would go out onto the deck just a few minutes before the scheduled pass - usually after much persuading on my part. Then came the waiting, and the doubting (on their part, not mine). Finally the ISS would appear lit up by the Sun as a moving bring spot, arc over the sky and disappear (when it passed into the Earth's shadow). After that I always got a lot more respect.

Paid Parental Leave in Different Countries

Thanks to Women in Astronomy for pointing out this work illustrating the different levels of paid parental leave guaranteed in 18 different countries. I wanted to reproduce the figure here. I think I've already made my opinions of the US federal minimum of 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave quite clear. This kind of makes my point for me I think!

I'm not sure why Canada was left of - 52 weeks of paid leave would put them right in among the Scandinavian countries! Way to go Canada!

Owl Babies - dealing with Mum being away.

The favourite book in our house right now is "Owl Babies", by Martin Waddell. We read this pretty much every night, and it never fails to produce smiles of delight in little one when the owl babies' mother flies home. It occurred to me while reading it last night that since this book is actually a great tool for helping children deal with time when their Mummy must travel for work I should share it here. (AstroMaman already posted one of the tools they use in their house when one parent has to be away in Counting Days.)

In the story the owl babies wake up to find their Mummy is gone. They think about where she's gone (probably out hunting to get them food) and they try to deal with their worries as they wait for her to come home (what if she got eaten by a fox). Just as they are giving up hope, in she flies (to the delight of both the owl babies and my little one). "What's all the fuss, you knew I'd come back" she says. The owl babies agree - and finish "I love my Mummy". At the moment we only have this as a library book, but I think I'll be buying it to keep soon.

Galileoscopes

This year is the International year of Astronomy (IYA2009). The project sponsors a number of cornerstone projects, one of which is close to my heart - She's an Astronomer. Another neat cornerstone project is the Galileoscope. This is a low cost, high quality telescope designed to make astronomy accessible to all. I've been meaning to get one (although a bit turned off by the high shipping cost to Europe, which for one telescope is more than the cost itself!), but I thought I'd write a quick blog post about it as a reminder to get around to doing this.

What prompted the post this morning is that I just noticed Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) just wrote a review about his Galileoscopes which arrived this week. He includes a useful link to simpler assembly instructions than are included in the box.

Breast Feeding is Offensive

Just wanted to share this blog post from Green Kiddos, which pokes fun at the whole "breastfeeding is offensive" argument.

A really pretty galaxy

Just wanted to point out today's Astronomy Picture of the Day. A really pretty galaxy shown beautifully by the Spitzer Space Telescope.