All in a day's work

Today I received my first "Yo Professor!" email of the semester*, had a student sitting in my office providing an unsolicited out-of-the-blue trashing of some colleagues, and, during the meeting, had a student who I've never seen before just walk in to my office asking to borrow a stapler.**

Last week another female STEM professor and I were walking down the street and a car of young men drove past and started honking and shouting. And another almost-student posted very bizarre ethnic and racial slurs online.

I think we need R. Lee Ermey to give the opening speech at orientation, whoever is doing it now is clearly too much of a softie.

Apparently it's not just me having fun encounters with students this week! Must be all the crazy weather.

--------------------
(*) Actually, at least he called me Professor instead of Mrs., or, worse, Mr. (That gender confusion happened last week, actually. "I'd really like to talk to Dr. FCS about his research program.")

(**) Ok, so it's Labor Day, so maybe the main office was closed. But it seems to me he could have knocked. And left when he saw another student was in my office. And, apologized and/or left when I growled and scowled. @Piggie(Oh, Ermeyyyyyyyyyy).

I'm male, yet again!

I just got back yet another revision back of a paper I reviewed, and once again, I am male! Check this out:

We'll fix XYZ... (also as pointed out by Reviewer 1 and addressing his comment as well).

And the first author is a woman, no less! For shame.

I wish I could write back that I am not a man. But that would surely out me, as, really, there's only N women in my subfield and you can count them on two hands.

I accept that in this day and age "guy" and perhaps even "man" are gender-neutral - I've given up on those battles. But "his" and "he" are most definitely masculine in English.

Interestingly, this is from the same journal whose editor called me "Ms." and my male co-author "Dr.", even though we are both still PhD students. And the re-invtation from the editor again called me "Ms.", but at least he didn't call me "Mr."

Anyway, this is all quite entertaining. I've decided I'm going to keep a scorecard of times I'm referred to as a male after giving anonymous reviews. New category and all.

This month we are batting .250. Watch out for that Mendoza Line, authors!*

(*) Yes, I just made two sports analogies. Maybe I am male!

I'm male - again!

Awhile ago I reviewed a paper, and just recently read the summary review an editor made of all the reviews. I was the third reviewer (mu ha ha!). The summary went something like this:

Reviewer 1 discussed blahblahblah. However, Reviewer 1 was also concerned about blahblahblah. (no gender)

Reviewer 2 noticed blahblah. And, later, Reviewer 2 also had some questions about blahblahblah. (no gender)

Reviewer 3 found the paper blahblahblah. However, he is concerned about blahblahblah." (it's a boy!)

I was at first really amused by this. As I said, I have a name that at least in Western culture is decidedly female. I have a picture on my website, and don't look particularly masculine as far as I am aware. Plus, the editor invited me to review this paper, so in theory I was at least somewhat a known entity.

But on reflection, I looked up the editor's native language, and the language actually don't really have gender pronouns. In fact, speakers of it frequently use 'she' to mean 'he' in lots of different contexts. (Kind of cool actually.) So even if the editor was thinking in English when writing the summary, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that actually some native-language pronounery was slipping in.

(I just made up that word. And wrote this whole post without ever revealing the gender of the editor. Do I get a gender-neutral, gluten-free* cookie?)

(*) In case any readers were considering sending me cookies in the future, please, for the love of god, do not make them gluten-free. 

Err on the side of "Doctor"

DrugMonkey's post on academic titles reminded me of something I wanted to mention.

Photo by Cybertoad

When addressing someone in an academic context whose gender and/or academic ranking is unknown, it's generally best to err on the side of "Doctor". The worst that happens is you're wrong and they're flattered.

Recently a colleague (C1) invited another colleague (C2) to review a paper. C2 is a woman, and a postdoc. C1 is a male academic researcher. If one searches for C2's name, the first few hits clearly show that she has a PhD, and also that she appears to be a "she". But for some reason, C1 entered C2's information into the reviewing system as "Mr. C2 Lastname". C2 has spent a lot of time in a country which has a masculine culture, so she's probably not phased by this, but I find I am a bit. Why is "Mr." the default?

Another FCS and I were once in charge of allocating a small pot of money and advertised a call for applicants. Several applications we received were addressed, "Dear Sir". I just couldn't wrap my head around this. If we both didn't have photographs on our webpages (which both show us very much looking female) I could maybe excuse this error. But even still, the applicants could have written, "Dear Committee Members" or even just "Dear FCS1 and FCS2." Ah well... too bad about that funding. ;)