Past Events & Readings
Some of our past readings have included the following books and articles. We’ve provided Amazon links for reference where applicable, but most if not all of these texts are available either online or through the Department of Physics library on the sixth floor of Wean Hall, the CMU library and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
Books
"Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science" by Renée Bergland
Read: February - May, 2021
"Thanks for the Feedback. The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well" by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
Read: September - December, 2019
"Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Read: April - May, 2019
"White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" by Robin DiAngelo
Read: January - March, 2019
"Blazing the Trail" by Emma Ideal and Rhiannon Meharchand
Read: September - December, 2018
"Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Read: January - May, 2018
"The Confidence Code" by Katty Kay & Claire Shipman
Read: September - October, 2017
"Option B" by Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant
Read: July - August, 2017
"The Only Woman In The Room" by Eileen Pollack
Read: May - June, 2017
"Ask For It" by Linda Babcock & Sara Laschever
Read: February - March, 2017
Shorter Readings
2020
- Mark K. Feeney, Margarita Bernal, and Lauren Bowman: Enabling work? Family-friendly policies and academic productivity for men and women scientists (Currently unavailable online, either for free or through CMU Libraries. Interested readers should use InterLibrary Loan.)
- CityLab: What 'Livability' Looks Like for Black Women
- The New York Times: Would a 37-Year-Old Woman Be Where Pete Buttigieg Is?
- The Guardian; Athleisure, barre and kale: the tyranny of the ideal woman and Researchers facing 'shocking' levels of stress, survey reveals
- The Cut: The Case of the Amazing Gay-Marriage Data: How a Graduate Student Reluctantly Uncovered a Huge Scientific Fraud
- Slate: We're Used to Thinking of Digital Assistants as Female. The Good Place and Big Mouth Show Why That's a Mistake.
2019
- Indside Higher Ed: Harvard revokes emeritus status and retirement privileges from professor who was found to have harassed women for decades and The Struggle Is Real
- APS: Viewpoint: Yes, Sexual Harassment Still Drives Women Out of Physics
- The New York Times: 'I Want What My Male Colleague Has, and That Will Cost a Few Million Dollars' and First All-Female Spacewalk Canceled Because NASA Doesn't Have Two Suits That Fit
- Slate: Being Black in a White Academic World
- The Guardian: The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes
2018
- Quanta Magazine: Interview with Sau Lan Wu
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Ramón S. Barthelemy, Melinda McCormick, and Charles Henderson: Gender discrimination in physics and astronomy: Graduate student experiences of sexism and gender microaggressions
- Scientific American OpEd: Countries with Less Gender Diversity Have More Women in STEM - Huh?
- APS News: Climate Check: Assessing the Environment in the Physics Workplace
- CMU Graduate Student Assembly: Graduate Student Survey Advising Report
- Dave Reay: I'd whisper to my student self: you are not alone (warning: discussions of suicide in this article)
- The Physics Teacher: Puerto Rico: Race, Ethnicity, Culture, and Physics Teaching
- The New York Times: Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys and Income Mobility Charts for Girls, Asian-Americans and Other Groups. Or Make Your Own.
- Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson: It's 'Under Attack': Professor Says Men Taught There's Something Wrong With Masculinity, Vox: Jordan Peterson, the obscure Canadian psychologist turned right-wing celebrity, explained and Sam Harris, Charles Murray, and the allure of race science
2017
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Readings from the American Physical Society resources for women in physics
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Readings from Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia
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Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast: Silicon Valley Sexism, Part 1 and Part 2
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xykademiqz Blog: Ride It Like You Stole It and Acute Impostor Syndrome
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In the Dark Blog: Impostor Syndrome
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Women in Astronomy, Ed Bertschinger: Impostors Welcome
- Tom Dispatch, Rebecca Solnit: The Archipelago of Arrogance
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The Guardian, Academics Anonymous: I'm tired of men belittling female academics – take our research seriously