this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] cleanandsunny@literature.cafe 147 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Name dropping TU Delft is surprising to me! ETA: found more info here, but not about the lawsuit piece.

https://delta.tudelft.nl/en/article/a-no-thank-you-to-the-person-who-assumed-i-was-the-coffee-lady

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 144 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He really didn't coin the term for her specifically, as nice as that sounds.

[–] Echolynx@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Well, at least in connection with her:

Coined by English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell in March 1834 in an anonymous review of Mary Somerville's book On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences in the Quarterly Review

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[–] NotLemming@lemm.ee 121 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Normalise this. In the past women would have been accused of being unprofessional to have called men out like this. That's the only reason why every woman doesn't do it.

[–] match@pawb.social 22 points 1 week ago

normalize it to the point that the anti-acknowledgements name names

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[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 103 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Shoutout to the physicists dismissing biologist experiment design as a whole instead of across sexual or gendered lines.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I read that as the subtext still being sexist because Biology tends to have more women in the field compared to Physics.

[–] Nikelui@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Nah, it's typical university faction wars. Engineers say crap about architects, mathematicians sneer on physicists and so on...

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[–] yesman@lemmy.world 96 points 1 week ago (4 children)

There is an excellent Science channel on Youtube and Nebula with a Physics PHD who's made some eye-opening content about harassment and misogyny in STEM and Academia.

https://www.youtube.com/@acollierastro

[–] DaveyRocket@lemmy.world 42 points 1 week ago (1 children)

She’s a great science communicator. Another famous Youtuber (Captain D) called her “the Jenny Nicholson of science” her Dark Matter video is my favorite, though her Gell-Mann Amnesia video is a “must watch” imho.

[–] BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Watch her dark matter video. And the follow up. But for the love of God, dodge the comments. SO MANY people read the title of the video and then went to make comments calling her wrong, even though she spent like an hour specifically addressing the arguments they make.

Dark matter is not a theory. It's a problem. Fuck!

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[–] TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 89 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fucking relatable.

No thank you to the hundreds of years of chemist men taking credit for women's discoveries.

No thank you to the old white Persian man gate keeping chemistry from Ukranians and older women in my class.

No thank you to the sexist math book author who used shoeless women in a kitchen as a word problem example.

No thank you to Amazon for banning my 15 year account for calling the sexist math book author out in reviews.

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[–] oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone 79 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

For anybody having difficulty reading the text:

Anti Acknowledgements

There have unfortunately also been people who have been less than helpful in my journey here. I wanted to acknowledge those too, because I know I am not unique in this experience.

No thank you to the physics study association that made me sing songs about how women couldn't study physics without sleeping with the professor, the day I stepped into university life. No thank you to the 5th year physics student that decided to assign me a 'stripper name' within the first minute of meeting me in the physics coffee corner in my first year. No thank you to the technician that was responsible for onboarding me on the use of the cluster in my third year who raised his eyebrows and asked me if that meant I was some sort of "computer girl". No thank you to the senior researcher that sent me utterly inappropriate texts after a conference, then proceeded to 'apologise' months later by telling me they had not been meant for me anyway so "no hard feelings remain hopefully". And no thank you to him for attending every conference I've been to since. No thank you to the people who told me that it was "surprising" that I was doing a PhD since I was a girl. No thank you to the man who mistook me for a coffee lady at a conference, and after having to correct him two times that I did not work there, responded with "you should consider it". No thank you to the researcher that asked me what I was wearing underneath my outfit during a conference. No thank you to the physicist who declared to a room full of other physicists that biologists "don't know how to design an experiment". No thank you to the people who have called me scary instead of strong and intimidating instead of intelligent. And finally, no thank you to the executive board of the TU Delft, whose knee-jerk reaction to being held up to a mirror about the social safety at the university, was to sue the party holding up the mirror instead of looking at the problems they highlighted.

I wish I could tell you this has all made me stronger somehow but in reality it has only shattered my confidence. You have made me feel like I do not belong in science and I cannot forgive you for that.

-Rachel

[–] SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 days ago

You're welcome! 🙂

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[–] regrub@lemmy.world 78 points 1 week ago

Now I want an anti-acknowledgment section in my dissertation too

[–] Blazingtransfem98@discuss.online 76 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Fuck these misogynistic pigs, idiots like these need to be called out more often. It's too bad she couldn't give names out and completely humiliate and ruin them.

[–] flora_explora@beehaw.org 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

While I agree with the first part of what you said, I don't think the longterm solution is to call out individuals and make their lives horrible. It sure is a good way to maybe deter a few people from doing those misogynistic things. But what we need is actual structural change. It shouldn't be possible these people to do such things in the first place without being sanctioned. And we should educate people more on feminism and intersectional struggles in general.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 6 days ago

counterpoint: many people fundamentally need to be shamed if they're being shitheads, or they will never improve. The important part is just that they also need to be given a clear way to redeem themselves.

Naming and shaming is part of the structural change.

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[–] Echolynx@lemmy.zip 75 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I appreciate her telling it like it is and not bowing to a pressure to please.

Found an article speaking more about it, if anyone is curious about the context/her work.

[–] fckreddit@lemmy.ml 73 points 1 week ago (5 children)

This just makes me sad. How can science advance, if we gatekeep one half of human population? In my academic career I have consistently found women to be smarter and better than men. Yet, these misogynistic ideas seem to persist. We deserve better than old farts with even older bias heading the institutions that make up our society.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 38 points 1 week ago (4 children)

It's exactly that is why they're kept down. Tiny men are afraid that they won't seem as smart as the woman in the room.

As a man, I try to be different. I mentor the women around me and encourage them to do more, be better. I successfully got one of my mentee to negotiate her salary just yesterday even though she felt uncomfortable doing so. Try to be the change we need

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 55 points 1 week ago

I read the first sentence in that big paragraph and thought "wow, going straight to the biggest problem right out of the gate instead of building up to it, huh?" Then I kept reading and realized the entire paragraph was about that same thing. Holy shit, that's a lot of sexism!

[–] WilloftheWest@feddit.uk 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Bravo to the exceptional bravery on display here. I'm sure the majority of PhD graduates, including myself, wish they'd had the gumption to name and shame the suppressing factors contributing to a toxic academic environment. Reading this makes me kind of appreciative that my troubles were only administrative mismanagement and an inexperienced supervisor.

Also what the hell is up with TU Delft? It's only partway through March and this is the second time this year that I've seen a PhD candidate publicly call out the institute.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This sounds like the University of Ottawa. Watching physics professors sexually harass the few women in our class was disgusting.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Start creating a list of them...

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 41 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The university does this actually. It’s called the faculty list of tenured professors.

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[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

Acknowledgmen't

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

Holy shit. Get em.

[–] xye@lemm.ee 25 points 1 week ago

Unfathomably based.

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