Rich and Strange Aeons

About sex differences: I've thought myself, before, of "so, back then, there weren't any female biologists or geologists either, so why so many more now than in physics?" And I don't know. But there's an interesting article today on discrimination: a scientists who switched sexes from female to male serves as a nice measurement of bias. Ben Barres, formally Barbara.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201883.html

"His work is so much better than his sister's." And a female scientist whose paper acceptance rate shot up after she started using her initials.

And I can note that while the number of female CS grad students at IU is low, there are relatively a lot more Indiana and Chinese women here than white. A professor says the ratio of women used to be higher, but declined in the 1990s -- not sure if that's fewer women coming or a lot more men. This all might speak more about culture than bias.