Friday, November 2, 2012

As Conan O'Brien Might Say…


…'Where are the la-a-a-adies???'

I'll be posting Math-frolic Interview #7 on Sunday, and while I'm thrilled with the guest, it is the 6th time out of 7 with a male interviewee (and the majority of inquiries that I'm waiting to be returned are also guys)… soooo, a little more representation of the Emmy Noether gender would be nice. 

One problem is simply that most math bloggers are likely male, and secondly I've discovered that many female bloggers don't as readily post their email addresses, making initial contact difficult.  There are likely a number of female math bloggers/teachers though that I'm just not very familiar with; so again, please feel free to make recommendations if you think someone would make a good interview.
…Oh, and don't everyone mention Vi Hart at once -- of course I'd love to interview Vi but suspect she may be toooo busy at the moment to squeeze it in (though I did attempt to send her an email, which she may or may not have received?). But after Vi, who else?

Meanwhile, for some reading entertainment (especially if you're going out to eat this weekend), an interesting little story that made waves a couple months back, about the 'rounding' of restaurant bills up or down to do away with the need for pennies (the story focused on Chipotles, but it happens elsewhere, and there can be pros and cons):

http://tinyurl.com/d3fge3d

5 comments:

Sue VanHattum said...

Shecky, I declined for a reason that may seem small to you, but it regards gender equity.

I mentioned a while back that 'laymen' isn't inclusive. Your response was basically that it worked for you. Because your response felt dismissive to me, I decided not to do an interview with you.

Also, I'm a woman and not a lady. (Mother Jones once said, "God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.")

"Shecky Riemann" said...

Hi Sue, thanks for commenting, but we seem to simply be on different wavelengths here...

1) I happen to think (and I'm not alone) that Conan is a pretty funny guy, and he simply uses that phrase in comedic scripts -- I didn't mean (nor I suspect does he) for it to be taken too seriously (or offensively).
Beyond that, I know 50-year-old women who love being called "girls" and 25-year-old women who hate being called girls. "Ladies,"gals,""Ma'am," "girls" are all words that people just have different sensibilities to, often quite unrelated to "equity." (Heck, someone might even object to your designation of "MathMama" rather than "MathParent,""MathMother," or "MathMom.")

2) In prose I most often DO use terms like "lay folks," "lay people" or "lay readers," but in the heading of my blog the phrase "math buffs and number-luvin' laymen" simply loses the alliterative flow I wanted if you substitute an 'inclusive' term. I didn't mean to sound "dismissive" when I explained that long ago through email (though I realize emails often get misinterpreted), but yeah, it's a more minor issue to me in that context than apparently to you.

3) Lastly, when you declined my interview invite you said you didn't have "time" to do it -- I took you at your word, since I expected a lot of people, especially teachers, not to have time right now (I even thought I might try you again in the summer); so I'm a little disappointed to hear now that your real reason for declining was otherwise.
Anyway, my sense has always been that you run a great blog, and hope you'll understand that my blog has a silly side to it and doesn't always attempt to be 100% pc. I hope we can just agree to disagree on this and move on from there to other things.

Unknown said...

How about Laura McLay from "Punk Rock Operations Research" http://punkrockor.wordpress.com/

"Shecky Riemann" said...

Thanks for the suggestion James; I'm not familiar with Laura or her blog, but will definitely add her to my list. "Operations research" looks interesting.

"Shecky Riemann" said...

In lieu of last night's Prez election and the demographics involved, let me just go off-topic long enough to say to the women of America... THANK YOU! ;-)