““Setup: Alicia (the scientist) is speaking to an elementary school class about what she does. She’s just taken scads of questions from several young boys. The teachers says, “Maybe you could talk for a little bit about what it’s like to be a women in science……for the girls.” And I just got so sad. What the hell am I supposed to say? When I’m doing science my gender isn’t interesting to me. The science I’m doing is interesting. And okay, there was a past when women in science were anomalies but that was a dark and ridiculous time. We live in the future now. Can we just agree I can talk about gravitation without having to point out the existence of my vagina before I begin? It’s all so trivial. I half-way feel like I wasted my time going out there. I could have spent that time in the lab. We could have sent the possessor of a penis out there to handle the PR while I got some serious work done.””
