The Only Woman In The Room
CBC Radio | Posted: January 15, 2016 8:49 PM | Last Updated: January 15, 2016
A woman with ambitions to study science recalls the obstacles placed in her way
In 2005, the president of Harvard asked why more women didn't hold tenured positions in the hard sciences at his university. One of the reasons why, he suggested, was innate differences in scientific and mathematical aptitude between the sexes.
These comments provoked Eileen Pollack - a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan - to revisit her own dreams of becoming an astrophysicist, while growing up in the 60's and 70's. Those dreams remain painful memories, but inspired her book, The Only Woman In The Room: Why Science Is Still A Boys Club.
It chronicles her failed struggle to realize that dream, despite becoming one of the first two women to graduate - with honour - from Yale, with a bachelor degree in physics. Pollack also questions how much has changed and proposes ways to eliminate such discrimination.
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