Gender issues in science. Nerd Girls at Bad Astronomy, which begat smart = sexy at Cocktail Party Physics, which begat Flirt harder. I’m a physicist at sciencegeekgirl.

There’s some really interesting commentary to go along with the posts.

I have the sneaking suspicion that this topic is one where it is impossible to be right; there is no position one can take that won’t piss someone else off. Given, then, that I’m already in trouble, I will blithely assume that this is simply a Boolean state.

On “geeky” vs “girly,” Jennifer Observes with the very first comment on Phil’s blog,

What we really need to get over is this silly “either/or” tendency…

which I think is spot on, and it’s a bit surprising to me to see later remarks to the contrary — things to the effect of it’s great how girls can like science and girly stuff, too, and stereotypes such as “shopping is for girls.” I thought stereotypes were bad, hence the title of this post, and my comment that some people will get PO-ed no matter which side of this argument you’re on. Unless it’s just a big conspiracy to confuse me.

The other comment that came up a few times was that if we try and deny the significance of physical attraction we’re fighting a few million years of evolution. It’s true. Men have evolved to be responsive to visual cues. However, along the same timeline, humans have also evolved bigger brains and developed language and culture, and so response to visual stimuli does not give you the excuse to be a jerk.