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Posted on: April 4, 2013
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Posted By: Laura Hoopes

Writing About Women in Science I: Finkbeiner test

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Hi Friends of Women in Science,

I'm dedicating my postings this week to the topic of how people write in the news media about women in science. Today's episode is about the so-called Finkbeiner test. On March 20, Ann Finkbeiner wrote a profile of Andrea Ghez, a prominent astronomer from UCLA whom we have covered before on this forum. She described how Ghez pioneered the revolutionary method of speckle imaging, leading to strong evidence for a black hole at the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way. She focused exclusively on her scientific achievements, barely mentioning her gender, let alone anything about her family life. This proflie is the model for how to profile a scientist, without regard for whether male or female.
Curtis Brainerd, writing on March 22 in the Columbia Jour. Rev., related this profle to a discussion following a March 5 post at Double X Science. Freelance journalist Christie Aschwander objected there to the gratuitous discounting of women scientists in "A lady who..." profiles. She felt that the writers should not preface their accomplishments with phrases like "she is married, has two children, and has been able to keep up with her research." Aschwander proposed the Finkbeiner test for such profiles, a list of seven topics not to be mentioned:
The fact that she's a woman
The job her husband holds
Child-care arrangements
How she nurtures her scientific associates
How she abhors the competitiveness of her field
How she's a role model for other women
That she's the first woman to do xyz
My first reaction was that they are trying to keep out just what interests me. How does she balance family and career? Has she had to make hard choices about emphasizing one or the other at different times in her life? Does she feel that she might have made more major discoveries if she had not had kids? If so, does she have regrets? If she didn't marry/have kids, does she regret it? But these are questions for biographers, not scientists, in the view of these journalists. Of course, if you look at my earlier Forum post on Ghez, you'll find that I violated at least three of these rules. I don't think this kind of forum focuses only on science, so I'm un-apologetic about it.
In responses to people's reactions to these ideas, Aschwanden and Finkbeiner have, according to Brainerd, "...emphasized that the test should apply mainly to the sort of general-interest scientist profiles that one might find in The New York Times or the front section of Nature, which are supposed to focus on professional accomplishments. There is plenty of need to write about gender issues, the two agreed, but the point is to do it right." They mainly object to having a woman's science achievements framed by the implication that it's remarkable that she did all this while being a woman.
Many of Finkbeiner's comments reflect an opinion that she has heard all these phrases, such as "she's a great role model," too often in her life in journalism. They became boring and almost meaningless.
So, readers, what do you think? Is including worklife balance in a profile of a female scientist necessarily degrading?
cheers,
Laura
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From:  Genuine Dock |  May 31, 2018
Community

Hi Ilona,

Hooray for our not all pretending to be robots! I agree that it's tempting to describe scientists that way, and it's mostly not true, although I know two who...but never mind that! Scientists almost all have and value families so why pretend they are disembodied impersonal and impartial minds solving problems? I like to know that they play in rock bands or mine rubies or whatever.

cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  April 7, 2013
Community

Hi Meghan,
Yes, calling a female scientist Mrs or Ms instead of Dr or Professor is disrespectful for sure. Something a bit more subtle is to begin by calling her Dr. Carol Jones and him Dr. James Smith, and then referring to her as Carol and him as Smith or Dr. Smith for the rest of the article. That too implies a lesser importance, less impressiveness, for her PhD.

cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  April 7, 2013
Community

Hi Theresa,
I'm glad you took a minute to comment. I can't always guess what answers fit best for the polls, and always hope that if none do fit, the reader will comment. It's a little hard for me to judge since I am changing myself into more of a writer/author and still trying to think like a scientist. If it were all up to me, I'd say tell us about what the men like to cook and how many kids they have and if they can remember the kids' names and ages. And if they are a dab hand at putting the garbage out, perhaps that belongs in there too. I find that I appreciate reading about the families of male scientists as mentioned in passing in The Scientist and other places. But perhaps that's a rare opinion.
cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  April 7, 2013
Community

I wanted to complete the poll but found that neither answers actually work for me. I think in the end it really depends on why you are writing the article. If you are writing the article to highlight someone's story behind the science or of becoming a scientist, then it is important to include personal stories to make the article more interesting. This is the case with many articles written on the issue of women in science (perhaps the ones mentioned by Laura). On the other hand, if you are writing the article mostly for the scientific achievement itself, then I would agree that personal information should not be included, or at least the weight shouldn't be on the personal information.

So I think it is important to be aware of this, but in the end it really comes to what you are writing for and why you are writing the article.

From:  Theresa Liao |  April 6, 2013
Community

I agree entirely with Aschwander, mostly because I really don't care about the personal lives of others. Gajdusek's pedophilia doesn't make his work with kuru any less valid, and Brill's propulsion system doesn't work better because she can put meat on noodles.

However, one thing I find incredibly rude is how many people persist in calling female doctoral holders Mrs. rather than Dr. as is appropriate recognition for their body of work.

From:  Meghan Hibicke |  April 4, 2013
Community

Completely agre with Laura's comment about leaving work-life balance to the biographers or feature writers. Personal details are always interesting; they help one see the person behind a news/science discovery story. But it's rarely relevant to the main story about intellectual contribution. But I don't agree with forbidding all mention of anything other than scientific accomplishments--we are not all robots and we all (women and men) have lives apart from the professional sphere. Rather, it's more a foregrounding issue for women, and the emphasis chosen by the editorial staff who sign off on these articles about women scientists. Just don't lead off with the family stuff when you are writing about professional accomplishments, scientific or otherwise. (Anyone see nytimes kerfuffle this week about Yvonne Brill's obituary?: http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/gender-questions-arise-in-obituary-of-rocket-scientist-and-her-beef-stroganoff/?src=rechp )

Would that we all lived in a world where it was all equal, and Carol M.'s vision were realized. Unfortunately women still work extra hard not to be seen first as walking wombs who provide comfort and support, and second (or third) as possibly leaders, intellectual contributors or even geniuses. ( I agree that the speaker invitations suffer because of this.) Foreground the professional contribution, the work, the distinction. It's better for everyone that way.

From:  Ilona Miko |  April 4, 2013
Community

Laura--
I think "A lady who..." articles are bad for our chances to be invited speakers, when otherwise an article in NYT or Nature about our science might make us more visible. But honestly, I'd rather fix the problem by having all articles, even those about men, mention their family life. Making room for normal human relationships is healthy for both women and men, and so we can address the fairness issue by either deleting all family stuff about women or by putting it in for men. I think we need more understanding that it matters to everyone, myself.
CRM

From:  Carol M. |  April 4, 2013
Community

Hi Laura,

I think Finkbeiner has a good point. We might be interested in the information the list excludes, but we could probably find out more without having it given in the article about her science, no?

Danzy

From:  Danzy Shupik |  April 4, 2013
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