WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY

Females along with males study astronomy. Although there working habits and they way women are treated are sometimes totally different. In the article "Good morning, gentlemen and Meg", by Ann Finkbeiner, it explains the ways that women are treated differently in this working environment. Women spoke out in the article on how they really feel women should be treated compared to how they really are treated.

Ann Feinkbeiner went around campuses where women and men worked in the field of astronomy to ask "How do you think women should be treated compared to the way they really are treated?" Many female’s responded with answers like " The department was all men. I was startled that I noticed it." Says Lisa Storrie who was Lombardi’s first postdoctoral fellowship. Most of the women’s answers were similar to that. This article strongly talked about how women are treated compared to men today in astronomy. It showed examples of situations where women were shut out of this field of science and how women are now still trying to prove people wrong today.

There were many strength’s in this article. One very important one was that the author didn’t just talk from her experience in the situation but went around and interviewed different women on how they felt. This made the article more interesting to read as the reader and also gave you specific examples. Another strength of this article was that many women talked not just about the hardships in work but also about their hardships in getting to where they are today.

Although the article was very interesting there were some things the author could have done to make it a little more interesting. One was by not only going to women for opinons but she should have gone to some of the males in this field of science and asked them their opinons on how they think women should be treated and how they are treated. This would make the reader see two points of view on the subject. Another improvement the author could have made was talked more about how these women think the situations should change. For example, many women brought up the fact that they would speak in a meeting and not be heard but if a male had the same idea he would be congratulated on the brilliant but stolen idea. They author should have asked what the women thought should be done to improve these situations. But overall it was an excellent article.

In my point of view I think the author did a fabulous job on writing the article. She did not only revolve the article around one particular woman, which would make the article very dull, she used many women as examples of this treatment. She used many words I did not understand but it challenged me while reading it.

I’m glad I chose this article because I have learned that women are separated from men in the field of astronomy. I would not have been aware of this if I did not read it and now I can take their advice on how to succeed in life. I also learned that to get where those women are today is hard work and that I should keep trying.

I would definitely recommend this article because it gives good advice on how women can succeed in life if they really worked hard too. Although many of my friends would also have trouble with some of the vocabulary I’m sure they could manage. Women

Courtney 10/26/00