It’s the end of 2011, and I have a number of reasons to celebrate: a wonderful family, a wonderful job, a fun gig at SciAm, a roller derby season about to start back up again, and Science Online 2012 in a few short weeks...
Dear Kate, I am an evolutionary psychologist, which, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing and society largely accepts the need for people like me. However, our evil, feminist, not-patriarchal-enough culture fundamentally doesn’t get me in particular, a special snowflake among evolutionary psycholgoists...
I submitted the first round of my materials for my third year review recently. The third year review is the half-way point between one’s hire as a tenure-track professor and going up for tenure...
Summer 2001. I had just graduated from college with a joint degree in biological anthropology and women’s studies which, as my father pointed out, was not a degree with an obvious vocational angle...
I have spent a lot of time in my life being employed or educated by an organization that I find problematic in some way. At Harvard, my main gripe involved the way in which the dissolution of Radcliffe College and the women’s spaces there occurred with little engagement with undergraduates: two deans met with me and two other women who were on the board of the Radcliffe Union of Students...
Tenth grade, at the lockers just before homeroom. My good friend Julie and I put away our coats.“How are you?” she asks.“Ugh,” I say. “I have a soccer game today but” – and here my voice drops to a whisper – “I got my period this morning.”Julie looks back at me, wide-eyed...
Back in the day, when many anthropologists assume we were all egalitarian foragers living off the land, women may not have thought on how many offspring they wanted.
For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter, I wanted to let you know about two talks I'm giving this week at Harvard. Use this interactive map to find Boylston Hall and the Peabody Museum...
I have been traveling and speaking a lot this semester, perhaps too much. Because we've both had so many traveling commitments this year, for the last month I've hardly seen my husband, because he's away one week and I'm away the next...
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy You're welcome. Hat tip @kzelnio.
This blog post first appeared on my blog on March 4th, 2011. I'm sharing it with the Scientific American audience today because I've assigned this post to my students for next week.
I have accumulated readers to the point that I occasionally receive emails, tweets and other things that ask me to point my eyes, which happen to also be Laser Beams of Ladybusiness Justice, upon some ridiculous article...
In high school, my mother occasionally found babysitting jobs for me. Parents, desperate for a trustworthy kid to watch their own, would entrust their offspring to Katie the honors student while they went to a meeting, or to work, or perhaps on a date...
The kiddo is asleep for the night. My husband and I sit on kitchen countertops, facing each other. “We should get back to work.” “Yeah.” We sit another moment, shoulders slumped, dark circles under our eyes...
Last Thursday, a number of dreams I didn't even know I had were fulfilled: talking about vaginas in front of over a thousand people at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, singing the Elements Song with Nobel Laureates and Amanda Palmer (I KNOW!!!), making jokes about the effects of coffee as a diuretic as I, aforementioned Nobel Laureates, and Ignitaries served as the chorus for a Coffee Opera, and did I mention I talked about vaginas at Sanders Theatre at Harvard?...
This is my first semester as an academic where I have a significant travel component. I realized that some of you might want to know where and when I'm traveling or speaking, in case you live in the area and want to hear me speak or organize a tweetup...
This morning was a bit rough. “Where’s Daddy?” asked my daughter as she climbed into bed before dawn to snuggle. “It was Daddy’s turn to go to work early,” I explained.
I love science, and I love the scientific method. I think that the scientific method is one of the most useful ways of knowing out there. I have devoted my life not only to the study of the science of human evolution and female reproductive physiology, but to increasing science appreciation and literacy in the general public.So why am I always criticizing it?Two reasons...
Between managing a class of 750 and desperately trying to organize some old data into something analyzeable (yes, I just made up that word), I have not been able to work on a post I really want to write on the history of the study of menstruation...
Okay, I don't know about you all, but I am just about all talked out regarding interventions, childbirth and childbirth locations. At least for now. We can find something else to scream at each other about next week...
