She’s Such A Geek

She’s Such A Geek, an anthology of essays by women on science, is out. I haven’t read it yet, but there’s an excellent blog. The post Subversive Gifts For Girls is especially appropriate to the season.

I’ve noticed that many feminist parents of daughters feel that they should push their daughters towards science–daughters who are passionate about history or art or writing. While I do think it’s important for everyone to be comfortable with basic science and math, I think it’s a fine line to walk when you have daughters who are interested in more “acceptable” areas: encouraging them to take more interest in science while also supporting their other interests. Gifts that combine science and art or science and history are always nice–too many people grow up thinking that disciplines are neatly segregated from each other, without any connections between them.

My favorite gift source kids is actually very focused on crafts and art supplies and traditional toys, although they do have a selection of science toys (not the best source for science toys, in my opinion): Hearthsong. Their products are very gender-neutral and encourage creativity, and there’s something there for almost every kid.

Hiatus (again)

I’ve had my computer in for repair the past couple weeks (hardware problems), and in the process, they replaced 3/4 of my computer, including the harddrive. Yesterday CompUSA lost my backup. So I’ve lost a fair amount of data, including most of my photographs from Iceland. I’ll still probably get around to some Iceland posts eventually, but they’ll be less illustrated than I’d planned.

I will also be working on graduate school applications and moving in the next few weeks. I’d like to be able to give this blog a certain amount of daily attention, so I do intend to be back with regular posts when I’ve organized everything else more.

To anyone who missed my posts, I apologize. I’ll try to make up for it next year.