Gender, academia and the media

There's been a raging debate over on Crooked Timber about women academic bloggers and the alleged dearth thereof.

In the light of which I was amused to count the number of women on a Channel Four programme, What We Still Don't Know this evening, which spoke to academics whom I would assume came entirely from the physical sciences, mathematics or related fields. Now I missed the first 10 minutes or so, but of the seven or eight academics I heard, guess how many were women? That's right, none.

There might still be enormous gender bias in the humanities - and the academic conferences that I've attended have certainly shown that - but it is far, far worse in the sciences. (And since my first degree was agricultural science - as my profile says, I was 17, that's my only excuse - I know plenty of women still battling from within the system.)

As for the media, my "day" job, well it is probably a little better than the sciences ...