{"id":586,"date":"2007-06-17T20:46:43","date_gmt":"2007-06-18T01:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/?p=586"},"modified":"2007-06-17T20:46:53","modified_gmt":"2007-06-18T01:46:53","slug":"but-what-about-moon-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/06\/17\/but-what-about-moon-unit\/","title":{"rendered":"But what about &#8220;Moon Unit&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nics_events\/486888016\/\" title=\"Photo Sharing\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/203\/486888016_2b79e5e64f.jpg?w=400\" alt=\"2007 Byte Bash - 41\" vspace=\"10\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/WeatherGirl\/\">WeatherGirl <\/a> tipped me to an Observer article entitled &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/science\/story\/0,,2068202,00.html\">Names really do make a difference<\/a>&#8220;, and I keep wavering between &#8220;Oh, surely not!&#8221; and &#8220;Well, duh, that was pretty obvious&#8221;.  Apparently giving a girl a &#8220;girlie&#8221; name significantly reduces her likelihood of studying math and science:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nBoth subjects [math and physics], which are traditionally seen as predominantly male, are far more popular among girls with names such as Abigail, Lauren and Ashley, which have been judged as less feminine in a linguistic test. The effect is so strong that parents can set twin daughters off on completely different career paths simply by calling them Isabella and Alex, names at either end of the spectrum. A study of 1,000 pairs of sisters in the US found that Alex was twice as likely as her twin to take maths or science at a higher level.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The (highly speculative) causalities are the reasonably obvious ones:  Seeing names like &#8220;Barbie&#8221; or &#8220;Breeze&#8221; on the class list or application form brings beaucoup baggage to the party.  This is hardly a win, especially since the patriarchy already ensures that females already have plenty of baggage when it comes to science and math.  It&#8217;s also telling, if not entirely shocking, that giving boys certain names can have similar effects.  Seeing &#8220;Bubba&#8221; on the football roster might elicit a snicker, but likely no surprise; seeing &#8220;Bubba&#8221; at the math league finals, on the other hand&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>So it would seem that some parents have a fair bit to answer for:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8216;A name is part of an impression package,&#8217; said Mehrabian. &#8216;Parents who make up bizarre names for their children are ignorant, arrogant or just foolish.&#8217;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the case of the Zappa family, I&#8217;m voting for &#8220;arrogant&#8221;; Frank certainly wasn&#8217;t ignorant.<\/p>\nNo tag for this post.\n\t<h4>Related posts<\/h4>\n\t<ul class=\"st-related-posts\">\n\t<li>No related posts.<\/li>\n\t<\/ul>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WeatherGirl tipped me to an Observer article entitled &#8220;Names really do make a difference&#8220;, and I keep wavering between &#8220;Oh, surely not!&#8221; and &#8220;Well, duh, that was pretty obvious&#8221;. Apparently giving a girl a &#8220;girlie&#8221; name significantly reduces her likelihood of studying math and science: Both subjects [math and physics], which are traditionally seen as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/06\/17\/but-what-about-moon-unit\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;But what about &#8220;Moon Unit&#8221;?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[17,22,13,15],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-9s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":458,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/10\/do-we-need-to-be-requiring-more-mathscience-in-high-school\/","url_meta":{"origin":586,"position":0},"title":"Do we need to be requiring more math\/science in high school?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"10 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"As I mentioned before, I took part in a panel discussion on women in science and math last week. One of the issues that came up in the discussion was the importance of requiring math and science courses, at least through high school, and perhaps into college. The argument was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/111\/267510192_a5bb4bf570_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":608,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/07\/29\/high-school-math-teh-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":586,"position":1},"title":"High school math = Teh Good","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"29 Jul 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Pharyngula has a nice discussion of report looking at the impact of high school math and science classes on performance in university science courses. The short version? Definitely take math, as that improves performance in all the sciences in the study (biology, chemistry, and physics). Taking science in high school\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":451,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/08\/why-we-need-women-in-math-and-the-sciences\/","url_meta":{"origin":586,"position":2},"title":"Why we need women in math and the sciences","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"8 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"I just got back from a very nice (if not wildly focussed) panel\/round table discussion on \"Women in math and science\" as part of Women's Week here at UMM. I won't try to summarize everything here, but it's certainly a major issue for us since the number of women in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":314,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/02\/26\/hey-i-passed-8th-grade-math-as-well\/","url_meta":{"origin":586,"position":3},"title":"Hey, I passed 8th grade math as well!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"26 Feb 06","format":false,"excerpt":"So Sub-Evil Boy found this via Pharyngula and was quite pleased that he could already (in the 6th grade) \"pass\" 8th grade math. Well, if he can pass, let's hope his old man is up to the task... :-) You Passed 8th Grade Math Congratulations, you got 10\/10 correct! Could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/19\/theres-a-carnival-of-mathematics\/","url_meta":{"origin":586,"position":4},"title":"There&#8217;s a Carnival of Mathematics!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"19 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"math Originally uploaded by Akash k. I just stumbled across the fact that there's a new Carnival of Mathematics, with their first edition up a bit over a week ago. The next edition is due to be posted on the 23rd on Good Math, Bad Math. Thanks to The Science\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mathematics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mathematics","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/mathematics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":829,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/04\/02\/peezed-gets-an-asteroid-named-after-him\/","url_meta":{"origin":586,"position":5},"title":"PeeZed gets an asteroid named after him!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"2 Apr 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Every science nerd hopes to get something named after them, with the mostly likely candidates being small invertebrates or small celestial bodies as there are lots of both still without names. As further proof of how cool PeeZed is, he just got an asteroid named after him! The little rock\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Education&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}