Charles Mudede is the SCIENCE editor?! Good lord. What's next, Dan Savage as sports editor? Don't worry Sydeney, he's fine with the title. CM loves a good Nietzsche reference.

Good article, though I'm not sure where the Queerness is.

Fascinating about the contagious pain. Pain is a complex phenomenon and it can manifest itself even when there is no direct cause (e.g. no injury or illness). It may well be that the "contagiousness" of pain derives ultimately from olfaction as it is one of the ways animals experience and interact with the world and communicate with each other, especially in animals that rely heavily it, like rodents. Humans have surprising abilities in this regard too, though most of us aren't aware of just how powerful a biological driver olfaction is.

WRT to the STEM issue; I am in the "S" part of it (I am a biologist studying cancer). I have to say while the T,E&M parts of that acronym have issues with women participating, the "S" part is far less so, at least in biological research. All my career (since dinosaurs roamed the earth) I have worked alongside, supervised and reported to women. I have done no surveys but it isn't hard to see that the ratio in the biological sciences is roughly 1:1 women to men, perhaps even more in some research areas. I am not sure how that translates into the issues pointed out in the article; there isn't much of a "masculine culture", at least none I can detect. If there is, it doesn't seem to inhibit the role of women in the biological sciences.

I will note however, that African Americans are represented far below their number in the population. I work alongside many Asians, Hispanics, Europeans, Indians, etc but very few African Americans (or African Africans, for that matter). So I guess I'm saying that in the only scientific field I have expertise in, there seems to be a similar problem in representation of black Americans in the "S" in STEM as is noted with women overall. Perhaps some effort, like what is being done to draw more women in STEM should be done to attract more African Americans.

@2 biology is different from physics, and then linguistics is further along than biology, and it sounds like this article is about explaining why these are different.

Why not "The Gay Science!" with a nod to that big 19th Century weirdo?

Charles knows what I'm talkin' bout.

Oh god, don't read the mouse article's comment #17.

@3 Yes, biology is different from physics but it most definitely is part of the "S" in STEM. My only point is that it is (at least) one field in STEM where the problem of women participating doesn't seem to exist - though it may for African Americans. That suggests several things - one of which is that it ISN'T 'science is hard" or that "science is something men are better at" is the reason for low participation by women.

I am definitely going to read Ms Nelson's book.

Biostatistics, Biochemistry, and most engineers at the UW, other than Computer Science, are fairly equal, but that is mostly due to hiring and promoting women in STEM to the point it's not just masculine. It's also way more diverse too. No idea on the stuff like trans cis bi etc nobody cares about that, so it's not a thing you notice, unlike other places

@7 no idea on African Americans tho, more likely to see African scientists than AA here

Welcome to the Stranger Science hotseat, Sydney!

So, first question: what happened to Ethan Linck?

Did he quit? Did Charles fire him? Did Tim make yet another cut to the stringer budget?

If Mr. Mudede is the Science Editor he obviously didn't review Sydney's article: I didn't see a single Marxism tangent, bizarre riff on the failings of capitalism, how super extra heterosexual he is, or how this all proves why breasts are so remarkably lovely.