Author: Alice_admin

An academic friend’s son is about to start graduate school, and so my friend and I got to talking about what we wish grad students would know and do to make it through grad school, to move onto a successful career in academia. Were I inclined to nag my friend’s son (which I’m not, because…

I keep running into smart people who seem to think I believe that sex “isn’t real” because it is all “socially constructed.” Allow me to correct this erroneous social construction of me by summarizing here what I think about sex and gender. I’m tempted to say “what I know about sex and gender” because there…

Twice in the last week I’ve again been asked The Question. Well, more than twice, come to think of it: once by a reporter interested in my work, and about fifteen times at the wonderful annual meeting of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group, where I was privileged to speak at three sessions. What’s “The Question”? Why…

OK, that title may be too cheeky. But it got your attention. Here’s what I’m thinking about…. The internationally-syndicated sex-advice columnist Dan Savage recently asked me to help out with a reader who thought he had a small penis and was considering “enhancement” surgery or pills. As a consequence, I’ve gotten a bunch of mail from guys with penis…

So, out comes another article on women struggling to be mothers and academics, this time from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And once again I feel like the story is missing something: math. Simple math. Not the kind you need a Ph.D. for. Here goes… You can’t be at work and be with your kid. Period. Your university…

All academics love to be cited. In fact, the best way to offend an academic is not to cite her. Not being cited is even worse than being criticized. But you know what’s even better than being cited? Creating truth by not being cited. Here’s how I learned this: A few weeks ago I was…

As I wait with a bit of trepidation for my latest appearance as a talking head on a program about conjoined twins (this time with ABC’s 20/20), I find myself weary of trying to get some people to understand what I’m saying about separation surgeries. I like to think I’m clear. You know what? I’m…

In the midst all the fuss about the Da Vinci Code movie come claims by Christians that they are the last people who can publicly be maligned and oppressed without anyone else defending them. Well, actually, at least in this claim they’ve got lots of good company. Fat people. Transgender people. Folks with disabilities. They…

In a witty and thoughtful American Historical Association Perspectives essay entitled Historians Change at a Slower Pace than History, Professor Glen Jeansonne of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee noted the time-lag problem of university history courses, a problem that might summed up this way: Time moves on, but history professors don’t. The American history professor who, in…

This blog post was reprinted (under a different name) with a longer introduction at Bioethics Forum, so please read it there: “So You’re a Scholar Who Wants to Make Things Happen”