Gender and Equal Participation

1. I've been going to the gym on campus lately. When you count total number of people at the gym, the men outnumber the women by a large margin. I am often the only woman at the gym -- and almost always the only woman who is not using the cardio machines. The plus to this is that these southern boys have some sort of instinctual training in them, and when they are lingering between sets, just sitting and hogging the equipment, when I politely ask them if I can work in a set, they immediately are all, "Yes, ma'am."


2. The grant that I work for employs 21 people -- 19 men and two women. If you look to see who from the grant project my boss is Facebook friends with, he is friends with four people -- two men and two women. If you expand out to the next administrative level beyond our project (also gender imbalanced in the way you expect in CS), his friend list grows to include one more man and three more women. I'm sure this is all a coincidence and everyone else he is Facebook-friends with from work friended him. Yep. (Note: He friended me.)


3. My sister-in-law's Facebook status was something like, "Now that we have a woman governor, let's see if we can get a lactation room at the capitol." (My SIL is a lobbyist.) I'm thinking that if this is something that the governor and/or governor's office should be doing, then it should not matter what gender the governor is.