I went to an international conference organized by top academic authorities in Poland the other day. It was atrociously advertised, so there were all of a handful of people there. The session I attended concerned changing gender roles. Most of it was about how women who work are paid less and have lower life satisfaction than men, especially when we compare mothers and father (mothers generally much lower in life satisfaction than non-mothers who work, fathers happier than non-fathers). This is typically ascribed to the double load working mothers face (responsible for kids, and work).

Anyway, this is a session in which 6 people give talks, after which there is a discussion of their findings. Disregarding for a moment the fact that most of these talks didn't really have findings, but were readings of statistics gathered over the last few years, I was horrified to hear the kinds of questions being asked. By far the most egregious was a question from the floor asking each of the speakers to adopt the role of a participant in her own study and answer the questions being asked of her (i.e. are You satisfied with Your life? What are Your expectations concerning division of household labour? Would You prefer to be friends with a woman who doesn't take care of her appearance or one who does? etc etc).

Like:

W

H

U

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?

Seriously? This is science? This is what we have to talk about? As women conducting empirical research in the social sciences? Offensively irrelevant personal questions? Which will teach us WHAT? compared to the DATA COLLECTED FROM LARGE SAMPLES THAT YOU JUST PRESENTED?

God. I am outraged/disappointed/really really angry that none of the speakers pointed out the horrific inappropriateness of the question.

Number of novels I took "on vacation": 3
Number of novels I read while "on vacation": 0
Number of textbooks I took "on vacation": 4
Number of textbooks I read "on vacation": 3
Number of novels I bought in the airport bookstore on my way home: 3
Number of novels I read on the flights home: 1

My new tactic for listening to podcasts, since my headphones fritzed out, is to keep my ipod under my hat on speaker. It's not that loud, especially if I also wear my hood, so it doesn't create noise pollution. Lucky I bought the nano. I experimented with holding it in my teeth, because bones conduct soundwaves pretty well, right? But it didn't work very well. I'd have to catch the waves into my mouth as they exited the speaker and somehow convert them with the power of saliva.

I got really cold on the mountain today. Lasted much less time than I intended, on that walk. Pro tip: the snow is deepest in areas where the wind is weakest. Always a trade-off!

Had a close encounter with a kite-skier, who sort of came out of nowhere. Luckily I was resting among rocks, so in no real risk of being run down.