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" Figuring out why people who choose not to do something don't in fact do it is like attempting to interview the elves who live inside your refrigerator but come out only when the light is off. "

Eileen Pollack

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" In America, nobody's boyfriend wants them to be smarter than he is, and no one wants to admit it. "

" All the societal pressures that make girls feel as if they're too smart, especially in the sciences - 'No one will date them. They won't be popular.' - don't apply to boys. The boys are being encouraged. "

" Writers find common ground not through the homelands they once inhabited but the thematic questions with which they grapple. "

" Knowing how to tactfully criticize someone's work is a mentor's job. "

" I miss my former teachers, John Hersey and James Alan McPherson. I would love to see either or both and ask what I could do to improve, to deepen my writing. "

" Success in math and the hard sciences, far from being a matter of gender, is almost entirely dependent on culture - a culture that teaches girls math isn't cool and no one will date them if they excel in physics. "

" We still raise girls to look to other people for assurance they are attractive and smart, while boys are raised to determine their own value. Many girls are still made to feel it's not feminine to be good at science or math. "

" For women, even if she's nerdy enough to be Steve Jobs, she's undateable. "

" When I was in seventh grade, I was bored out of my mind. We seemed to be learning the same things over and over in science and math, and two of the boys in my class were allowed to move ahead into these advanced classes, but I wasn't allowed because I was a girl. "

" My parents didn't know how to provide me with the encouragement I needed to achieve my dreams. "

" For the individual and for society, the more diversity you have in a field means more ways of solving a problem as well as more creativity and originality. "

" Parents don't want their kids to be nerdy. "

" When I was in 7th grade, we were all given an exam. It was science and math, and the boys who did well were skipped ahead so that when they got to be juniors or seniors in high school they would be able to go to the local community college and take calculus and physics there. And I wasn't skipped ahead. "

Eileen Pollack

Community

Science

" Judging the political climate in my state by walking around lefty Ann Arbor is like a polar bear judging global warming by staring at the ice cube beneath its feet. "

" I was nearly as far behind in calculus as I was in physics. But I wasn't the only woman in the class, so I felt more comfortable asking questions. "

Eileen Pollack

Class

Physics

" Science and math are hard for everybody, and it's usually not a matter or being born gifted at it or not. It's hard work, but it can be a lot of fun! "

" Wandering the book fair at AWP is a great way to get acquainted with a wide sampling of the diverse journals that are out there and the wide sampling of people who produce them. "

" When I was growing up, I wanted passionately to be a physicist. "

Eileen Pollack

Growing

Wanted

" If there's a stereotype that you're not supposed to be good at something, that still gets so badly in your way of concentrating. "

" If you're a white male growing up in this society, you're constantly receiving encouragement to go on in science in the form of all the images that you're receiving. "

" To make computer science more attractive to women, we might help young women change how they think about themselves and what's expected of them. But we might also diversify the images of scientists they see in the media, along with the decor in the classrooms and offices in which they might want to study or work. "

" Many of my friends are scientists. "

" As a physics major at Yale in the 1970s, I developed crushes on nearly all my male professors. "

" When parents ask why there are still so few girls in advanced science and math classes in high school, I tell them, because girls still need way more encouragement than boys to take those courses. "

" The most powerful determinant of whether a woman goes on in science might be whether anyone encourages her to go on. "

" The world is a complex place. "

" Given that many girls are indoctrinated to believe that they should be feminine and modest about their abilities, as well as brought up to assume that girls are not innately gifted at science or math, it is not surprising that so few can see themselves as successful computer scientists. "

" When I left Yale, it was so painful to me. I had worked so hard, gotten so far, and just walked away. "

Eileen Pollack

Left

Hard

" I write and teach creative nonfiction. I was a reporter. "

" My brother had been given a chemistry set for his bar mitzvah, but he wasn't interested in it. It was upstairs in the attic, and I would sneak up there and use it at great peril because I was afraid if he found out, he would get very angry at me, but he didn't seem to care. "

Eileen Pollack

Angry

Afraid