Blue plaques, female scientists, #MeToo and women on Wikipedia | Letters

Anna Eavis of English Heritage on efforts to get more blue plaques commemorating women;Hilary Caldicott on the suspended Cern professor Alessandro Strumia;Jean Rogers on men writing about feminism, andSandy Balfour of Wikimedia on the gender bias of WikipediaAnna Kessel makes some valuable points on the lack of blue plaques to women – not least that inaction will only lead to the worsening of this imbalance (Shortcuts, G2, 3 October). With this in mind, in 2016, English Heritage appealed for more female nominations for our London blue plaques scheme. The many suggestions we received means that now, for the first time, more women than men are being shortlisted for plaques. And far from being ignored, Noor Inayat Khan and Gertrude Bell will both be awarded plaques, subject to permission from the relevant buildings ’ owners. But we need more proposals, which can be made via our website.Anna EavisCuratorial director, English Heritage• Professor Alessandro Strumia’s remarks on female physicists (Cern suspends top scientist in row over ‘sexist’ lecture, 2 October) are obviously ridiculous. I am, however, puzzled by Dr Jessica Wade ’s remark that “every young high-energy physicist in that room” would have had “all of their enthusiasm sucked away” listening to this nonsense. She was there, so is speaking with authority, but isn’t it possible that quite a few of these brilliant young high-energy women in the audience just thought the Prof was being a total pill...

Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - October 4, 2018 Category: Science Authors: Letters Tags: Women Heritage Wikipedia Culture Science Gender Life and style Feminism World news Cern Physics Particle physics #MeToo movement UK news Source Type: news