In this paper, I take a sociological approach to understanding the under-representation of gender
\nand physics. I argue that gender is something we do not something that we are. Thus, every aspect of
\nour behaviour, including our engagement (or not) with physics becomes part of our performance of
\ngender. I then use a brief historical analysis and an example from popular culture to show how
\nphysics is culturally aligned with masculinity. The impact is that the subject feels more \u2018natural\u2019
\nfor men than for women. I end with some of the implications of this for those who want to make
\nphysics more accessible to girls and women. (EDITORS NOTE: This paper was given at the Improving
\nGender Balance (IGB) conference in Cambridge, UK, in March 2015, organised by the Institute of
\nPhysics. This conference was for schools and their supporters who were part of the IGB strand of the
\nStimulating Physics Network, funded by the Department for Education. It aimed to summarise some of
\nthe s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In this paper, I take a sociological approach to understanding the under-representation of gender
\nand physics. I argue that gender is something we do not something that we are. Thus, every aspect of
\nour behaviour, including our engagement (or not) wi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-257354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-rss-fuusikaharidus","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyysika.ee\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}