I'm not really impressed by the diversity of women on this list.

I mean, they are diverse by color and economic background. But for the most part it seems the requirement to be on the list is: 20-something, political activism in progressive issues, and working in the arts/politics/social programs.

On the entire list, I saw one engineer (an only an undergraduate student at that) and no scientists. These are fields where women are breaking barriers, contributing to the advancement of the human condition, all the while overcoming the odds to even pursue the profession in the first place. Many women in these fields are active feminists - encouraging girls to study math and science, fighting for daycare and women-friendly policies in the workplace and among university faculties. Why aren't they on the list?

What about 34 year-old Donna Riley?

She is a professor at the Smith College Picker Engineering Program--the first engineering program specifically for women.

Or 40 year-old Melissa Robbiani:

...an award-winning, wellpublished scientist (you should see her bio and her 9-page CV!). Throughout her career she has directed her formidable talent to conducting biomedical research to better understand and ultimately combat AIDS.

Or the woman working with NASA?

Maybe you should take a closer look at the list? I think it came out great.

Becca - how many engineers and scientists did you nominate? I know some people who would have been great nominees for that list, but I was too lazy to nominate them. Maybe next year.

I just printed out this list, and it's over at the WRC where I work. I want women here at U.H. to see this.

The real hot 100 listed a few women in the sciences, but female scientists and engineers were a *very* small minority. Don't worry - we're used to it.

(I don't mean to belittle the accomplishments of the women on that list. But it gets a little depressing sometimes, being a woman in the physical sciences. We get no support from feminist institutions; the little support we get must come from within.)

next time I want to nominate Eileen Collins then. Is she elegible??

Someone asked this before but what's with the focus on younger women? Is it the necessity to get women who are both conventionally and unconventionally attractive, or just because younger women are more sympathetic role models? If older women were allowed, I'd certainly suggest (especially with all the hoopla over Harvard President Larry Summers) MIT President Susan Hockfield as a prime example of a successful scientist and also a woman.

We focused on younger women because the project was a response to the way that younger women are portrayed in the media. But in the guidelines for entries, we didn't specify what "young" was; we encouraged people to nominate whoever they wanted.

I understand about the lack of diverse backgrounds. My partner is a computer engineer and my aunt is the IT director at a local college. Both are fantastic women and deserve recognition and support in something like this. but it really came down to who was nominated - and i didn't bother to nominate either of them.

I think that for the first year a project like this was launched, real hot 100 is very successful and inspirational. It's already connected me to some great women.

Just imagine what next year can bring....

So, that's 3 of 100. What percentage of the 100 are "artists" of some sort? What percentage are social activists?

I agree with DT, that women scientists and engineers are often disconnected from the feminist movement. Even though it is a field where women are most underrepresented and many workplaces are socially conservative (much to my frustration) - plus, this country has a great need for more scientists and engineers - meaning they could benefit a great deal from a feminist influence.

The problem is, if you rely on nominations alone, you're going to get a bunch of progressive activitists nominating each other. Female scientists and engineers who would probably make great role models are not likely to identify themselves in a forum like this. You might need to seek them out more actively.

BTW, Jessica, I don't mean to come off as negatively as I sound. This was a great project, and you identified some amazing women! I enjoyed reading about their stories.

Thanks Becca, you're definitely right in that it takes a tremendous outreach effort to ensure that women in all kinds of professions are represented. We're hoping that next year, we'll have raised some money and have more people involved so that we can increase that outreach. And don't worry about coming off negatively; we're open to criticism and want to make sure that the real hot 100 grows and improves every year.

Jessica & Becca - I liked reading your comments. I agree that adding more scientists takes outreach, and outreach takes money.

I'm as guilty as the next person: I'm a scientist, I'm a feminist, I read this blog (sometimes), and I didn't nominate anyone. Shame on me.

One small disagreement - I find that scientists do not tend to be socially conservative. Overall, we're pretty live and let live. As a group, we tend to be more convinced by facts than by rhetoric, and we know how to lie with statistics. We also tend to vote democratic, if only because the democrats are slightly better at funding things like the NSF.

I agree DT. Scientists do not tend to be socially conservative at all nor are they swayed by rhetoric. For that reason, arguing with them can be a futile endeavor.

And I agree, the hot 100 is lacking in the areas of science, engineering and hard construction...and completely overrepresented in the art department (not to mention the law department).

Your comment about scientists is interesting. I do believe my experiences are fairly colored as my background in engineering - I got my degrees at Georgia Tech and Rice, and have worked in only the deep south (Florida, Virginia, Georgia, and, now Texas). Maybe my experience is more geographical rather than career-based -- certainly academia is a more liberal environment for all fields than industry, though.

Its not unusual for someone to say (as if it was accepted fact, rather than ridiculous), things like: "mommies shouldn't be allowed to do dangerous jobs", women shouldn't get pregnant if they are in a leadership role here because its irresponsible, if I'm a professor I'll have to wait for tenure before I can have children (something that male professors don't usually wait for), "I bought my wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas. Last year, she got a dishwasher" (seriously, it happened, in 2006).

Many of the men I work with have wives that stay at home and care for their large families, their daughters have signed virginity pledges, and believe that is a natural order to things. Though most are smart enough to not be too openly critical of my life, I often wonder how my precense as a young, single woman engineer fits into their world view. I have a friend who is the only engineer at a small engineering firm who built a new building and "forgot" to put a women's restroom in (when she pointed it out, they promptly added one on).

Unlike scientists, in the aerospace industry, a lot of our funding comes from Republicans - despite the many uplifting and important advances aerospace makes for the entire world (both in the field of space exploration and aviation). So many of us are torn, voting liberal for the social issues that are important to me as a women (and a human being) often times means voting against technological advances that I think are important to my chosen career and, I think, the future of this country.

Becca - That's really interesting. Maybe it is a geographic thing, as I'm a northerner. We have anti-Bush cartoons posted in most of the office common areas. Anti-republican jokes are regularly circulated.

Maybe it's also an engineering vs. science thing. Things are bad in the physical sciences, but possibly worse in engineering.

We're working on things like stopping the "tenure clock" for childbirth. We really are. Also on providing childcare or eldercare while women are at professional conferences. But progress is slow, and there's a feeling that admitting you care about women's issues is, well... a chick thing. Tough scientists just don't talk about that stuff, ya know?

As for being a young, single woman, I sympathise. I fit that descritption too, and I frequently find myself in the position of being the only woman and the only person under 40 in the room.