Reply to comment

I would like to comment on Traweek's statement that she made on page 78, beginning with "There is, it seems to me, a cluster of subliminal messages in these picture captions...". I think that her comment is very interesting because it appears that this portrayal of physicists, in textbooks and the like, may have a very grave impact on both the men and women who are reading them. On one hand, as Traweek states, it appears in these books that physics is not only constructed but controlled by these serious, stern and isolated men. The images of physicists that Traweek illustrates really paint a picture of these men as being solopsistic by nature and profession. Does this cause the male students who read these books and look at the pictures of their "heroes" to develop a warped perception of not only how their predecessors existed in the physics community but how they should as well? Do they then pursure physics with this mindset fixed into their brains? 
Women on the other hand may feel threatened by these images. Therein lay a whole history of male dominated science. Does this presentation of physics instill a sense of humbleness, which might be connected to the statistic we read a few assignments ago about how women rate themselves, in terms of success and ability, as lower than men? 

Odile