#AcademicRunPlaylist - 1/11/25

We had some nice snow in Boston, and while enjoying a quiet stroll through the woods I also enjoyed some books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was "Career & Family" by Claudia Goldin. As probably the foremost researcher in the space of gender and work, Claudia Goldin explores the roots of the plateaued gap between men and women's earnings. After reviewing the historical trajectory of gender gaps in the US, largely rooted in overt discrimination, Goldin then examines the much thornier, systemic issues that remain. What emerges is not an easy fix, but rather a panoply of issues that have to be simultaneously and continuously ground down. The examples she brings up of careers that have started to do this well are important, with the historical changes in the pharmacist profession standing out for me. Highly recommend https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691201788/career-and-family

Last was "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?" by Frans de Waal. There's so much talk about the nature of intelligence today, and it's here that this book offers an essential contribution on the nature of ourselves relative to our fellow animals and how we value different abilities. Rather than seeing other species as completely different from ourselves, de Waal convincingly argues, with numerous experiments, that our different abilities are rather a matter of degree. He charts the fascinating history of ethology, and how the initial impulse to ascribe meaning to the behavior of other animals quickly became taboo until quite recently, and how that lens can help us understand how we treat and reason about other organisms. Highly recommend https://wwnorton.com/books/Are-We-Smart-Enough-to-Know-How-Smart-Animals-Are/