Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

When You Love Physics, But Physics Doesn't Love You, Anna K. Perry

SURGE

I am a physics major. Or at least, I was. My class year was an average-sized group of majors; mostly cis men, mostly people I do not feel comfortable around. Jokes straight out of a Big Bang script were constantly being cracked; and though I tried to join in on the fun, I never seemed welcome in the conversation. I could act exactly like my male classmates, but something about my voice, my body, the way I carried myself, was not enough for them to accept me into the boys’ club. If I tried to be my authentic self rather …