[foxhedgehog]

One of the best TA's that I ever had, in any discipline, was a female CS instructor at Cal who was also likely a PhD candidate. My operating theory was that she not only had to be smart enough to be admitted into that program, but that she additionally had to overcome some degree of adversity stemming from gender-based perceptions (which I definitely observed in our department). The entire class was disappointed when our regular professor returned from a conference after she had been instructing for a week because she was so much better at teaching than he was.