No one can deny the facts – gender inequality is a problem in science. The average male scientist is paid more than his female colleagues, in academia and industry. Even when the underrepresentation of women in the highest paid positions of academia is controlled for, women’s wages are still not equal to men’s. Then there’s the ‘leaky pipeline’ whereby, despite taking PhDs in equal numbers to men, women leave academia more often at each of the next stages. So the number of women drops the higher you look up the academic ladder. The ‘leakiness’ of the pipeline is due to many factors, including the dominance of men on selection committees and the fact that women are more likely than men to leave science after having children. Women are also notably underrepresented at conferences, where they give less invited talks than men, perhaps because they turn down invitations more often than their male counterparts. I could go on (and will direct you to Megan’s blog below for yet another startling fact) but I’ve made my point. Inequality between men and women in science exists, it has many drivers and it is angering and alarming, particularly to a young female scientist like me.
Why then, when a female scientist comes to visit and the conversation turns to ‘being a woman in science’, do I feel frustrated and wish we’d just get on with talking about science? Why, when ‘women in science’ was posited as a subject for discussion at a meeting, did a fellow grad student send me an email containing one of my favorite sentences of all time – ‘I am so f***ing bored of hearing about how my vagina is going to stop me from being a scientist’. Is it because we don’t care? I totally refute that. Perhaps I am in denial? My awareness of the above shows that this isn’t the case. Rather, I think it is because the data do not mirror my experience. I live a charmed life as a female scientist, one in which my sex doesn’t matter.
On the surface, my situation looks pretty traditional. A young woman in a lab lead by two men over forty (sorry guys), at a center lead by a man, in an institute lead by a man. Scratch the surface, though, and it starts to look different. During my tenancy in the Read/Thomas lab, I have seen four graduate students defend their PhDs. All were women. Ten postdocs have been hired, of which just two have been men. Five babies have been born to four female postdocs. Most of these new mothers wished to return to science and have done so. They have gone on to publish papers, achieve illustrious fellowships and, in one case, bag a faculty job. Indeed, I do not see the pipe leaking (at least, yet). Of the three postdocs that have won faculty jobs, all have been women. Their jobs are at leading research universities. As it stands, the Read/Thomas lab has seventeen PhD students and postdocs, 76% of which are women. One learns one’s values from one’s experiences. The Read/Thomas lab is a pretty feminist experience – gender doesn’t matter, only ‘papers, papers, papers’.
Some would say that we’ve gone too far in the other direction and that a lab dominated by women is not good for gender equality. I agree, though I believe we were all hired on our merits and would feel queasy about quotas. I do wonder whether we might benefit from more men and, as someone who has always enjoyed male company, would quite enjoy having more men around. An ex-PhD student of Andrew’s (who returned to science on a grant specifically for women, after a stint as editor of a leading journal) also got me thinking about whether women can sometimes be bad for each other. Women are more likely to suffer from ‘impostor syndrome’ and, at least according to stereotype, to speak to each other about it. I do think that my fellow female scientists and I sometimes reinforce each other’s doubts about our abilities. One of us talks about not feeling great and we sympathize, because we feel the same. Over time, it becomes ‘normal’ not to feel confident, when in fact we should feel bloody good about ourselves! After all, we’re at a great place, working hard to do high-quality science. A preponderance of women might also be bad for diversity. It is easy to imagine a positive feedback loop whereby the sex bias deters men from joining us, so that the proportion of women only rises. In the midst of recruiting the next cohort of budding PhDs with the (all female) CGSA board, I’ve often contemplated this. Not seeing themselves represented, perhaps men don’t feel welcome?
Our lab’s skewed sex ratio might provoke an alternative reaction – causing some to snigger that Andrew and Matt ‘like women too much’ (wink wink, nudge nudge). If it weren’t for the fact that so many women experience unwanted sexual attention so often, I would find such a suggestion laughable. I can say in no uncertain terms that I have never felt that they intend to do anything other than turn me into a functioning scientist and I do not know anyone who has felt otherwise. Moreover, were I ever to feel threatened by someone at work, I know exactly who I would turn to and don’t doubt that I would be believed.
In life beyond the lab, things appear to be looking up for women too. I confess to being on Twitter and to liking it. I follow numerous scientists, many of whom happen to be women. They are a diverse group and lead successful scientific careers. Indeed, one of the women I most admire – and whose profile picture features herself and her daughter – recently got tenure, to the congratulations of The Twitterati. These women are at the forefront of both science and the campaign for gender equality in science, often raising awareness of the latter by tweeting and blogging. They keep me aware of gender issues, too often horrifying me in the process. The positive thing, the irony even, is that I’m not learning about these problems from whisperings in the corridor or meetings in darkened basements. I’m learning about gender inequality in a public forum from women who have achieved success and whom I follow primarily because I think their science is cool. Indeed, their example has given me the confidence to write about this without fear of losing a job over it.
The fight for gender equality is far from over. I can think of many things about the attitudes of both institutions and individuals that make me feel uneasy as a woman. I would hope (perhaps naively) that if and when I have a child, things will have changed so that I get a reasonable amount of time off. Having the freedom to choose how to split said time with my partner, with no one pre-prescribing my role by giving me more time than him, would also be a major step forward. I’m sure that if I were a member of the LGBT community, my life would be considerably harder. I’m sure there are some old fogeys out there who will scoff at these ideas. But I just want to say – and I hope not to have to retract this in the future – at this moment in my life, in this lab, I don’t think the fact that I have a vagina is going to stop me from being a successful scientist.
