Supporting professional women scientists
Deborah Yoder-Himes
Monday, 06 July 2009 18:23 UTC
About two years ago, I attended an international meeting for my field of study in which thousands of microbiologists flooded to Toronto, CA. At this meeting, my husband and I went to a workshop about how to balance a family life and academia which was led by a respected tenured professor at a major research institution. The discussion quickly led to whether sucessfully raising children and obtaining tenure could ever co-exist or if the academic system was still too stacked against women with families. In the midst of this, I posed the question, “How can we actively support women scientists if we ourselves do not have tenure yet?” to the speaker. Her response was that we couldn’t or shouldn’t “rock the boat” until we get tenure ourselves. However, this response left me feeling hollow. Afterwards, I thought of some options such as inviting assistant professors to give talks at our institution, actively searching out new collaborators, and being solid mentors to women in our labs.
My question is this. Can others think of additional ways to support women scientists in their careers even if we are not in a ideal position? I hope to find an academic position in the next few years and would like some input as to the steps I can take now and when I take a position to support my fellow scientists.
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Perhaps one way of supporting women in science can simply be making women aware that this feeling of insecurity – of rating yourself lower, as in the report – is not uncommon among women scientists. It’s always nice to know that “I’m not the only one”.
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Anonymous
I think part of supporting women scientists should be about supporting whatever decision they choose to make in thier career, rather than constantly talking about how to get more women into higher ranking positions. Not that I dont support that, but I am finding that you are “not allowed” to have the attitude that you are happy being a post-doc and working for someone else, you “must” want to pursue tenure and creating your own lab and research group. I think that attitude puts a lot of undue pressure on women, who might, for family or other reasons, be content to be second in charge, supervise a project under someone else’s managment, get regular publications, help a few students etc.
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Back to your original post, I have heard many senior (tenured) female researchers say that they either put off family until they ‘made it’ or dropped them off at childcare basically at day one; so I am not surprised by the comment that the speaker recommended not ‘rocking the boat’.
Saying that, I don’t necessarily agree. I think that if you see the need for something and have the desire to do something about it then go for it.
As a PhD student I was very disheartened by the perceived lack of support and encouragement the female scientists I was working with seemed to receive. So with support from fellow female graduate students, post docs and the University, I started a women in science society. Now in its fourth year the society aims to promote and encourage women in their scientific careers by providing information and resources, formal and informal social events with prominent members of the scientific community, a support network of role models, mentors and peers, and networking opportunities for career development. The society works closely with the universities career services; they have run a number of courses for our members including networking, grant writing and CV writing courses, which have all been really popular and help develop the kills we need for which ever direction we want our career to take and help to boost confidence.
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