2 Out of 2 FSPs Recommend..

Recently I compared notes with another FSP about what we tell younger women who ask us questions about careers and families and so on. We have both done many panel discussions, pizza lunches, and other formal and informal mentoring/role modeling activities over the years.

It was interesting for me to talk with her about Science and other issues because she is one of the most prominent scientists in the world in my general field, is about a decade older than I am, is the mother of more children than I will ever have, and is a senior professor at a large and famous private university.

Other FSP (OFSP): Do you get asked all the time about when is the 'best time' to have a baby?
FSP (me): Yes, that always comes up at women-in-science panels and lunches.
OFSP: What do you say?
FSP: I say that there is no best time, so if you want to have a baby, you should go ahead, even if you don't have tenure or a tenure-track job yet.
OFSP: That's exactly what I say!

Conclusion: 2 out of 2 Female Science Professors think that women should have a baby when they are ready to have a baby.

FSP: Do you get asked all the time whether couples should pursue their careers even if it means a long distance relationship or whether one member of the couple should sacrifice their dream career so that they can live together?
OSFP: Yes, that always comes up as well.
FSP: What do you say?
OFSP: I say that everyone has to decide what is best for their own situation and there is no one solution that is best for everyone.
FSP: That's exactly what I say!

Conclusion: 2 out of 2 Female Science Professors think that each academic couple has to figure out what is best for them, after carefully weighing the options.

OFSP: Do you think it really matters what we say, or is it enough that we just exist as examples of women scientists with families and careers, just to show that it can be done?
FSP: I hope it is enough that we just exist, because I don't know what I am talking about most of the time when I'm asked to give advice.
OFSP: Me neither.

Conclusion: 2 out of 2 Female Science Professors are much better at doing Science than being Mentors, but we are trying.

Unbalanced

A male colleague at another university has told me numerous times that he uses me as Exhibit A when discussing life/career issues with students and postdocs (particularly women). For him, I am living proof that It Can Be Done: have a research/teaching career and a family and a happy life.

He recently told me that a postdoc (whom we both know) said she didn’t think I was a good example because my life is ‘unbalanced’. My colleague was disturbed by this because he felt that she was being irrational about rejecting me as a Role Model. I don’t have a problem with it – everyone has their own definition of balance, and what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for others.

What does bother me is that the postdoc who thinks I am ‘unbalanced’ made this characterization with inadequate data. For example, she assumed that I never take vacations with my family because I couldn’t possibly ever take time off and get as much done as I seem to do. News flash: I excel at taking vacations. I go somewhere interesting with my family several times each year. Some trips are with my daughter alone, and some involve my husband, daughter, and me. Some trips are related to professional travel (e.g., tacking on a family vacation to a conference trip) but some are entirely vacation. And sometimes we just lurk at home and have fun doing random things together.

Another example: this postdoc assumed that I must not spend much time with my daughter, who is in elementary school. Owing to the flexibility of an academic job, I spend as much (and possibly more) time with my daughter as parents with full-time non-academic jobs. My daughter is a happy, healthy, interesting person, and we have lots of fun together. If the postdoc doesn’t want to work full-time when her kids are young, that is her decision to make, but it doesn’t mean my life is ‘unbalanced’. It’s just not how she wants her life to be.

My colleague went to great effort to convince the postdoc that I am not just an insane working machine, but he says that she is unconvinced. It’s possible that she doesn’t want to be convinced, and that’s fine. It would be better if she would just say that she doesn’t want a career at a research university for her own reasons rather than using me as a negative example, but I know it can be hard to admit that in an environment that considers desiring a faculty position at a research university to be the ultimate goal, with anything else indicating failure or a lack of ambition.

So, I hope I get to keep my credentials as a Role Model, even if being living proof that It Can Be Done is not enough to convince everyone that this is the best possible life – because it isn’t the best possible life for everyone.

Anti-Mentors, part 2

A while ago, I wrote about anti-mentors who actively discourage young scientists (in particular women) from pursuing their careers. I wrote in particular about 2 evil ones I had encountered in my academic life. There are other kinds of anti-mentors, though, including.. me.

I have long been aware, even in the pre-blog era, that I am an anti-mentor to some people, in the sense that they see what my life/career is like and decide they don't want to have that kind of life/career. Anti-mentor isn't really the right term for this, as I am not actively trying to discourage students who would otherwise have a happy, fulfilling career in academia/science. But the effect is the same in the end. I have seen this effect on some of my own students (male and female), and I see it in blog comments from time to time.

To put a positive spin on it, perhaps people who wouldn't enjoy this kind of life are finding that out by seeing examples of what life is like for a science professor at a big research university, and perhaps it's better to find that out sooner rather than later. I think I have the greatest job in the world and can't imagine doing anything else that I'd enjoy so much, but maybe if I didn't have that passion for research and teaching and all the rest of it, the negative aspects of the job would drive me crazy.

I hope that all the anecdotes and other reports about how women are treated unfairly do not discourage anyone who is passionate about science. It's still worth pursuing this career if you think that's what you want to do. It's worth pursuing it at a personal level, and it's worth it at a global level: the world will be a better place when there are more women scientists and science professors.

There have been major positive changes for women in science in the decades since I was a student. We can continue to change the culture of academia for the better by being a major part of the culture instead of existing mostly as isolated individuals. I hope, therefore, that overall more women are encouraged than discouraged.

STEM cells

By coincidence, just as I was spending a lot of time in the past week being a Role Model and advisor for groups of graduate and undergraduate women in science, I also saw the movie "The Gender Chip". If you haven't seen it, it's a movie, available on DVD, that follows the undergraduate careers of a small group of young women at Ohio State University as they work their way through science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors.

An aspect of the movie that rang very true was the clear depiction of the dedication and energy of the women, even while plagued with some doubts about what their futures will be like. Such doubts are normal for most undergraduates, but for these and many women, the doubts focus on whether their careers will stop completely when they have kids, perhaps just a few years after they get started with the careers they have worked so hard to achieve.

Another 'true' part of the movie is the contention that young women today won't put up with being treated as less able than men in an academic setting. I saw this in action last week when I met with a group of young women (undergraduate and graduate students) who made it very clear that they know how good they are. They know that they are smart, dedicated, and hard-working, and that this should lead to many opportunities. Most of their stories about being treated as having inferior abilities or intellects compared to men came from their experiences with jobs and internships, not from academia. If there is a bright side to that, it's that these women are gaining a lot of self-confidence from their academic experiences.

I saw the Gender Chip movie before I looked at the movie/project's webpage, and was surprised to see that it is being promoted as a tool for encouraging, inspiring, or recruiting young women to pursue careers in STEM. I'd be interested to see how successful it is at that goal. I liked the movie overall, but I didn't get a very good sense for "What is it like to be a young woman training in college for a career in the high stakes professions of science, math, engineering and technology?" or "When gender collides with our cultural assumptions about who can flourish in these fields, how are young women changing the real and practical terms of engagement?" [quotes from Gender Chip website].

I suppose it helps for pre-college girls to see 'real' women doing well and being passionate about science, engineering, math. One of my favorite parts of the movie was when one of the young women talks emphatically about how much she loves concrete, steel, and asphalt.

Anti-Mentors

I am often asked whether I had any mentors when I was younger, but it's less common to be asked about what I will call anti-mentors: people who actively try to discourage you, but not out of kindness or wisdom. Perhaps I will write a relentlessly upbeat posting soon to balance these negative ones, but in the meantime -

My thoughts have turned to anti-mentors in part because of the occasion this week of the 80th birthday of one of the most virulent ones I have encountered in my life. I have had 2 notable anti-mentors, and one died 20 years ago. This is the other one. I was told recently that it would "mean a lot" to this person if I acknowledged his birthday, but there don't seem to be any birthday cards that quite express the depth of my loathing and contempt for this person, and I don't want to waste my time to make a suitable card. Furthermore, if I did send a happy little card with fond birthday wishes, he would take it as his due as a Great Man that even people he tried to crush pay him homage. No thanks.

I think that anti-mentors can be useful, to a limited extent. Of course life would be better without them, but in my own experience, the unfairness of it all and the anger I felt at how I was treated by them gave me an extra bit of motivation to succeed. It would be devastating if someone I respected had told me I was stupid and was never going to be a professor, but I didn't respect these people. "I'll show them.." isn't the purest of motivations, and it's not enough to get you where you want to go if you don't also love what you're doing (despite the jerks), but, even so, it can push you along at times.

Role Modeling

Today I talked informally with some women grad students (not my own), most from other universities. Some were considering not seeking academic jobs because they wanted to have 'a life'. I asked them why they didn't think they could have a life and an academic career as well, and the answer was that they didn't know anyone who did both. Some of these schools have no women faculty or, at most, one (unmarried/childless) in our general field. So I kicked into Role Model mode, telling them about my family and demonstrating that it is entirely possible to have a family and be a science professor and to enjoy both.

I am happy to do the Role Model thing, but I'm always amazed that it is as important as it is.