Girl Power!

A.S.A.P
Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:08:31 +0000

But we have a reality here where women are NOT going into the sciences in as high of numbers as men. So of course there will be fewer Nobels being given to women.

It’s not fair. It’s not how it should be. But it is that way. We need to understand why if we ever want that 50/50 in the sciences that we should probably have.



I’ve been lurking on the Chronicles for Higher Ed discussion board lately, as my dd is going into a PhD program next year, and I’ve learned a lot about life in academia.

The topic of inequality does come up, and one of the themes that I hear is that women academics in the sciences, where a lot of lab time and research money is invested, often have problems balancing their career with childbearing and care. Just getting a PhD alone takes 6-8 years, often, and these are the childbearing years. Because there are relatively few women scientists in the upper echelons of science academia, women are not finding the support from their colleagues that women may find in the business world these days., or even in other academic fields, where there have traditionally been more women. Often the ones who succeed postpone, or decide against kids.

In one thread I read recently, a young woman was afraid to tell her PhD advisor that she and her husband were going to start a family. Her advisor, an elderly and somewhat rigid old prof, had said several times to his grad students, “There will be no babies in this department!” She was posting to get encouragement from other women in the forum to tell her advisor to take a hike ( in this area)

It’s a slow process, this equality thing. We’re making more progress in some areas than in others. Women will always have to deal with childbearing and the time/commitment that the family entails to a much greater degree than the men in their fields due to biology. It’s not fair, but it’s life. The sooner we get our men to understand (and they’re beginning to) and to make accomodation for this unique feature of the female gender, the quicker these changes will happen. We will have more women Nobels - but it will take time.