Yup. I just interviewed a young scientist, doing wonderful research into
wound healing. When I asked if she wanted a family, she said No: "If you
just look at my schedule, I don't have time to devote to children."
Mandi
From: Larry Romsted [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 15 February 2012 01:59 PM
To: Science for the People Discussion List; Mandi Smallhorne
Subject: Re: Motherhood detrimental to science careers?
Mandi:
Thanks for this well written and important article. It shows that the
amount of time demanded to have a successful academic career (finishing to
retirement as the base), is nuts for men and women (50-60 hour work weeks)
in the math based sciences. And in the math base sciences, having a child
makes the strain worse on women and seems to "liberate" men (statistically,
Figure 6) to spend even more time at work. I cannot assess the validity of
this work, but on first reading it looks solid.
One recommendation that did not seem to be considered was the demand for a
40 hour work week.
Academic scientists are slaves to their work. Child bearing women just
cannot slave hard enough. Jeez.
Larry
From: Mandi Smallhorne <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Science for the People Discussion List
<[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:02:01 +0200
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Motherhood detrimental to science careers?
"It is time for universities to move past thinking about underrepresentation
of women in science solely as a consequence of biased hiring and evaluation,
and instead think about it as resulting from outdated policies created at a
time when men with stay-at-home wives ruled the academy."
Motherhood 'detrimental' to women's scientific careers, study concludes
ITHACA, N.Y. - Women with advanced degrees in math-intensive academic fields
drop out of fast-track research careers primarily because they want children
- not because their performance is devalued or they are shortchanged during
interviewing and hiring, according to a new study at Cornell University.
"Motherhood - and the policies that make it incompatible with a tenure-track
research career - take a toll on women that is detrimental to their
professional lives. Even just the plan to have children in the future is
associated with women exiting the research fast-track at a rate twice that
of men," report Cornell human development professors Wendy Williams and
Stephen Ceci in the March-April issue of the journal American Scientist
(http://bit.ly/AoZBdP).
"It is time for universities to move past thinking about underrepresentation
of women in science solely as a consequence of biased hiring and evaluation,
and instead think about it as resulting from outdated policies created at a
time when men with stay-at-home wives ruled the academy," said Williams, who
founded the Cornell Institute for Women in Science, a research and outreach
center that studies and promotes the careers of women scientists.
For the study, Williams and Ceci analyzed data related to the academic
careers of women and men with and without children in academic fields,
including math-heavy ones. They found that before becoming mothers, women
have careers equivalent to or better than men's. "They are paid and promoted
the same as men, and are more likely to be interviewed and hired in the
first place," Williams said.
###
The study builds on previous research by Williams and Ceci published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that women in
math-intensive fields did not face discrimination in hiring, publishing or
funding.
The current research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Contact Syl Kacapyr for information about Cornell's TV and radio studios.
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