By Linda Lowen
You became a full professor at the same time you discovered you were about to become a mother. The biggest argument as to why academia is stacked against women is that the childbearing years coincide with those years in which you're busy compiling achievements, publishing articles, doing all those things that ensure that you'll get tenure. What were the decisions that factored into your choices, and how have you made it all work out?
When I was doing this, there was much less awareness that you can be a serious scientist and have a family. I decided not to have a family for a while, but became pregnant and so the decision was made for me. I didn't realize it would be so hard to have a child and do my research; I didn't think it through.
Women are thinking of this nowadays. In institutions, there's recognition now that the clock will be stopped, there will be time for children, and that there'll be times in a woman's life that she won't be doing science alone. If you look at a trajectory of a few decades - the productive years of a woman's life - the time you'll need to spend intensively with the children occurs in batches throughout that period. Getting them into kindergarten is one significant period. Then again in high school attention has to be paid to them.
There are definitely some years where you're not going to be 100% focused on your work. But if you average this out over several decades, say 20-30 years of every productive life, you don't have to sacrifice your career just because you lose a little bit of time here and there.
Young women seem to see it as one or the other - the fork in the road. My recommendation is to think about the fact that family responsibilities come in waves and it does take time; but work also takes time, so you need to decide to be very focused on this. For my husband and I, our lives were work and family and that was it; everything else stopped for a time, and now we're resuming things like going out to dinner or the movies. It wasn't a sacrifice; we love both our family and our work.
Of course you need good support to do this. Use that good science mind, your good problem solving mind, to figure out how you are going to go about this. I learned from all sorts of women, from those who were young to those who - like me - had children later. In my own field, the American Society of Cell Biology has a
Women in Cell Biology group with web pages full of resources. They also have a wonderful pictorial display of women scientists with their families. Younger women scientists who view this gallery of women with their families see that it's being done successfully by others.
It's important to encourage them and demonstrate that this is not impossible to do. The best practical advice I can give is to use your problem solving skills to see what different kinds of solutions there are. It's hard work, but it's okay to have a challenging time.
I bumbled though it like everybody does. I don't think we went to a movie or traveled on vacations. I spent minimal time at conferences and hurried home to be with my family. Of course it's going to be work, and you do find yourself wishing you were in two places at once. Of course the kids do fine; the evidence doesn't bear out that they won't.
You aren't a terrible parent if you aren't there after work every day baking cookies. I baked cookies - not such good ones but I baked. I was helped by the fact that I was a full professor so I attended those child related events that I wanted to be at. People will respect you if you take the time to make time for your children.
We'll always have guilt and stay-at-home moms have it too, although it's a different kind of guilt. We just have to realize we're not doing our children a disservice when we're engaged in our jobs if we are also engaged in them . The media does tend to stereotype women with a one size fits all model , while real examples aren't well represented in the media.
What would you like to communicate to young girls, teens, and mothers of girls who are interested in science, but may lose themselves in the science and math gender gap? What advice do you have?
Coming back to what I was alluding to regarding the family - if you're someone who finds science interesting, you have the mind of mind that enjoys grappling with questions. Finding how to juggle time without falling into the trap of some stereotype is the challenge. Use your own problem solving mind to discover ways to do this.
The reality is that science offers a challenging career and autonomy, and it's fun. Women scientists choose to do this - it's not a burden. Unless they feel pushed out by professional circumstances, women who want to be in the sciences think of these challenges as problems they can solve, and then do it.
A career in research science only appears daunting because of the mythologies surrounding it.
In my own childhood experiences watching my parents, I could see that a woman having a career was as normal as a man. I was one of 7 children and my mother was a doctor who practiced medicine when she could; she could leave and re-enter the field. There are many examples of that. I grew up seeing that women were just as intelligent and able as men.
I asked for a little microscope once for Christmas, and I got that. I wasn't ever told, "Girls don't want microscopes." But just because a girl doesn't come from a family like mine doesn't prevent her from pursuing science. A girl from any background can succeed with encouragement.
The creativity of science is very much like that in the arts; both are about your brain being created.
Showing girls and women realistic images of women in the sciences is part of the solution. When the media depicts real women, it sends the message that these are scientists, they look like women who have lives, and women are recognized when they do good science. For example, the L’ORÉAL Prize is an opportunity to put out positive messages about women in science by showing there are different kinds of women from different backgrounds. It encourages young girls by showing them the important work that women can accomplish in science and research.
