Lakeside Caché

Oikawa
Photo courtesy of Patrica Oikawa

At the end of my first field season in graduate school, my cohort of students met with a few faculty members to discuss ways to improve our program. We were all part of a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded program that involved both research and training in interdisciplinary science. The meeting was instigated by the students who had identified some problems during the summer. There were certain issues we had decided to bring up at the meeting, such as the fact that certain workshops were not productive and that communication between students and faculty needed to be improved. The faculty sincerely cared about the success of the program, so they had agreed to meet with us and take our suggestions seriously. The meeting was held at a large picnic table by lake’s edge at the biological station. There were five students in my cohort (four women and one man) and three faculty (two men and one woman).

When we got to the issue of improving workshops in the future, one of the faculty members asked for suggestions for future workshop themes. Suddenly, I thought of a great idea: “Why don’t we have one geared towards discussing women’s issues in the sciences?” Most people at the table looked down. I continued on, “One of the requirements for NSF-funded programs is the promotion of women and diversity in the sciences. We could discuss how to achieve these requirements and identify the responsibilities scientists have for promoting diversity in our fields.” After an awkward pause, one of my fellow students spoke up: “We don’t want to exclude anyone.” She was alluding to the only male member of our cohort. By this point, it was clear that no one at the table supported my suggestion and I felt uncomfortable. The idea was quickly discarded and the conversation continued on.

Since this experience by the lake, I have moved along in graduate school and am now in my third year of the Ph.D. program in Biology at U.Va. Sometimes I reflect on that day and wonder what was going through my peers’ heads. There were no verbal attacks against my suggestion nor were there comments indicating that it wasn’t an issue of importance. Essentially, it came down to lack of interest mixed with hesitation over discussing a topic that may “exclude” people. I think this moment reflects the general attitude I have encountered in graduate school concerning equality in the sciences. Some people do not discuss equality for women because it is not a pressing issue or because it is controversial.

I think the main reason people are not actively concerned with women’s equality in science is because it is so hidden that we do not even notice it. Women scientists are not forced to sit at the back of the lecture halls. The majority of men are not actively excluding or oppressing women in the sciences. Nevertheless, women continue to suffer losses and professional disappointments in scientific fields.

For example, it is a fact that female scientists do not advance at the same rate as their male peers. There are also discrepancies in salary and women are more likely to leave science than men (if you are interested in more details on statistics concerning these statements visit: www.hunter.cuny.edu/gendertutorial/ or go to the link at the U.Va. Studies in Women and Gender website).

It is also difficult to talk about equality with my peers while female graduate students are well represented in scientific departments. Many people don’t realize that despite the fact that we are educating a lot of young women, we are not retaining them. A summit held at MIT involving Caltech, Stanford, University of Michigan, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Berkeley, and Harvard worked toward three goals for helping women in the sciences, one of which was having the number of female faculty mirror the number of female students they educate (Bailyn 2003). This is a goal that the University of Virginia, among most American universities, is far from achieving.

On a positive note, I think the University of Virginia’s Women in Mathematics and Sciences (WIMS) group is a great resource for young women battling these issues. The purpose of WIMS is to provide students with a support group and to educate them on the issues they will face once they graduate. Emphasis is on getting female faculty together with female graduate students, inviting speakers to talk with the group on feminist issues, as well as outreach to younger female students. Last year, for example, WIMS organized a shadowing day where girls from the community who were interested in science were able to follow a graduate student around so they could see what it is like to be a young scientist. WIMS provides support for female graduate students and also is empowering for us at a stage where we often feel impotent.

The kind of support that WIMS provides is, unfortunately, hard to come by as a young woman in the sciences. There have been many moments in my career when I have felt isolated, insecure, and lost. While all graduate students go through that process, women face distinct challenges. Due to these issues specifically affecting women’s professional careers, I believe that above all, women need better access to support systems. And this support does not only concern childcare (female faculty without children have been shown to suffer the same setbacks female faculty with children face in academia). The support must come from both the University and community.

As a graduate student, it would be comforting and inspiring to know that the University is hiring as many female faculty as male faculty and that once those female faculty are hired, they are supported and ensured more positive experiences in academia. It would also be important to see faculty members working together to make sure that equality is achieved in the academic setting. This would include ensuring female faculty are not given extra obligations due to their sex (such as sitting on too many committees) as well as keeping tabs on the rate of advancement of female faculty and lab space allocation between the sexes in each department.

Young female scientists also need to witness support coming from the greater community. We should ask ourselves: Are dominant stereotypes concerning the role of women in society challenged on a regular basis? Are children being raised in environments where it is okay for the parents to share responsibilities 50/50? Aspiring female scientists fear not only academic resistance, but resistance when they drop off their children at daycare, when they talk to other women at church, and when they ask their husbands to cook dinner.

I cannot count the number of times I have talked with other female graduate students who vow never to end up like certain professors (e.g. the one with bad hair and no family). But that is not how academia has to be for us! Women can be scientists while being wonderful mothers and wives, but we do need support and fair opportunity and we need young female scientists to be aware of the support that is available and aware of ways to change things for the better.

Therefore, young female scientists have two main afflictions to overcome: ignorance and impotence. The first concerns the fact that most female students are unaware of discrepancies in salary and rates of advancement. We are also uninformed about how U.Va. stands concerning those statistics on a University or departmental level. Generally, we are blind to the obstacles women have faced in the past and how they tackled them in order to achieve professional scientific positions. For example, how do women negotiate pregnancy issues when applying for postdoctoral positions? And how do students successfully report sexual harassment without jeopardizing their careers? The second obstacle concerns our failings to organize and empower our faction. Action should be taken to help bring women together in constructive ways. For example, we could collect data from U.Va. faculty about various forms of discrimination and publish those findings. This sort of process has occurred at other institutions (e.g. MIT) and has been amazingly effective at eliciting change (Bailyn 2003).

Society tends to use masculine characteristics when defining scientists (i.e. assertive and competitive), but science is more about curiosity and persistence, both gender-neutral characteristics (Georgi, 2000). I would add creativity to that list of gender-neutral attributes and am thankful that female scientists are equipped with all three. These attributes will allow us to realize the issues we face, abide in the struggle for equity, and think of new ways to fight insidious professional oppression.

Literature Cited
1.  Bailyn, L. 2003. Academic careers and gender equity: lessons learned from MIT.
          Gender, Work and Organization. 10 (2).
2.  Georgi, H. 2000. Is There Unconscious discrimination against women in science? 
          American Physical Society (APS) News. January, back page.
          http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hgeorgi/women/backpage.htm