Women in Science

Throughout history, women have consistently made vast contributions to the advancement of science. The likes of Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, and Annie Jump Cannon have made great strides in furthering our knowledge about radioactivity, nucleic acid structure, and astronomy, respectively. But in addition to facing the obvious intellectual challenges associated with science, these women also endured a rough road that involved little to no recognition and recompense for their work. Even today, women continue to face challenges within the realm of science that include balancing work with family, charting a career course without gender-specific mentorship, and dealing with discrepancies in pay. Much of the difficulty, however, may very well be brought about by the gross differences in the number of women and men who work in the field.

“Science continues to be seen as a male-dominated work environment,” says Libby Yost, a 4^th year Ph.D. student of medical sociology at UAB whose Master’s thesis investigated gender differences in postdoctoral education. “This has an impact on who chooses to enter the professions and especially who continues into higher education tracks. Women fall out of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academic pipeline at a greater rate than their male counterparts.”

Indeed, by the time a woman reaches the higher education path for science, she has already lived much of her life in opposition to what society considers “gender appropriate roles.” Oftentimes, the support and encouragement offered to male counterparts when choosing a career in science is not as readily extended to her. And as she continues to advance through higher education and eventually enters the world of academia, she will likely find dwindling numbers of female peers and a noticeable increase in male professors. To a large extent, the severe number of females who drop off the pathway to professorship can be attributed to the age at which training is completed, a time at which many women decide to start a family.

“Women entering STEM academia are typically [in their] early to mid 30s by the time they complete their education,” says Yost. “This is typically seen as a time to have children and start a family for those who might wish to do so. However, these first six years in tenure track positions are arduous at best and require long hours of work and great amounts of production. Having a child is often looked down on because it will impede the amount of work a woman can complete. Striking a balance between work and personal life is tough on good days, but adding relationships and children can be time consuming especially when trying to balance work and family and start a career.”

According to Robin Lorenz, M.D., Ph.D., and professor in the UAB department of pathology, one of the main challenges she faces as a female scientist is making sure that her career as well as her life runs smoothly. Although she believes it is certainly possible to have a career in science as well as a family, she also acknowledges that this duality requires a lot of sacrifice.

“You have to learn to efficiently get your work done in the time you have,” she says, “as you may need to leave a little earlier than your male colleagues to pick up a kid from daycare, take them to the doctor, etc. You also have to learn to focus in short time frames by reviewing a grant at the skating rink or reading a journal article while waiting to pick up your daughter from dance.”

Lorenz says that much of the need for this multi-tasking can be attributed to the ongoing cultural bias that women are the caregivers of the family. 

“In addition to being scientists, [women] also have to be the cook, driver, buyer, planner, etc. of the family. For some stay-at-home moms, this is a full-time job so adding it on top of a demanding career sometimes leads to burnout.”

Another difficulty encountered by women is a lack of female mentorship available to those who are en route to becoming new scientists.

“If women are mentored by men,” Yost says, “there is a functional social aspect that is missing … I think more specialized mentoring programs for junior faculty in STEM areas should be put into place to help women better adapt to the environment. If they are mentored by other women who have already had to ‘jump through the hoops,’ I think they will be [better] able to see that it can be done …" 

And still the issue of pay discrepancies continues to plague the field of science. Kristina Leuner, Ph.D. and a visiting scientist at UAB, says that in her home country of Germany, men are seen as the breadwinner of the family and, oftentimes, this very viewpoint creates differences in pay scales for men and women.

“Another graduate student in our department was given a salary raise to that of post-doc levels even though he was still a student. I was told that he received this promotional increase because he had to support a family. I had to wait until I graduated and officially became a post-doc before I could receive my salary increase.”

Maaike Everts, Ph.D. and assistant professor in the UAB department of pathology suggests that an underlying reason women lag behind men in the field of science is the perception that a female’s worth is less than that of a male’s.

“Both men and women have this unconscious bias, and there is a lot of fascinating literature about how words like ‘leadership’, ‘authority’, and ‘expert’ still conjure a male image in our mind. Also, when women get to leadership positions, they are scrutinized to a much larger extent than men with respect to the way they behave, dress, talk, you name it. This all points to the fact we’re still not so much used to women being in charge.”

Most college campuses now offer assistance to women who have chosen careers in one of the STEM areas. UAB ADVANCE, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, aims to increase recruitment, retention, and promotion of women who are in one of these STEM areas. According to their website, the ADVANCE initiative has worked to implement Family Friendly Policies in addition to offerings such as Lunch and Learn seminars for female faculty, Seminars for Success that may be attended by female and male faculty, a mentoring program for junior faculty, and administrative leadership training.

Above the difficulties, however, many women scientists enjoy their career immensely and can’t imagine doing anything else.

“You get to decide what type of research to do, you are always learning, your get to find out new facts that no one else knows, and it is very flexible so you can be a mom/wife in addition to being a scientist,” Lorenz says. “If I had to choose again, I would do exactly the same pathway. I love what I do and I look forward to coming to work every day.”

Published in the UAB Graduate Student Newsletter, March 2009