Women, science, and the tenure track: An immodest proposal

A new report described in the New York Times has found that women who earn PhDs in science are much less likely than men to get on and stay on the tenure track. Some of the findings, while not a surprise to this woman formerly on the tenure track in science, bear highlighting:

• Married women with young children are 35% less likely than their male counterparts to enter the tenure track after earning their PhDs.
• If married women with young children do get on the tenure track, they're still 27% less likely than their male counterparts to stay there long enough to earn tenure.
• Tenured male scientists are more likely to be married and have children compared to their female counterparts, 73% vs 53%, respectively.

These gaps are not as startling in the social sciences, and even less so in the humanities. And here's a fun fact: One study reports that unmarried women in the sciences and social sciences are significantly more likely to have tenure track jobs than unmarried men within five years of earning the PhD.

In other words, the way things are right now, if you want to succeed as a woman in science, you'd better stay unmarried. If you want to succeed as a man, find a gal and get to reproducin'. But there are other options if only academia could drag itself out of the constructs of the Middle Ages and enter the flexible new world of the 21st century.

Anyone, especially any mother, can think of some obvious reasons we'd reluctantly hop off of the tenure track. Indeed, Berkeley scientists list some that women in science have provided, noted in this slide show, "Do Babies Matter?" (Hint: Yes, they do.) The difficulties with aligning the need to be in a lab 9 or 10 hours a day (not including your evening grant and paper writing) versus caring for the child you chose to have are paramount reasons. Women see that decision about expenditure of time away from their children as a sacrifice--both of themselves and their career if they don't do it, and of their children's well being if they do. In the end, that powerful maternal instinct often subsumes the rest.

I once was a scientist on the tenure track, fully engaged in my research and teaching. Now, I am not, and this year marks the 10th year anniversary of my having earned my PhD in biological sciences. I did the postdoc. I wrote the grants. I published the papers. I had an assistant professorship complete with lab, research assistants, grad students. And I walked--or tugged myself--away from it. Why? Because I have a PhD in biology that tells me that parenting my children is in any number of ways the most important thing I can do and because my parenting instincts made me. I could not ignore either of them.

So now I sit at home and write and edit research papers, general science, education materials, books. I still use my degree, and it seems that people like me are needed out there, away from academe but still in science. I'm glad of it and the degree that gives me this flexibility, and I'm staying connected to science because of it. In the midst of this work, I homeschool my son, who has autism. All of the responsibilities for appointments (there are many with many specialists), therapies, classes, extracurriculars, and playdates for my three sons are mine, while my spouse works the 40-hour week and keeps us insured. I take care of most cooking and household general maintenance. My days are insane and unpredictable, primarily because my children are young and can hurl or spike a fever or break something important at any hour of the day or night. I often reflect that if I had retained my full-time academic employment outside of my home, other people--nannies, I suppose--would be raising my children. There's just not another way to do both.

I know that in about 10 years or so, my day-to-day, hour-to-hour parenting of my children won't be nearly as intense. I'll probably have all kinds of time, time I could devote, say, in a lab, doing research, engaging in the practice of science, teaching science to others. A lot of the talk about women on the tenure track is about slowing down the train, stretching out the time to tenure, having some flex-time built in. But I have another proposal: Let us back on after a lapse of time. We'd certainly be ready.

Yes, the gap may mean we haven't been keeping up (although I have, thanks to my work), but you know what? We've proven ourselves already. We were smart enough to earn the PhD, in many cases to complete the fellowships, publish the papers, write the grants...all that before or even while having young children. We're still that able 10 years down the road, emerging as seasoned project managers and multitaskers, both important research skills, in addition to still having our doctoral degree. So as one possible solution to the tenured women in science issue--I suggest we drop the rigid continuity requirement born of a different time and culture and simply agree: If I'm willing to re-enter research and teaching and work my ass off again doing it when my children achieve independence, be flexible and consider letting me back on that track.