Women doing PhDs

[andrewducker]

There's a fascinating piece here on women who do science PhDs and then give up on academia - a higher proportion of women  than men do so.

A study for the Royal Society of Chemistry has found that although 72% of the women surveyed intended to pursue a university career in the first year of their PhDs, by their third year this had slumped to 37%.

This wasn't the case for their male peers. The study found 61% of them wished to pursue a university research career in their first year; this fell by only two percentage points, to 59%, by their third year.

About 450 molecular bioscientists (all female) and 610 chemists (male and female) took part. All were either studying for PhDs or had just finished them. They were quizzed on what encouraged them to pursue a research career, or what put them off. Several women said they had been warned they would encounter problems if they chose to continue on an academic path, because of their gender.

More women than men had come to view academic careers as too solitary and the fight for permanent posts after a PhD too competitive. One in 10 of the men felt "powerless to resolve significant issues" with their PhD supervisers, while this was the case for 17% of the women.

More women than men felt isolated or excluded from, and sometimes even bullied by, their research group. When their experiments went wrong, the women were more likely to "internalise failure", the studies found. And more women than men were discouraged by the "all-consuming nature of science", which the authors interpreted as its incompatibility with motherhood and family.

Women were also more likely to find their research repetitive and frustrating - 57% did, compared with 43% of the men. This finding, in particular, baffles Dr Shara Cohen, a former senior scientist who quit nine years ago to run her own business.

"I don't think the male chauvinism is conscious any more, or as overt as in the old days," says Rohn, "but it's still there. When it comes to recruiting a position or selecting speakers for high-profile lectures, men naturally think of their mates first. You still see seminar series with hardly any females speaking, and shortlisted positions with no, or few, female candidates."

Rohn says when she was studying, women were told: "Don't worry, when the old guys retire, women will finally get the professorships." But, she says, "the reality seems to have been that the old guys are just replaced with younger guys".

But why see this all so negatively, asks Rohn. "I don't see women leaving academia as a defect or as cowardice. I see it as wisdom. With a science PhD, it's possible to do a whole host of other rewarding and important jobs. Women now feel they can give up gracefully without losing face and go on to do something more fun."

Comments

[matgb]

Immediate response as I'm rushing. All the men were chemists, but a significant chunk of the women were molecular biologists.

What proportion of male molbols drop out? You need to compare like with like. what proportion of the female chemists stay in the field?

Gotta run though, is there a link to the actual paper rather than the Guardian report? I trust their science reporting more than other papers, but only by a little bit, and only because they pay Dr Ben.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

But why see this all so negatively, asks Rohn. "I don't see women leaving academia as a defect or as cowardice. I see it as wisdom. With a science PhD, it's possible to do a whole host of other rewarding and important jobs. Women now feel they can give up gracefully without losing face and go on to do something more fun."


Why do a hard sciencey job??? Why not have more fun??? Be a secretary!

*dead*

[andrewducker]

"She has instead moved into science policy and spends her days meeting with politicians and scientists, and drafting submissions for government consultations on anything from biofuels to genetically modified crops."

Hardly a secretary...

[asim.livejournal.com]

I took "secretary" to be an "exaggeration for effect", not an pronouncement for the actual jobs this guy took her to "deserve".

[andrewducker]

Jenny Rohn is unlikely to be a guy. And nobody is talking about "deserving" anything.

[asim.livejournal.com]

Look, if someone says that "maybe Academica isn't for women", which is exactly my interpretation of that quote, I think it's a point to question where they're coming from. I do apologize for getting the gender wrong -- but at the same time, I'm wondering what's her point?
I use the term "deserve" because the implication I got from "Women now feel they can give up gracefully" was that women deserved to go off and do "something fun" now. As opposed to, one presumes, the hard work of being an academic?

Maybe I'm reading too much into a last paragraph. But it felt, to me, like I could have swapped "African-American" for "Women" in it, and got much of the commentary about why we, as well, aren't supposedly well-represented in Academic circles -- reasons that have nothing to do with the reality of the situation.

[andrewducker]

I think they were saying that women were, in this case, being wise in not bull-headedly trying to gain an achievement, and doing something more fulfilling instead, while men battered themselves against it. Which would lead to the kind of problem highlighted here (comments on my earlier post here.

Personally, I think the world would be a better place if more people suddenly said "Hang on, why am I spending my life trying to achieve X? What is it actually going to gain me?" I know two people who have dropped out of academia during PhDs, having decided that academia just isn't for them. Both of them were male, though.

I do see your point that we definitely _don't_ want to be telling women that academia is too hard for them - that would be bad. But if we could re-evaluate academia in general, and look at whether it was set up in a way that unneccesarily makes life hard for _everyone_ that would be worthwhile.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I didn't read it as "why not be a secretary?" - I thought it was suggesting that there are a whole range of other jobs, like science policy, science writing, lab management, and a selection of jobs in industrty, all of which would use the PhD they have acquired but are not subject to the problems of academic careers.

[asim.livejournal.com]

Thank you for encapsulating my exact reaction. WTF? "Pure" academia is too much for these "poor souls", so they go off to do something easier?

This is like the PhD version of that "Math is hard!" Barbie Bullcrap from a few years back.

[andrewducker]

Not too hard - not rewarding for the effort put in.

I've known a few people who work in academia. I _could_ do it. I'd hate it, and I wouldn't get the kind of (non-financial) rewards out of it that I do from working in my current job.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

This is quite interesting, although I am a bit wary of the numbers as maybe it's an effect of being a molecular bioscientist, and that is more likiely to put people off than being a chemist. Actually I am not surprised by how many women decide they don't want to pursue a university career by third year, I am surprised by how small the drop is among the men.

Most of the seminar series I attend are male-dominated - I would guess maybe ten percent of the speakers are male? At the last conference I went to, they had nine keynote speakers and all of them were male, and of the senior scientists leading the sessions only one was female.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I am astonished that they found such a high percentage of people (male or female) who wanted to remain in academia by the 3rd year of their PhD. I did my time in the chemistry dept. and from our lab there were only 2 people (out of about 25) who remained in academia afterwards. The main reasons were that the financial rewards available in industry are far greater, and also because there are relatively few academic positions available compared to industry. I think the competitiveness of academic positions may have more to do with it. The suggestion that there is less job security in academia is laughable, especially in this day and age.

It's probably not the same in all subjects, but certainly in chemistry, if you want to continue in academia, the normal route after a PhD is to do one or more post-docs, which do generally involve more repetitive lab work. But the next step up the ladder is to become a lecturer and very few lecturers ever set foot inside research labs for more than 5 minutes at a time.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I don't see women leaving academia as a defect or as cowardice... Women now feel they can give up gracefully without losing face

I see it as a problem with academia that it squeezes women out and obliges them to 'give up gracefully'. I look forward to the day when talented women are not expected to give up, while only praised for doing it so gracefully.

[dalglivk.livejournal.com]

I feel I ought to make a comment having left research after completing my PhD in biochemistry. I decided that although a career in research would be rewarding and fulfilling, I weighed up the pros and cons and felt that completing a degree in medicine would make me better qualified for biochemical or medical research posts. However, having studied medicine I then realised that this was a career that I would prefer to follow and was more rewarding due to directly helping people therefore effectively I dropped out of academia after completing my PhD. I would not say that I dropped out of academia because it was 'too hard' because the medical course was extremely difficult and stressful! I dropped out of academia because of better career potential and a more fulfilling job and lifestyle.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

This is actually probably a discipline-specific issue. From what I hear, in the lab-based sciences, you need to put in a lot of time on the bench, supervising your experiments (a bit like time spent in front of The Puter, coding). In high testosterone environments, where guys either don't care about their home life or expect a mother-substitute to run their life for them, Putting in Time = Cool. Since women don't tend to have wives, you have your problem right there.

[ami-bender.livejournal.com]

The About bioscientists (all female) strikes me as slightly invalidating the statistics.

I also know people in this area and it is VERY cut throat. You have more prospects (so I am told) with a chemistry degree. That in itself may go a long way to explaining the results.