The Blind Men and the Elephant

Probably most of you have heard the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant, originally attributed to the Buddha. The story goes that six blind men in a village encounter an elephant for the first time, and each grabs ahold of a different part of the beast. The one standing by the tail believes it to be a rope; the one standing by the belly believes it to be a wall, and so on. In some versions of the story, the men argue endlessly about the nature of the elephant, each insisting that they are right. In other versions, a wise (presumably seeing) man walks by and tells them that, while they each have a portion of the truth, none of them is aware of what the entire animal is like. So they are simultaneously all correct, and all wrong.

As a systems scientist, this parable points to the need to incorporate, and learn from, diverse perspectives on systems. Most large problems we deal with today in the science of the environment are like the elephant—it is figuratively impossible for us to ‘get our arms’ around the whole thing, no matter how much of an expert we may be in our particular piece of the problem (the ear, the tail, etc.) This means that we have to learn from one another while studying the system at the same time. I design processes to do this with both scientists and stakeholder groups.

One of the topics of this blog is women, and diversity, in academia. Some people believe that this is a ‘hot topic’ of the moment that is not deeply consequential. But I believe that diversity in all of our societal institutions is absolutely essential if we are to learn about the issues we face systemically, so that we can make more robust decisions - decisions that take into account the ‘whole beast’, as it were.

I was one of those ‘blind men’ in my first year in the Philippines. The focus of my research was soil erosion and topsoil loss, a major issue in a mountainous country with monsoonal rain patterns and a strong need to increase agricultural production in order to feed one of the fastest growing populations in Asia. The literature on the topic referenced field trials in which several soil conservation techniques were tested, and implied that the only problem was getting farmers to adopt them. The dominant theory in the literature was that farmers were either too poor, too unconcerned about the long-term consequences of soil loss, or too ignorant to implement erosion prevention technologies.

However—unsurprisingly, really—when I began speaking with small-scale farmers, they had a very different view of the situation. Many of them did know about soil conservation technologies, and used them. The real ‘beast’ was that the best land in many parts of the Philippines is owned by large farming operations (for historical and political reasons—a long story I won’t go into here), so the poor farmers are relegated to what is known as ‘marginal land’—steeply sloping, with relatively thin, poor topsoil. Even their best efforts to conserve soil were often ineffective for these reasons. The soil erosion researchers may have been paying attention to the ear, or the tusk, but the farmers had a firm grip on the elephant’s tail, so to speak. Any explanation of the erosion issue is highly ineffective without a diversity of perspectives on the topic—especially the farmers’ grasp on it.

Faculty in universities, being human like everyone else, have to deal with the ‘blind men’ phenomenon. The position requires learning about a wide variety of issues, and taking decisions on everything from research priorities, curricula, funding, hiring, promotion and more. I argue that these decisions are better decisions if those at the table have a diversity of perspectives, derived from a diversity of upbringings, gender, ethnic backgrounds, and worldviews. Interestingly, some have used a similar argument in recent years to criticize the ‘groupthink’ that may emerge from an academe that is more politically liberal than society at large. I’m not going to wade into that snakepit here, [m1] but it is something to consider. While the relative liberal bias of academia is hotly debated, I don’t think anyone can contest that the upper ranks of academia are overwhelmingly white and male—and perhaps prone to groupthink. Time to get some different perspectives on the elephant up in here!

From the next post until the end of the year, I plan to write about poverty, one of my areas of research. What does poverty have to do with the over-arching theme of this blog (women in academia and modern family life)? A lot, IMHO—stay tuned to find out.

What I want to tell my son about sex (in the wake of Steubenville and Maryville)

E, I’m glad we have a little time together. You see, I want to talk to you about sex. Sorry, you can’t jump out of the car—we’re on the freeway now. Anyway, I know your dad already went over all of the basics with you, but I wanted to give you my perspective too—a woman’s perspective. I know you don’t think of your mom as a woman, but I am, and I’ve been around the world a few times more than you have, so listen up.

First, I want to tell you that I understand how confusing sex can be for young men and women in the United States (I’m assuming here that we’re living in the U.S., which may not be the case. But, unfortunately, a lot of the negative aspects of American culture are going global). On the one hand, sex seems to be everywhere around you. You might get the impression that everyone is having sex all of the time. On the other hand, there is shockingly little real or honest information about sex. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most of what you see around you is lies.

You and I have talked before about the fact that some of what our culture tries to tell us, through media, movies, and advertising, is a lie. For example, the idea that having more stuff will make you happier. It won’t, but advertisers want you to think that. Well, the same is true of sex. Advertisers, and the media, seem to keep pushing this idea that women and girls are available for sex all of the time, but passively. Just look at the way scantily clad women are lounging all over things in just about every ad. Even singers and actresses, and other women with successful careers and global reputations, pose this way. On the other hand, the message to young men seems to be that, in order to truly be masculine, you have to be dominant and aggressive towards women. Women are available for sex, but they won’t initiate it, so you have to reach out and ‘take’ it (and porn, which I very much hope you haven’t watched, for the most part perpetuates this idea). Let me tell you in the strongest terms possible that none of this is true.

You see, women and girls are not very different from you. Most are curious about sex, and interested in it, but want it to happen on their own terms, in a situation in which they feel comfortable. Some of them want sex, and some of them don’t. In other words, women and girls are human beings, not objects upon which to act out sexual desires. My hope for you is that you treat every human being with which you have a relationship, sexual or not, with kindness, respect, honesty, and generosity. My hope for you is that you look back on your sex life as an old man with no regrets about the way you interacted with your partners, knowing that you always treated them the way you would want to be treated. The way you would want your cousins, your friends, or any woman or girl who is precious to you, to be treated.

You see, I don’t subscribe to the notion that sex is unimportant or inconsequential. I think that sex, like money, can be a very powerful force for good or for evil. It can create and build relationships, and it can also destroy them. We have to be our best selves in our sexual lives just as in every other aspect of our lives—as I said, kind, respectful, generous, and honest. When we do that, trust me, sex can be amazing. (This is the part where you throw up all over the dashboard – and we stop to clean up the car).  It can be one of the best things in your life, and a way to communicate to your partner that you love and trust them. It can be emotional and spiritual. Don’t get grossed out (too late!)—your old mom is trying to be honest with you here!

Let me get a little more specific. Call me old-fashioned, but I think sex is for adults. In other words, you have to be emotionally and mentally mature enough to bring your best self to a sexual relationship, as I said. Also, it’s your responsibility to ensure the health and safety of both you and your partner in any sexual relationship (I think your dad talked to you about how to do that). If you’re not ready to do these things, you shouldn’t be having sex. Also, I firmly believe that alcohol and sex do not mix. Alcohol impairs your judgment; it makes you do things you will regret doing later, and believe me, that is not something you want to bring to a sexual encounter. If you are too drunk to drive, you shouldn’t have sex.

And let me be crystal clear: if your partner is too drunk to drive, she is too drunk to consent to sex. Having sex with a woman who is too drunk to consent is rape. It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, how many other guys she slept with (or how many other guys you think she slept with), or what your buddies are telling you to do. In your life, you will encounter girls or women who perhaps make poor or foolish choices. That is not your responsibility. But it is absolutely your responsibility to treat any woman or girl, in any state of intoxication or dress, like a human being. Again—with respect, kindness, and generosity. Taking advantage of someone who can’t speak for themselves or defend themselves, to gratify one’s own sexual desires, is disgusting and wrong, not to mention illegal. And statistics indicate that most rapes reported among teenagers happen when one or both parties involved are drunk.

Being a ‘real man’ doesn’t mean acting with aggression and dominance towards women and girls. It means standing up to do the right thing even if you face ridicule and rejection from your peers. It means being the first to defend someone who is in a weak or vulnerable position and can’t defend themselves. There was one young man in Steubenville who did this—he saw the pictures of the rape that were circulating among his friends and reported them to the authorities. I love the ads from Men Can Stop Rape—they have exactly the right message.

That’s all I wanted to say. I believe in you and I know you’ll always do the right thing. After all, you have great role models—your dad and your many uncles, to start with. When you’re not sure what to do, think about how they would act. Ignore the lies the media tries to feed you, and try not to rely too much on your buddies either—after all, they’re probably pretty confused too. Treat everyone with the respect and kindness all human beings deserve, and you’ll never go wrong. I love you.

Advisory: Your Brain has Implicit Content

The article in the New York Times magazine this week, titled, ‘Why are there still so few women in science?’, prompted me to reflect on the concept of implicit bias. According to those who study the way people make decisions and judgments, all of us have implicit bias, and in a way, all of us are also victims of it. I’ll explain what it is below; first, I’ll talk about why the NYT article brought it to mind.

 This article took a different view of the skewed gender ratios in STEM (science/technology/engineering/math) fields compared to many other recent publications, by focusing not on work-life balance and its challenges for women, but on the subtle discouragement and lack of support women receive all along their career paths. Most of the article is anecdotal; the author relies on her own experiences and those of women in STEM to demonstrate how women and girls with exceptional intelligence and talents in these fields are still not being accepted and mentored in a way that would ensure their success.

Boy, this article rings true for me. Rather than boring all of you with my own stories, I’d like to focus on an interesting aspect of the article, in which the author, Eileen Pollack, asks her former professors and teachers why they didn’t show her more support and encouragement to go into the sciences. It’s fascinating that most of them don’t perceive that they discouraged her in any way—yet, that’s the way Ms. Pollack experienced her interactions with them. She opens the article with the study I referenced on this blog a couple of months ago, in which male AND female researchers were presented with imaginary applicants for a laboratory position, and overwhelmingly chose ‘John’ over ‘Jennifer’, even though their credentials were identical—only the names were altered. Yet, I would bet that if you asked these researchers, ‘Do you think that men are more competent scientists than women?’, they would answer with a resounding, ‘No!’, and even be insulted by the question. I came across another fascinating tidbit recently: when men are the lone male members of a small work group, they tend to speak more than they do in male-dominated groups. Yet, again, if you asked these men whether they think their opinions or ideas are more important than those of the women in the group, they would probably deny that they do.

All of these phenomena—professors’ lack of support for female students, which they don’t recognize; the assumption that ‘John’ is more competent than ‘Jennifer’ ; and the impulse for men to talk more and listen less in groups with more women—are examples of implicit bias. This is bias that you don’t consciously think that you have. In other words, you might intellectually believe that men and women are equally competent at math and science; that the opinions and experiences of women are no less important than those of men. But your actions speak differently. The subtle stew of gendered bias and sexist messaging in which we marinate from the time we are small children infiltrates our thinking to the degree that our impulses, our knee-jerk reactions to situations and information, can be deeply sexist. And we don’t even know it.

I know some of you are probably squirming in your seats right now, or denying that this applies to you. Let me just issue you one simple challenge: go to Harvard’s Project Implicit website. Take some of the tests there—for example, the exercises that assess your bias (or lack of bias) against women in scientific fields. What do you find? Surprised? Shocked? In denial? I know that I was all of those things.

Believe me, I understand how uncomfortable it can be to confront your own implicit bias. Last spring, I had invited a senior female colleague to give a guest lecture in a graduate class I was teaching. I have enormous respect for this woman both personally and professionally. Before the class started, I asked her what she had been working on recently. She replied that she had been very busy since the beginning of the year, as she had been elected president of her scientific society, which is a very large and prestigious one. And—here is where my bias comes in—I am ashamed to admit that my initial internal reaction to this statement was not, ‘Wow, fantastic! And well deserved! I am sure she will make a good leader for that organization.’ It was more like, ‘Why should she say such a thing? That sounds like bragging.’ Of course, it wasn’t bragging at all—it was an honest response to my question about what she had been spending her time doing. And, she was very well qualified to hold the position as society president, having been actively involved in and a major contributor to her field for decades. But my initial, un-examined reaction was coming from a cultural background that gives much more space for men to tout their accomplishments than women. As a girl, I was taught from an early age that if I spoke honestly about my intelligence and accomplishments, people (especially boys) wouldn’t like me. And clearly, I internalized that message, and my sub-conscious felt the need to enforce it in my interactions with other women.

So how should we deal with implicit bias? In my experience, it doesn’t help either to deny that you have it, or to wallow in your own guilt about it. It’s better to acknowledge it, recognize the knee-jerk reactions that it tends to spark, and consciously counteract them. One mental exercise that I have been performing ever since taking the Project Implicit test is to imagine statements or actions coming from the opposite gender, and gauging my reactions. For example, if I think that a woman is bragging, or that she’s not qualified to speak about a given topic, I close my eyes and imagine her as a man, making the same statements. Do I still think that her words are inappropriate? This actually seems to help separate implicit bias from a genuine, thoughtful reaction. But, I’m still working on it. I hope you all will, too—as Socrates (quoted by Plato) pointed out, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. And it can also be sexist. And keep women—and men—from reaching their full potential.

(Can) Fight the System

Hannah Rosin, to promote her new book The End of Men, wrote an article on Slate this past week claiming that patriarchy in the United States is dead. ‘Patriarchy’ has a variety of different definitions, but in this context I believe Rosin is using the term the way feminists typically use it, to mean the dominance of men and the consequent subjugation of women. Her article has caused quite a stir. I want to focus on a particular aspect of her argument: the failure of systems thinking that it represents. It feels a little unfair picking on Rosin, since she is by no means the only person demonstrating this lack of systemic insight in a major media outlet. However, because her article touches on the main subject area of this blog, I think it’s useful to use it as an example of how to change the thinking and dialog around the topic of gender equality.

I’m a systems scientist, working in environmental systems with both human and natural components.  A large part of my job involves building models of systems—on paper or on the computer—in order to help people who make decisions to consider both the long-term consequences of their actions and the unintended outcomes of those actions. The central concept in systems theory, which has been applied in a wide variety of fields, from business management to the health sciences to ecology, is the concept of emergence. Simply put, emergence means that you cannot understand the behavior of a system by looking at its component parts in isolation. One example is that of baking a cake—if you tasted the flour, the eggs, and the sugar separately you would still have no idea what the final cake would taste like. The taste of the cake is a property of the interactions among all of the ingredients.

Similarly, I don’t think you can find patriarchy by looking at one’s interactions with one’s husband, one’s boss, one’s male colleagues/classmates in isolation, as Hannah Rosin seems to claim. John Sterman of MIT, one of the most prominent systems scientists working today, puts it this way: systems ‘have no boss’. In this context, that means there is no patriarchal cabal tucked away in a wood-paneled conference room smoking cigars and sipping single-malt scotch while cackling, “BWAH HA HA! Our efforts to foil the progress of women-folk are PROCEDING AS PLANNED!” Patriarchy, like racism, environmental degradation, obesity, and many other systemic problems, is not any individual’s ‘fault’. On the other hand, all of us are participating in the system and responding to its subtle pressures, so all of us are in some sense contributing to these problems. This is why we need systems analysis—so that we can act more deliberately and thoughtfully by considering the full set of information about the consequences of our decisions.

Here are some reasons I, personally, believe the patriarchy is not ‘over’ in the United States (I think we can all agree that womens’ rights in many other parts of the world have a long way to go)

1. The wage gap—women still earn $0.77 for every dollar a man earns, and this gap has not budged in a decade (more on this below).
2. The appalling rates of sexual assault and domestic violence in this country, particularly among poor, rural women. Plus, the amount of victim-blaming that still goes along with these crimes.
3. Our maternal mortality rates are among the worst in the developed world—again, particularly for poor women and for women of color.
4. Women make up the majority of those living in poverty in the U.S.
5. Women are still very under-represented in leadership positions in politics, academia, business, etc., as we have discussed in this blog before.

I could go on with more examples. In fact, this entire entry could probably be made up of examples. However, I believe it would be more instructive to take one of these and demonstrate some ‘systems thinking’ around it.

There are several causes of the wage gap, but let’s pull out just one: motherhood. I want to demonstrate a reinforcing feedback loop that can serve to keep the gender pay gap intact, using academia as a case study. A reinforcing feedback loop can be seen as a ‘vicious cycle’—because initial conditions are the way they are, a certain outcome tends to happen, which in turn reinforces the initial conditions.

Say a young married couple get jobs as assistant professors at the same time at a research institution. Even if they are in comparable fields (say, both within the sciences), the husband is likely to be paid more. Then, the couple decides to have a baby. The university is generous by U.S. standards—they offer twelve weeks of paid maternity leave. But the couple decides this is not enough; they quite reasonably would like to have six months of time at home with their baby. Because the husband’s salary is greater, they both agree it makes more sense for the wife to take an unpaid leave. Consequently, her research productivity is reduced. Her time to tenure is lengthened. Her husband works long hours to make tenure—it makes more sense now for him to push to do so, since his salary will be even larger once he gains tenure. The wife picks up more of the childcare and house-care responsibilities as a consequence. Slowly, she finds herself slipping behind. She decides to convert her position to a non-tenure track research associate, or to an adjunct position. Her take-home pay is further reduced, but her hours are now more flexible. The department that hired her originally feels that they didn’t get their money’s worth, since they wanted someone with high research productivity to bring in federal grant money. The next time they hire a married woman, they will keep this in mind with the initial salary they offer her. So, initial wage gap à rate of women dropping out of tenure track à initial wage gap. This is a feedback loop. Who is to blame here? The husband? The wife? The university? The department chair? None? All? In order to resolve this problem, we have to understand the mechanism, and then we have to identify levers of change. In this case, it might be a university policy on gender-equal pay. Or, it might be low-cost, onsite childcare. The efficacy of both of these policies could be tested by using a systems model. The moral of the story is: don’t look for a person to blame. Look for the mechanisms underlying the system that keep certain outcomes in place. Trust a systems scientist—this is a far more productive exercise.

Leaning In in Academia

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d like to talk about Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In, which came out in March and seems to have touched a national nerve, given the amount of attention it’s gotten. To be honest, I’ve been dragging my feet a bit writing about it, because I feel that the conversation around the message in the book has gotten so distorted and so ridiculously simplified that I wasn’t sure I wanted to engage with it. However, I think it is a very important book that has started a conversation on the exact topic this blog is designed to address, so…I’m going in!

Perhaps it’s best to start by laying out two of the main critiques of the book (by the way: I found the pattern of reaction to Lean In fascinating. In the first two weeks or so after it was released, there was some cautious praise of the book from reviewers, then an ENORMOUS backlash of criticism that dwarfed the earlier praise—from all sides of the ideological spectrum!). If you haven’t read the book, I encourage you to do so, because I think both of these critiques do not engage fully with Sandberg’s material. Anyway, the first goes something like this: Sandberg is telling all women that if they don’t throw themselves fully into their careers, they are losers, bad feminists, and impeding progress. This is complete and utter nonsense; Sandberg says nothing of the sort in her book. She is addressing specifically the audience of women who want to achieve leadership roles in traditionally male-dominated arenas (i.e. politics, the private sector, academia, non-governmental organizations…pretty much all of them!). I find this interpretation of the book to be a little like picking up a book on how to win marathons and saying the author means that everyone should be a marathon runner.

The second major critique has a little more traction, in my opinion. In Lean In, Sandberg addresses the problem of under-representation of women in leadership roles. She claims that in order to solve this problem, women have to adjust their own thinking, lifestyles, and behavior in order to rise to leadership in their chosen fields. This is controversial, because some claim that it amounts to blaming the victim (women) for not succeeding in a system that is rigged against them; or, setting women up to fail before putting the necessary structures in place for them to succeed. We pretty much know what these structures are, because most of the developed world other than the United States has them: paid maternity leave, career flexibility, equal pay for equal work, and affordable, high-quality daycare.

But here’s the thing: feminists (and radicals of all sorts) have always acknowledged that, in addition to effecting structural change, attitudinal change is necessary. If we change the ways that we operate, without changing the underlying ways we think about our capabilities, our gender roles, and our behavior, it’s unclear whether the improvements would be sustainable. That’s why some books now considered feminist classics—The Feminine Mystique, or The Beauty Myth—are less about re-structuring society and more about recognizing and countering the narratives we receive as women about how we understand our own worthiness.

Sandberg gives many examples in Lean In of narratives that women receive and believe in the workplace, which hold us back. She uses extensive social science research to support her point. I have seen these self-defeating narratives operating among women in academia, and have even recognized them in myself. One fascinating academic finding, consistent across the STEM disciplines (science-technology-engineering-math) is that, although the abilities of women and men in these fields do not differ significantly, women perceive their abilities to be less than they actually are, while men perceive their abilities to be greater than they actually are! Clearly this has implications for which fields women choose to enter as Ph.D. students and as faculty, and may keep women with strong abilities out of their chosen field.

I teach a graduate level computer modeling class that uses calculus and differential equations. Some students of both genders feel their math background may be insufficient for the class, and approach me about it at the beginning of the semester. The interesting thing is, the male students tend to ask me, “What readings or exercises do you recommend to brush up on my math skills?”—implying, of course, that they have the capability to master the requisite skills; they just need to put in the effort. The female students often tell me, “Math scares me!”, or “I’m worried that I won’t be able to do the math in the class.” This is a fundamentally different type of statement, because it is about ability, rather than effort. Men are taught, and self-reinforce, the notion that they can do anything math- or science-related if they work hard enough. Women worry that they actually can’t succeed no matter how hard they try. This can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the attitude needed to succeed at modeling (and in a graduate program, for that matter!) is one of confidence, determination, and perseverance.

This is just one example; Sandberg goes on in her book, and I could too. I think Lean In has accomplished something important by starting a national conversation on: (1) the dearth of women in leadership, despite (ostensibly) decades of feminist progress; and (2) the attitudes commonly held by both men and women in the leadership ‘pipeline’ that hold women back. If you want to give yourself a sobering reality check about your own attitudes and biases, go to https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. The lessons we learn as children (for example, by seeing these awful shirts when we go shopping), and which are reinforced throughout our lives, affect what we women feel we are capable of. We need to change our attitudes and our institutions; Sandberg is wise to point this out. 

(More than) 500 miles from my home

In July, I traveled to Kenya for ten days on a research trip, returned home for one day, then left for Boston for an academic conference. I was gone for a total of two weeks and one day, but it felt like a lot longer than that. When I got back, my two-year-old son ran up to me with a hug, as he does when I pick him up from daycare, then resumed playing with his trucks contentedly. Strangely, I was relieved that my absence didn’t seem to affect him negatively—but there was also a small part of me that wanted him to make a bigger fuss about my return!

Of all the requirements that seem to weigh on mothers who work outside the home, business travel apparently causes the most stress and guilt. It’s easy to see why—being physically absent from your family is never easy, and doing so while your children are young can make you feel as if you are neglecting key parental responsibilities. Women who have been writing about career and family recently, from Anne-Marie Slaughter to Sheryl Sandburg, all have tales about children clinging to their legs, begging them not to leave on a trip, or learning about a child’s trouble in school from hundreds of miles away.

Academics have an interesting relationship with travel compared to those in, say, the corporate sector. A certain amount of travel—to conferences, review panels, and for research—is required for our jobs. However, we have a lot more autonomy over where and when we travel compared to those employed outside of academia. There’s no boss popping into our offices and telling us we have to leave for Hong Kong the following day. Generally, we can choose which conferences to attend and how to schedule our research trips. This is a terrific advantage for academics with families, because we can coordinate with spouses and care-givers to choose a travel time that works best for everyone. However, it also—at least for me—places a higher burden of justification on us for each trip we take. Do I really have to attend this conference? Should I say ‘yes’ to this review panel? How much will it help my career, compared to the toll exacted on my health and my family?

Those of us who do international research feel this especially acutely, because international trips take so much more time, energy, coordination, and money compared with domestic travel. I can literally count on one hand the number of female academics I know who have undertaken international research projects while their children are young. This is, in a way, depressing, but on the bright side those few women seem to have done amazing research and have involved their children in many exciting trips and opportunities. I’ll never forget the memorial service for my husband’s first Ph.D. advisor, who tragically passed away the year after he arrived in his program. She was a remarkable lady, and although I knew her only briefly, she remains one of my role models. An accomplished academic whose research focused on micro-credit projects to empower poor women in the developing world, she was also a warm mentor to her graduate students and a supportive wife (her husband ran for the presidency of a foreign country while she was at the pinnacle of her own career, and she gamely played along as a potential first lady!). Most impressive to me, at her memorial service, picture after picture was displayed of her standing with her smiling family in the many countries in which she conducted her research. She managed to do important work that informed real-world problems, while exposing her two children to experiences and opportunities that anyone would be fortunate to have. At the service, both of these children, now adults, spoke movingly and tearfully about their mother and how she had inspired them through her work and her love. Wow!

So, in spite of the many, many people who have tried to dissuade me from doing international research as an early-career academic/mother, I will continue to do it. I can’t help it—I first caught the passion for the work I do during the year I spent abroad in the Philippines after graduating from college. There, I learned on a visceral level that the greatest challenge for humanity in the 21^st century will be assuring that the basic needs of all people are met, without irreparably damaging the natural ecosystems on which we humans, and other life, depend. The developing world is in many ways where this challenge is felt most acutely. That’s why I continue to go to Kenya, the Philippines, India, Burkina Faso, Nigeria. I’m not arrogant or naïve enough to think that I will solve these enormous problems, but I remain hopeful that my presence and expertise will tip the balance just a tiny bit in the direction of peace, justice, and sustainability. And I believe that it’s worth the involvement of my family, and the carbon footprint (which I always try to offset!) to do this work.

But it’s still hard. While I was in Kenya, there was a death in my extended family, and I was desperate to be with my loved ones as they struggled through a very difficult time. I called my mother and sister from my hotel room in Mombasa, as dusk fell and the evening call to prayer resonated from the muezzin outside my window. They cried, and I cried with them, feeling very far away and very alone. And, in spite of all that my colleagues and I had learned and accomplished on the trip, at that moment I wished that I were home.

Let's talk about...male privilege in academia

Recently, this excellent post by blogger Barry Deutsch, describing examples of male privilege, has been making the rounds through social media. I thought I’d contribute my own version specific to academia. All of these examples come from either my personal experience, or an experience described to me in detail by a close friend.

For those who are still fuzzy on what ‘male privilege’ means, or who don’t have time to read the original post, it is simply the myriad ways in which society (in this case, academia) still confer advantages on men that aren’t similarly extended to women. Importantly, this does not mean that men have it ‘easy’, that they don’t have to struggle, or that they haven’t endured suffering and hardships. It just means that, as a group, they do not have to deal with specific set-backs that women face on a regular—if not daily—basis. So here is my list. You might have male privilege if:

1. When attending a gathering of professionals in your field, most or sometimes all of the people in the room are the same gender as you. You rarely notice or question this.
2. When speaking on a panel at a conference, you take twice the amount of time as other panelists (both younger; one female), even though you have received clear instructions about speech length and even though the moderator (female) is signaling you to stop.
3. When speaking at a conference about the history of your field, all of the prominent scientists you mention as contributing to the field are the same gender as you.
4. When speaking at a conference about excessive consumption that is contributing to environmental degradation, the examples you give are all explicitly associated with the opposite gender, even though global studies indicate that it is your gender that is associated with more wasteful consumption
5. You can make distasteful jokes that cause half of the graduate students and several of the junior faculty in your department to be intensely uncomfortable in your presence, and no one will call you out on this behavior for months, or even years.
6. You can undertake international research without being questioned about whether this is ‘too challenging’ for you, as you have young children at home.
7. You can expect that you will be compensated fairly according to the standards of your field, without facing a gender-specific pay imbalance.
8. If you decide that you would like to have children and also attain a high level of professional success, no one will question whether that is even possible.
9. If you do have children, you can expect your spouse to shoulder most of the sacrifices to her professional career while they are young.
10.  You never question whether the outfits you have selected for teaching or professional activities appear unprofessional, are too revealing, or too frumpy.
11.  You can expect that you will never be judged based on your appearance, but only on the quality of your ideas and contributions.
12.  In your field or department, there are many successful leaders of your same gender that serve as examples for you.
13.  Most of these leaders also have children and have successfully balanced career and family demands.
14. When any of the above are pointed out to you, you insist that women are actually more successful today because they make up the majority of undergraduate degree-holders, ignoring the fact that gender bias still exists in many scientific fields, and the still pitifully low percentage of female full professors at research institutions.

Any others?

As I mentioned when I first started this blog forum, I want to provide positive suggestions and actions each week, and not simply indulge in a bitch-fest. In that spirit, I believe that the first and most important way to combat male privilege is to be aware that it exists. And many (younger) men are! After many of the instances referred to above, male colleagues (in every case that I can think of, male colleagues under 40) have approached me to say, “Hey, what was up with that talk? Why didn’t he mention X, Y, and Z [prominent women who have contributed to the field]?”, or “How do you think we can get more women to take on leadership roles in this professional society?” I am so very grateful to all of the wonderful male and female colleagues who are willing to take a close, honest look at their own fields, acknowledge that gender bias and male privilege still exist, and begin conversations about how to address them. That is more than half the battle.

The problem, of course, is that this level of awareness still seems not to have percolated to the upper ranks of most departments and professional societies, where the leadership consists of predominantly white men over the age of 40. I am hopeful that change is coming, although it may be slow in arriving. In the mean time, I am hoping to do my part to expose male privilege and talk about it respectfully and honestly. This blog is a small step in that direction.

Like a Horse to Water

I apologize for the missed post last week—I was on the East Coast visiting family. Several of you sent me the link to this article, written by Mary Ann Mason: http://slate.me/16CtN3J. She is one of the foremost researchers on women in science, and her perspective is interesting, as always. The very issue she talks about—the difficulty female faculty have in juggling career and family compared with male faculty—was one of my primary motivations for starting this blog. Next week I’m going to address the ubiquitous ‘Lean In’ (which Dr. Mason also references in her article) and how I think it applies to academia. But for now, a bit of more light-hearted fare!

This month I turned 35. I’m actually glad to be a year older and (hopefully) wiser. My journey in life and in academia has been all about making mistakes and learning from them, and testing out others’ advice to see what works. I decided to share with you some advice I’ve received over the years that I found to be right-on and now share with others. The general theme here is life in academia, and balancing work and family. Please share your own ‘best advice received’ in the comments!

On work/life balance:

Family first. Then work. Then everything else.

       --my Ph.D. advisor, Charlie Hall (I would simply add: family and health first).

To the institution, you’re ultimately dispensable. But to your family, you’re indispensable.

       --my colleague, Wei Zhang

On not being afraid to take (constructive) criticism:

Your friends criticize you before you publish; your enemies criticize you afterwards.

       --Charlie Hall again

If people criticize you, that means they took the time to read your stuff. That means they care.

       --my undergraduate advisor, Steve Hamburg

On feeling like an imposter:

You probably have the sense that you don’t belong here sometimes, that you’re not worthy of the job. Don’t worry—everybody else has that feeling too.

       --my former faculty mentor, Joe Arvai

On failure and perseverance:

You get 0% of the grants you don’t apply for.

       -(I think this is a version of Wayne Gretzky’s famous quote about missing 100% of the shots you don’t take)

On choosing commitments carefully as a junior faculty member:

If somebody asks you to do something, say ‘yes’ and do a good job. But don’t raise your hand to volunteer.

       --Gil Pontius

On whom to ask for help:

If it’s an intellectual or academic matter, ask your colleagues for advice. But if it’s a policy issue, ask the appropriate staff person.

       --member of a faculty panel I attended last year (don’t remember her name!)

Speaking of which:

Treat the staff well. They are the ones who really run the University.

       --Everyone

On doing interdisciplinary work:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.

--African proverb (I’m well aware of how annoying it is to call something an ‘African proverb’ as if all 1 billion people and hundreds of ethnic groups on the continent use the same sayings. However, I love this phrase, and despite having googled the heck out of it, I can’t find which people(s) actually used it, so I’ll just have to acknowledge that somebody somewhere in Africa at some point came up with this brilliant adage).

On not taking yourself too seriously:

When someone asks me if I’m a doctor, I say, ‘yes, but not the kind that actually helps people.’

       --Steve Pacala

And, to round out our advice parade here, I’ll include two pieces of advice I’ve received many times, invariably from well-meaning people, that I do not suggest you follow. The first: ‘___ is impossible, so don’t even try to do it.’ What the people giving this advice usually mean is one of two things: either they tried it and failed, and they want to warn you away from their mistakes; or, that they don’t see any way to do it. In the former case, it’s often a good idea to ask them more about their experiences, because there may be a lot of useful information there. In the second case, you are not them—and maybe you do see a way to do it (or at least try)!

The second piece of advice I try not to follow: ‘That isn’t real ____’ (specific examples I’ve heard: ‘That isn’t real ecology.’ ‘That isn’t really participatory modeling.’ ‘That isn’t real model validation.’) This latter tends to come from folks that like to police the boundaries of disciplines or practices—again, usually with good intentions in an attempt to point me towards ‘the right’ way to do things. But where would we be if no one ever pushed the boundaries or questioned ‘the right way’ to do things?

Women and Nature: the Invisible Hands

From Sunday through Wednesday this past week, I attended the meeting of the United States Society for Ecological Economics, for which I currently serve as a board member. I was thrilled and inspired by my first encounter at this meeting with feminist economists Nancy Folbre and Julie Nelson (more on them in a minute). First, let me explain the purpose of USSEE. Our tagline is, ‘Transforming the Economy for a Just and Sustainable World’. We are an interdisciplinary academic society comprised of economists, biologists, ecologists, geographers, engineers, sociologists, etc., and we are generally concerned with promoting human well-being without irreparably degrading the integrity of the environment. We believe that we need fundamentally new ways of thinking about, measuring, and designing societal progress in order to accomplish these dual goals (supporting human well-being and protecting the environment).  

There are some obvious parallels between ecological economics and feminist economics. Scientists have long pointed out that the ways in which we measure the strength of the economy—mainly, using gross domestic product (GDP) or stock market activity—ignore completely the contributions of the natural world, without which the economy would not be able to function. What we measure tends to be what we value, so leaving out nature in the accounting scheme can create perverse outcomes, as ecological systems are sacrificed for short-term economic profit. One example is the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. This event was devastating for the ecology and human well-being in the Gulf region. However, the oil spill actually slightly increased the GDP of the United States through clean-up costs, lawsuits, etc. In other words, GDP does not distinguish between economic activity that benefits people and the planet, and economic activity that results from people screwing up and needing to fix things.

In the same way, feminist economists point out that GDP and the stock market don’t measure the value of a lot of human activity that contributes greatly to human well-being and to economic productivity. Examples include caring for children, the sick, and the elderly; keeping a clean and healthy home; and volunteering. Do you notice a pattern here? All of these activities are traditionally associated with women (although men have been stepping up to do more of them in recent years). Women and nature are truly the ‘invisible hands’ that prop up the economy—unrecognized, unacknowledged, un-counted—but absolutely essential.

Just as a thought experiment to reinforce this point, imagine what would happen if women (and some men) collectively walked off the job—just quit doing all of the un-paid activities that support healthy homes and communities around the world. To put it bluntly, an entire generation would be wiped out. The workers of tomorrow, who would be producing the ideas and labor to fuel the future economy, would not exist. Human society as we know it would collapse.

Similarly, what would happen if nature ‘walked off the job’—stopped assimilating our wastes, stopped producing oxygen and clean water, stopped providing a relatively stable climate? It’s pretty clear human society wouldn’t last very long. 

In the spirit of, ‘we don’t value what we can’t measure’, some economists are addressing the fact that the economy takes women and nature for granted by advocating that we measure progress using the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), rather than using GDP. The GPI counts the value of non-paid work in the home and community, and subtracts the value of economic activity that damages the environment or is not correlated with human well-being. As it turns out, when you measure well-being using GPI, people in the United States have not been getting any better off since about 1975. Yet, we’ve been generating a lot more economic activity. It begs the question: what is all that economic activity for, if not to make us happier and healthier?

What solutions would you propose? How can we recognize and value the contributions of women and the environment to our economies and societies? By the way—if this topic sparks your interest, follow USSEE on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn!