Why I'm Doing This

I’m probably crazy. I’m the mother of an almost-two-year-old, I’m on the tenure track at a major research university, and I have a husband who is writing his Ph.D. dissertation. I don’t have time to start a blog. And yet…this is something I’ve been wanting to do for more than a year, ever since I returned to work after the birth of my son and found that my eyes were opened to the ways in which mothers are uniquely, and perhaps unfairly, challenged in academic careers and in society at large. There are certain conversations we need to start having about how to make life and work better for professional women, and almost no one is having them. That really bothers me. 

Upon starting graduate school, I noticed right away that my fellow students were significantly more diverse than the predominantly white, male professors who taught us. I studied with men and women from dozens of different countries, of varied ethnicities, religious practices, and backgrounds. One of the best parts of graduate school for me was learning from my peers and being inspired by their stories. In graduate school, I had ample reason to believe that academia in 20 years, when my peers and I would achieve full professor status, would look significantly different than it does today. It would no longer be the “old white guys club” (I still mutter this phrase under my breath when stepping into certain rooms at conferences and faculty meetings J) As I progressed in my career, first to a postdoctoral position, and then to a tenure-track faculty position, I noticed that my peers at every stage were becoming more white and more male. It seemed that my dream of a more diverse, more inclusive academia was still more dream than reality. But why?

Mary Ann Mason, at U.C. Berkeley, is one of the most prominent researchers on women in academia, and this is the way she puts the problem: we have a leaky pipeline. That is, women make up 50% of the Ph.D. recipients in the United States (more than 50% in some fields), but their progress into the upper ranks of academia (that is, achieving tenured positions as full professors) is not keeping pace with that of their male counterparts, primarily because women find it difficult to balance the demands of a tenure-track career with the demands of raising children. Men do, as well, but they tend to have spouses who are willing to sacrifice their own careers in order to care for the family.

Why do we care? Several reasons. First, there is a pretty obvious justice issue here. Women (and people of color) who might have promising careers as scientists and professors, who want to be scientists and professors, are being forced to make decisions to modify those ambitions in ways that men are not. That’s not fair. Second, a more diverse academic environment benefits students and faculty alike. Third, tenured faculty at high-profile research institutions have a lot of credibility and power in our society. My colleagues advise the U.S. and foreign governments on food policy, climate change, development, and health, to name a few topics. They command millions of dollars of research money to find solutions to some of the most pressing problems humanity faces today. Don’t we want the people making these kinds of important decisions and discoveries to reflect the diversity of humankind accurately? Don’t we want half of them to be women and a proportionate amount of them to be people of color? I do!

So let’s talk about this. Let’s start the conversation. How can we make this happen?

What you will find here:

•  Thoughtful conversation (I hope) about: being a mother with a demanding career in the uniquely exciting, stimulating, frustrating, and oddball world of academia (personal); making academia a more diverse and vibrant institution that truly reflects our society (political); and many other topics.

•   Practical solutions and actions for positive change. Although it’s tempting to have an online space that’s just for venting (and everyone loves a good gripe session, myself included), ultimately conversations that are only about complaining leave me feeling defeated and a little dirty. So let’s try to stay positive!

• Honesty—with some limits (heck, I don’t have tenure yet). I hope to help foster honest conversations that draw on my personal experience—my successes, my mistakes and failures, and the things I’m still trying to figure out. I welcome others to share their experiences also.

What you won't find here:

• The Mommy Wars, the Working Woman Wars, or anything resembling women tearing each other and their choices to pieces while ignoring the (arguably very screwed-up) system in which those choices are contained. Stay at home moms and dads are welcome to contribute to the conversation; women with or without spouses, partners or children are welcome to comment here; men who work in academia or elsewhere are welcome to comment here. Be respectful, be thoughtful, and be self-reflective, please.

So, this is my half-year experiment—I’ve decided to try (operative word here: try) to post weekly while I’m not traveling or swamped with a deadline. My intent is for these posts to be conversation starters, and that you might take these ideas and run with them, either online or in the real world. Based on conversations with my colleagues, my friends, and my students, I get the feeling that many people are hungry for this conversation, and that it’s long overdue. So let’s get started!