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.