Not 'news' to anyone here, I know, but scary article about motherhood and academia

So why do these very very bright women pick jobs which are paid about the same as acall centre person on the minimum wage?

Some women choose careers in academia because ... they want to help cure cancer (salaries in industry for scientists are sometimes even lower than academia btw so 'If academia pays enough great. If it doesn't do something else' doesn't work.). Or they want to discover a bit more about the cosmos. Or because they want to teach a future generation. Or because they are just so passionate about their subject that it is more valuable to them than mere money. Doing what you love part time or at a lower level than a man might achieve may still be more satisfactory than not following your dream and doing some job that xenia would consider well paid (there are vastly too few of those to go around bright women or men anyway, which is a fundamental problem) but which doesn't 'advance the sum of human knowledge'.

I have just read the original article, and to be honest, I have seen what it is describing first hand. At 35, I am lucky enough to be a Reader in a hard-science at a Russell Group university and I am a man. Most of my peers who are women - the people I did a PhD with - either dropped out of academia, or are still postdocs (10 years!). If they happen to be lucky enough to have an academic job, they are part-time (looking after children) suffering discrimination by a largely male management, often with such a huge teaching and administration load, they wonder why they ever wanted to be an academic.

Some examples:
One of my peers (at another institute) has no fewer than 100 students she must give tutorials to each week, plus three lecture courses per semester. She works a 90+ hour week, does next to no research, and watches her colleagues around her get promoted because they have been successful in gaining funding.
Another peer (at a different institute) was given three lecture courses and a large departmental administrative load, 1 month after returning from maternity leave. Within a year, she was given another 3 lecture courses, making 6 plus the admin job. She only worked part-time. Her full-time (male) colleagues only had 4 lecture courses, or 2 plus an admin job. She actually told me she got pregnant the second time as she wanted out of her job.

I look at this situation and at every opportunity I try to correct it. But I can't, single handed, change an entire sector. What can be done?

I'm going to do one last post and leave this thread. I can't be done with hectoring (poor old Hector! What did he ever do apart from having his body dragged about Troy or something like that?) You'd think discussions are a two-way thing.

I love my job - I like doing research, I like teaching postgraduates, and sometimes I even like teaching undergraduates. I like not having a set agenda for my research. I like doing things no one else has done before. The thrill of the chase, if you like. Makes you feel alive, that kind of thing. I like not having orders to follow most of the time. (Maybe I'm lucky with my department.) I like the flexibility (up to a point, of course. Can't quite not turn up to give lectures ...) and being able to do things in my own time. (Maybe I am very very lucky.)

I like my colleagues - I like being surrounded by my intellectual equals. And people who listen and understand even when they don't agree (perhaps I'm lucky with my colleagues). People who can follow your argument rather than take the repeat-enough-times-and-it-becomes-true approach or the talk-louder-than-you-so-I-win approach or the fingers-in-ears approach.

So bye for now. It's interesting to hear about other experiences in other universities. Best of luck to everyone!

And that eats into the time we could be using applying for grant money with which to buy ourselves out from teaching. (Although that would just displace rather than solve the problem).

Well I don't have a problem with postgrads teaching. It's important that they can get teaching experience (and earn some more money). What I object to is being given a postgrad tutor in place of a lecturer. It just gives me additional work.

Fine, if I've got a team of postgrads who'll be taking all the tutorials for a large UG class; I'll make them a teaching pack and have a briefing meeting because I really don't want to take 10 tutorial groups every week. But not 'oh Prof X has bought himself out. Here, have a postgrad we're paying at tutor rate instead of an actual lecturer for his classes'. That is the management team trying to cheap out.

And, of course, Prof X won't be producing the materials and briefing the tutor because that would defeat the point of buying himself out. So it falls to all the (female) junior staff to take on the work with no acknowledgement in our workloads.

I'm sure you have a lot of useful advice for women on managing careers in the law, Xenia, and possibly other city-type careers where the challenges and rewards are similar.
Academia, not so much.

Apparently I do help a lot of people and am their role model. If academia pays enough great. If it doesn't do something else.

I provide solutions - like childcare options rather than patting on back isn't life hard cosy mummy love ins. Part of the solution i equal marriage and never putting your career on a back burner and letting husbands' careers prevail.

I can always be ignored. If no one replied to my posts then they could carry on their own conversation.

MRD, this is a great thread. Thank you.

Because the job is (or at least aspects of it are, or should be) fantastic. I think most academics do it out of real love for their subject area, and sod the low wages. Unfortunately, the system seems to suck that love out of it for quite a significant number - and probably mostly women.

Xenia, although I disagree with you on many things, I normally have a lot of time for your posts. But now I just think you are clueless about academia. First, as many people have pointed out, we don't have any better holiday entitlement than anyone else - certainly nothing like university students' holidays or schoolteachers' holidays. In fact, I don't know any academics who take anywhere near their full leave entitlement anyway. Like you, I take around 2 weeks a year (and my head of department has been known to raise an eyebrow at even that).

Second, no! We can't afford an au pair! We can't even afford a house which would have enough space for an au pair. Academic salaries are VERY LOW by comparison with other similar jobs with a similar length training period (8-10 years). I think most academics do it for love.

Both DH and I are FT academics with a small child. It is bloody hard. I work a 40hr week officially, plus an extra 3 hours every evening and around another 5 hours at weekends - so that's about a 66hr week. I also have a 4hr daily commute. DH does the same (though without the commute). I really resent being called lazy. We have an equal partnership and as a result we are both struggling, but I think I am struggling more. I can see deeply entrenched sexism in my department in many ways - through the secret workload model, higher pay for male colleagues, more random admin dumped on the women... Having an equal marriage dies not make up for all this structural inequality at work.

So why do these very very bright women pick jobs which are paid about the same as acall centre person on the minimum wage? It defies belief.
Also very sexist to say those of us who work full time do not see our chidlren. Many full time working fathers and mothers rush home at 6 or 7 every night and devote hours to chidlren. That is still seeing your children.

I did not say nanny. I said 3 hours after school 3 - 6 and £10 an hour.

let us say the two full time working academics are on £30k each, i.e. 60k. That's £23k net each. Let us assume the after school person is paid £30 for 3 hours x 5 days = £150 and ignore the school holidays for now. So that is = £7800 a year divided by two as men and women in equal marriages pay half childcare that is £3900 a year each - not a massive high price to pay to keep a career going full time surely? And once the children are 13 or 14 they will not need that care. Or use the live in au pair option if children will share rooms (as mine do) to free up a room for an au pair.

Anyway I enable and help women solve problems. If people don't want my advice that's fine. I like action, not moaning.

Oops, posted too early! I'd go as far as to say that an equal marriage is more important for academic success than in a city job, as salaries and other factors mean that you can't afford to just outsource the domestic/childcare chores.

Isn't it just that only 20% of people male or female have the XX factor and want to lean in and work hard and the other 80% just are not prepared to put in what it takes

I think this may well be true. But I also think that while most of those 20% of men will make it, nowhere near the 20% of women with the XX factor will succeed. And I think there are more subtle reasons than just an unequal marriage.

University holidays? Live-in au pair? What's next? Let them eat cake? (at least cake is realistic) I rest my case.

Xenia: it's very easy to sit smugly and blame everyone for not being ale to afford a nanny (and we certainly cannot) or for needing to sleep! In fact, I'd say your attitude actually makes it harder for everyone.