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

Too many posts. Must work now or my publication rate will suffer.

What I mean is that many of us have equality at home, and are happy with our career choices, and are bloody good at our jobs, and are happy with our children. Yet we are somehow letting the side down, not being "successful". Why is that? I for one am not playing this game.

My aim is not to become a professor by the time I'm 50, unless they bloody change what it means to be a professor. I will not sacrifice my research time for paper work or to attend meetings after meetings. If progressing up the ladder means I get less time to do what I like I'll stay where I get to do that. In fact I'm such a minority that I can single-handedly bugger their statistics.

There was a paper I linked to earlier somewhere which shows that if you have two identical CVs, one with a man's name and one with a woman's name on, the one with the man's name on will get a better evaluation than the one with a woman's name on. And that's evaluation from both men and women. (This was also talked about in Cordelia Fine's book.) In the New Scientist there was an article about how professional men and women showing emotions are perceived differently, by both men and women. (No prize for guessing how they are evaluated.) What is going on there? It seems to say that just saying "you just need to do this and that and not be a big girl's blouse" is not quite enough, despite some people with one-tracked minds thinking it's quite so straightforward because they've done it themselves.

But see, I fully agree with Xenia that there is a problem of structural sexism within marriage. Absolutely agree. All you have to do is read the threads on here. Look at how many women sacrifice their careers, how many women do all the night wakings, how many women rely on their husbands for allowances, etc and so on.

I don't think it's as simple as solving this problem and then workplace inequalities go away. But I do think that you cannot solve workplace inequalities without also tackling sexism at the personal level.

I think the aim should be to confront sexism at every level -- personal and professional.

We may differ in how we go about that, but I don't really think our aims are that different.

dreamingbohemian who I know is hugely important, which is why I wrote earlier that one of the little things holding me back at the moment is not having been able to attend recent conferences. Luckily, the work I put in pre-kids means I do have some good contacts who haven't forgotten about me, and my colleagues will always put in a good word in my absence :)

Hugely important in my field. I am doing quite well and it is entirely owing to my PhD supervisor, who pushed her students into presenting at conferences, introduced us to big wigs and gave excellent career advice. She is still my mentor.

Hi all, just returning to read yesterday's posts -- really interesting stuff!

I thought ruby's strategic discussion was very interesting. IME I think young academics, particularly phd students, would benefit from more strategic guidance early on -- especially women, given the impact of having children.

I'm not sure being strategic means you always have to make decisions you don't like, but it means at least being able to 'sell' things well for the purpose of getting a job later. marfisa gave a good example earlier... for myself, I had DC during my phd, not after, so that I could sort of 'hide' that time off within my studies.

But I agree there is a limit to strategy. You can do everything right and still get nowhere, and other people manage to fall ass backwards into great posts.

Which leads to a question I have for you all: in your fields, how much is advancement determined by networking and 'who you know'?

Because it's an extremely important factor in my field, and I think this is another area where women can be disadvantaged. If you have a family you may not have time to do all the extra meetings and socialising, and even then it can be very much an old boys club.

Just wondering how we can grapple with this, because I don't really see it changing anytime soon.

Oh posted too soon

I meant to add that mrd my mum, who is a big boss, says that now she has flexible working / part time requests continually from both the young women, who have children, and he older women, who are caring for parents. The men appear to be getting away without doing either

Yes indeed

Women soft-pedalling their careers is a major reason why there aren't more female professors. But there are also lots and lots and lots of structural reasons. Eg unclear, shady appointment and promotion processes that means men can be groomed for promotion and the old boys club can kick in. Massive inequalities in the number of conferences female academics are invited to speak at vs their male peers. It has even been shown that female applicants for grants need more papers to beat a man.

it's the ones I know who are still in there and who are leaning in but still aren't getting anything like the promotions less good men around them are getting.

This is why we should talk about more than childcare! There was another thread about retaining mid-career women. But eventually we all talk about childcare. The discussions at work also end up in childcare. But there is more to it than childcare, even though childcare is a big issue.

No Xenia, you are missing the direction of causation.

Women often choose to be the one that leans out because sexism/biology/mixture of biology and sexism (very often it's that mixture) has already led to a situation where the penalties and rewards for leaning in/out are different for men and women.
What disturbs me most about academia (and a few other careers, come to think of it), actually, isn't the women like me who gave it up, it's the ones I know who are still in there and who are leaning in but still aren't getting anything like the promotions less good men around them are getting.
Women aren't too stupid to see what they're giving up. They make pragmatic decisions by and large.

wow, turnip, that's quite some 'established career'!

I don't know how many people apply for jobs in general. I think in academia you get anything from 30 to 100 applicants for a permanent job. Is that high?

So the moral is never play second fiddle to a man and your career will be fine. Lean in and it will all be yours.

Xenia I normally like hearing your point of view on threads. But I've tried following this advice and it's still not working for me! There are specific circumstances that I couldn't foresee or plan for, and things beyond my control, that are all conspiring against me. TBH, I'm beginning to feel a bit bitter that I've worked hard and never let my husband's career take precedence, yet I'm still finding obstacles in my way :(