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

[MalenkyRusskyDrakonchik]

www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/06/female_academics_pay_a_heavy_baby_penalty.html?fb_ref=sm_fb_share_chunky

I thought this was interesting, though hardly surprising. I find it quite a big concern given how much research we're constantly being shown, that 'proves' women are all [insert stereotype here]. This article looking at why so many women don't progress in academia - and in particular why mothers don't - perhaps gives a good reason why we might take some research with a pinch of salt: it's largely done by men and childless women.

Yes Rosie, I certainly do see that.

It's part of what I was getting at, that there is such a social norm for the woman's career to defer to the man's, unless it's some insanely high-wage, high-status job.

Speaking as a (woman) academic whose career has slowed since motherhood, I have found that the slowing down has happened gradually since I had my children, and has accelerated since they went to school.

Initially, I would say that even though I chose to come back from work after my first maternity leave on a fractional (0.7) basis, it didn't affect my research career. I was able to draw on projects started before I became pregnant, and on contacts and networks that I made when I was able to go to many more conferences and so forth. And my childcare was tailored around my needs as a working mother.

Once I had another child, and having two (and one with increasingly apparent SNs) was much more time-consuming than having one, my ability to draw on work I'd previously done as the basis for new research was diminishing. I was doing fewer conferences, and said no to more things because I couldn't take them on. The direction of my research changed (and I suspect this is an arts thing) because of the change in my life and thinking my children had meant.

Then they went to school, and suddenly the childcare wasn't tailored around my needs. One child's SNs meant that we couldn't use after-school care: school was enough of a burden for him. My ability to find stretches of time to start new research projects was severely affected by childcare time. As they have got older they don't need me less -- indeed, in some ways, they need me more. And I can no longer count on them being in bed and using the evening to work in.

So: the networking/conferencing side of research life has been eroded, and the stretches of time necessary to do new reading and major writing have been whittled away, and I can no longer build on what I was doing 10 years ago -- and my research has now settled in a much less fashionable area.

I wanted to tell that whole story because it's not just what happens to your career in the immediate aftermath of having a child that counts, it's what happens to it in the years after. As it is, I am ok with knowing that I'll never be promoted, and I am happy that my childless colleagues do get the rewards that their dedication gets them. It's just that having children is a long game, and the times when it can make the most demands of you are often those middle years when you might be expected to be making your career.

Well, they won't need academics either!

I would also like to see caring and growing actvities more valued, I would like them not to be seen as female activities though.

That's very sobering niminy -- thank you for sharing that, it's giving me something to think about.

I object to the sexism 0 that dull housework and cleaning up after a man is somehow a hallowed thing and female and something women adore and they are making a feminst choice to be the servant of the family whilst shooting their caerer to pieces

What we need to change is the norm that women earn pin money and aren't much good at work and men are better and earn a lot. If all these husbands of the part timer women on the thread were the ones in the kitchen instead the women would have decent careers.

I would not like to see caring activities more valued. They can be as dull as ditch water and it is sexist people who want to chain women to kitchens who suggest they are difficult or interest roles. They aren't which is why anyone can clean and those kinds of jobs are the lowest of the low in most societies.

Sol my questions above were valid - do the women go part time because their husband are better than they are. Did they marry a man who was cleverer than they are? Did they know they wanted to stay home a lot and do school collections and housework so picked a higher status better man who was the one more likely to succeed in university posts?

That makes me feel a bit better.

I found things soooo hard when I had children. And yet all the anecdotal evidence was that it was just me.

I also have a theory that the mania about REF and funding in academia is going to structurally bias that workplace against women with children.

Notice I said "structurally". It won't be direct discrimination, just lots of small factors adding up to making it an environment that it is pretty darn hostile to women with children.

niminy - that is a very wise post.

I also completely agree with the point Malenky made earlier, and would like to expand upon it:

If you are setting up a workplace-as-a-process in such a way as to effectively eliminate a large slice of the population (eg. women-with-children) it is going to impact on the structural point-of-view of that workplace/orgnisation: its shape; its evolution; its ethos; and the products it produces.

Not only will this implicit exclusion colour the naturr of the research being done, what is recognised as research, who does the recognising, and so on, but as the process of exclusion continues, so the possibility of critique and change of the process of exclusion, of the organisation itself, becomes more and more limited.

I was stunned how much of a leper and a whiner I was made to feel because I was primary carer for my children and would-be academic. I couldn't get any recognition of the things I needed - and I did need them, eg. childcare - without being made to feel like someone pleading special circumstances. And, yes, like rosie, my dh's career was the "real" one - what I was trying to do was just a hobby. Unlike men I knew, who had children, but had female partners doing the bulk of the childcare - because of the greater "reality" afforded to male doings.

That last issue, of course, is a problem of the wider culture, but it impacts hugely on any woman with children.

I think you are right, thecatfromjapan about the structural bias about the ref and funding. I've sat on a number of appointments committees in the last ten years and have seen an immense ratcheting up of expectations about what young scholars have to achieve to start a career. In the last job we were appointing to having four REF-able items was a floor expectation, and we were seeing applications from people onto their second book-length project. The need to keep producing continuously in order to have a good enough track record to secure grant money is another factor that keeps people on the treadmill.

I know women who have children and really stellar academic careers. The ones that sustain that over many years, however, tend to have a supportive partner in the background. This is very, very marked with the most successful women in my field. Another factor is both partners being able to live and work locally -- so many academic couples are now commuting (one or both partners) and that makes childcare harder to manage.

xenia, my problem is, I don't think you're being remotely realistic.

If your average academic woman wanted to stay home with the babies and the housework, who on earth would she marry an academic man? It makes no sense whatsoever. The academic couples I know have almost invariably (the one exception is a pair of PhD students who, frankly, are nuts) struggled a lot to think about how to get PhD places together let alone jobs together. You would have to be absolutely stark staring mad to plan to do a PhD intending to find a cleverer, more successful academic man to marry.

This is why I'm finding it hard to take you seriously - you don't know the career path (as why should you, of course?), but you're happy to assume it works in a particular way. You never vary your 'advice', you just trot it out. And in this situation, it isn't remotely plausible.

If you are bothered enough about academia to do a PhD, especially if you're my age (ie., started post-recession), I'd be confident to put money on it you didn't do it hoping your career would fizzle out aged 32 because you had a baby.

I understand and respect that many people have babies and find their priorities change (but you don't take account of that).

I also understand from colleagues that they would have bloody loved to carry on with their careers - as you do when you've spent 8 years plus training to get it! - but found it was structurally discriminatory as thecat says.

I find it incredibly depressing that I was hoping this thread would get into some proper discussions of why this might be, what we can do to change it, what sort of advice people who've succeeded in getting a good balance feel. And instead you've taken it over with your vague generalizations that are thinly disguised insults. Again.

Sorry. I'm sure I'm babbling. It's just I am still quite bitter.

But relieved that it really wasn't just me, being a whinger. It is amazing to see other women writing about similar experiences. It is the sort of thing that is a prophylactic against despair and madness.

You don't sound bitter.

I'm really grateful to you and others for sharing what's happened with you.

not surprised that having a family curtails one's academic career. No prospect for PT, noone else stops researching just 'cause you go on mat leave and points for papers in top journals make prizes irrespective of time off for mat leave.
Am currently doing intermediate fellowship applications with a newborn and a toddler and am finding engaging brain almost impossible.
Doing an interview for a fellowship at 5d post natal (annual competition so no chance to defer) was, quite frankly, laughable.

Prom I guess it depends on what kind of apocalypse we get too

I'm a bit of an expert on small-unit warfare, that might come in handy.

You can interpret Xenia's approach into academia though. It would be: don't take a year off on maternity, get some childcare, get a cleaner, make sure your partner does an equal share, and get back in the trenches and rise up the ladder.

It's not bad advice, especially if you are thinking long term, because you are likely to eventually get to a point where you have more freedom and flexibility and the wages to provide lots of opportunities for your children (not to be materialistic, but some things do realistically cost money).

That doesn't mean that everyone will want to follow this advice, and I would never judge someone who didn't. But I think it's good for the advice to be thrown out there, as an antidote to the idea that having kids means inevitably having to sacrifice your career a lot.

Prom -- it actually is an interesting question, whether women would be more valued in society after an apocalypse. Certainly a lot of the most male dominated fields will no longer be useful, and as you say being able to grow things and source everything for the household will be pretty damn useful.

Though I guess 'Feminists: Just Wait for the Apocalypse!' isn't much of a slogan.

I have been reflecting a bit on the 'mistakes' I made that I think will see me leave academia, none too big by themselves, but they all add up

• I didn't choose a 'strategic' PhD topic, it was theoretically interesting but didn't lead to the sort of publications and results that really got me noticed
• I spent some time in industry, which was good for me but also slowed down my publications
• I didn't move post-PhD when I had the chance, so have really been in the same location for too long with no intention of moving now
• I married a man who has a good career of his own and wasn't willing to slow down either, although I should mention that he is completely supportive of my career and does his fair share of childcare runs etc. (someone mentioned that a lot of successful female academics have husbands who have taken a back-seat)
• I'll have 2 babies close together, my choice and I wanted this, but 2 pregnancies, births, maternity leaves will really impact my research
• ill-timed pregnancy/conference combination has made it hard to get to the important conferences
• I live in a place with no family nearby, so am reliant on paid childcare
• I found pregnancy incredibly tiring and hard work, which sadly did have an impact on work

So, in summary, I think if you really want a career in academia and kids you have to be strategic about it from the start. Pick a good subject, get some decent publications behind you, and get some experience in different locations before thinking about kids.

I realise the above sounds a bit depressing, but actually my career's in pretty good shape if I want to work anywhere but academia :)

Very interesting to hear about the experiences of other women/mothers in academia.

Xenia, with all due respect I'm not sure you're in a position to contribute much to this debate, because academia is such a specific profession, and unless you're in it or have a partner in it it's hard to understand the particular challenges. I can tell you why I gave up my (much-coveted) academic job and let my DH keep his though. We had academic posts in different countries, and while that worked for us for a number of years, it was clearly not compatible with having a family. I had a job in an underfunded department; it was a good job but not my dream job. DH on the other hand had a permanent "dream job" in a prestigious and well-funded institution. He loved his job more than I loved mine, so I gave mine up and looked for a new post close to him. I would like to think that had the situation been reversed, he would have done the same for me. Otherwise I would not want to be married to him! I hate the fact that I have joined vast numbers of academic women who have been forced for whatever reason to compromise their careers, but if I had to do it all over again, I don't think I would have chosen any differently. He has made compromises too; he would probably prefer to move back to his country of origin and work as an academic there (and he could probably find a good job there in a heartbeat, as his field is a very popular one at the moment), but I am in a very niche field (that I love) and I would be virtually unemployable in that country. So living in the UK is a compromise that both of us have made.

And yeah, I'm sure the REF is bad for women. Ugh.

TBH I have this fantastic post now, and I'm scared shitless that I won't be able to publish enough to make something of it. I'm going to do my best though. I have more paid childcare than I've ever had before, and I am trying to adopt a newly "selfish" attitude in the workplace that involves saying no to whatever I can say no to and protecting my research time at all costs.

Which doesn't explain why I am currently wasting time hanging out on MN.

There are some fantastic women academics at my institution though, very inspiring. You are amazing, dreaming, to have forged a path at your institution the way you have, depressing as your story about other women dropping out of PhDs is.

I am also trying to be more strategic about the research areas I choose: to move away from 'niche' topics to more mainstream ones. I want to write stuff that people in my field will actually read. For a change (ha!).

X-posted with dreamingbohemian

You can interpret Xenia's approach into academia though. It would be: don't take a year off on maternity, get some childcare, get a cleaner, make sure your partner does an equal share, and get back in the trenches and rise up the ladder.

I have tried to follow most (but not all) of this, but I think the things working against women in with kids in academia are much more subtle, and not always easy to see ahead of time, which is what I was trying to convey :)

Wow, X-post with ruby about strategic choices. I can tick off most of the items on your list as things I've done as well!

I agree with dreaming that keeping your foot in as much as possible post-motherhood is important. I am so grateful now that I worked part-time in academia when DC1 was small, even though the salary barely covered the cost of the part-time childcare. It was an investment in the future and now I have a decent job again. Had I taken a break from academia entirely due to motherhood, I wouldn't even have been in the mental headspace to believe in myself and keep applying for jobs.

There are no guarantees though, and it's all such bloody hard work.

at small-unit warfare. Are you in peace and conflict studies or something like that, dreaming?

I like rubyanddiamond's "strategic" outline from a pragmatic point of view BUT ...

isn't it kind of wrong that we are now reduced to dreaming of ways to contort ourselves, our dreams, our love, our imagination, our conceptuality to fit ever smaller holes and corners within a system that - damn it! - should be more human-shaped, more woman-shaped, more life-shaped - because that latter is what it excludes, frankly.

AND

isn't this putting the onus on the individual woman to become - frankly - a bit of an instrumental sociopath in key areas of her life, rather on "the system" to change? i remember a book published a while back that suggested that, if women are to succeed, we must have only one child, and marry a husband a socio-economic class below us, who works in a very undemanding, low-prestige field. The question that that prompted was: who, really lives/loves like that?

AND LASTLY

do we want this for our daughters? 'Tis one thing demanding it of ourselves, quite another to wish it forwards for those we love and dream for ...

Mind you, as is soooo obvious, that is all very good advice, rubyand diamond, form a pragmatic point of view. And, since there really isn't going to be any glorious revolution any time soon, probably the only thing to be done.