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.

I entirely agree thecatfromjapan, I don't really want to follow my own advice! I think you gain a lot from following an unconventional path. And I'm not convinced that if you sent me back 10 years with what I know now, I'd really do anything different. But from where I am now it seems that's what's needed to combine motherhood with academia.

Great post, thecatfromjapan.

In terms of who we should marry, I would definitely have a better chance of succeeding at academia if I had married someone who worked in an undemanding field, or someone who wanted to be a SAHD. But I was attracted to my DH in the first place because he was so passionate about ideas and so driven. Presumably he was attracted to me for similar reasons (though I'm sure there are moments when he would love to be married to a SAHM instead!).

I think that as feminists, we have to combine pragmatism with a long-term vision for changing the workplace.

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 this is not too great a cariacature of successful women I know.

I also know women academics who are working full time, partners working full time in a demanding job, with two children, and trying to hold it all together -- and getting tireder and tireder, and having more and more opportunistic infections...

I also know women academics who are working full time, partners working full time in a demanding job, with two children, and trying to hold it all together -- and getting tireder and tireder, and having more and more opportunistic infections...

Do you have a hidden camera in my house, niminy?

The only reason I am feeling as cheerful about my life as I am right now is because it's the end of the university term, and I have a couple of precious weeks before the school holidays start. DH and I actually managed to have lunch together this week (gasp).

It seems that there is a line of thought that says if you want to be successful you must do what most men do (or perhaps what capitalism tells you you must do? But let's not bring capitalism into it - it's complicated enough ...) Bollocks to that. I say we change the fucking system. Be outliers if we must, but things are changing slowly, and I'm not going back. Much as I hate her legacy, "the lady's not for turning".

Is that ambition or not? The wrong type of ambition?

And I think things that affect women are more than childcare. I don't know what, but I'm intending to read my book on why women progress so slowly in academia at some point so I might have some understanding ...

DH and I have been to Relate this year, and one of the main things the counsellor made us realise is just how bloody difficult and demanding our lives are at the moment. She spent a lot of time complimenting us on how well we are coping. Obviously we are not coping THAT well or we would not have ended up at Relate, but still, it is helpful to remind myself that the stress is not just inside my head: that having two demanding jobs and two small children is inherently very challenging. We are so very time-poor.

I feel less and less guilty about things like paying for a cleaner, or having all the shopping delivered by Internet. Whatever works.

And I also know that in loads of ways I am hugely privileged, in terms of economic status and in terms of having a job that I love and want to do, and having a family that I love and want to spend time with.

Most of the time though I feel one step away from pure chaos.

An engineer (who is very high up the food chain) I met once told me that you should crank up your career when your children are babies and establish yourself, and then when they start school and need more of your feedback you can slow down. She's a woman, but not sure if it makes any difference. What do people think of this advice? I didn't take it, but then I needed to establish also a home language. But in principle this could work?

I don't know, if that worked for her, then it's useful advice for other women to think about.

I personally felt much more physically needed by my DC when they were babies - breastfed them around the clock and so on. They never EVER went to bed at a decent hour and I got very, very little work done. Now that DS1 is 8, for example, I feel that he is far more independent and far less demanding. DS2 is a toddler and still very demanding. So I am hoping that things will continue to get easier as they both get older (!).

Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, though, as niminy pointed out. Having a DC with SN is a challenge that I haven't had to confront. And my sense is that children continue to need you as you get older, just in different ways - you spend less time physically cuddling them and wiping their food off the floor, but more time chauffeuring them around to different activities, hosting play dates, etc.

I felt that there is much more that needed talking about now they are older. More things that are less clear cut, IFKWIM. To quote one of the Ice Age movies (the one with the dinosaur) - when they are small the morals are easier "You do NOT eat other people's children". But when they are older the rights and wrongs seem to be so much blurrier, if that's a word .. And now I must go and get the little darlings!

It's interesting to hear academics talking about why there are so few senior women in universities and institutes. I'm merely a hack but have worked with academics and realised how difficult it is for women to progress - and how even those that do are sometimes patronised by their colleagues.

One small example - friend of mine who was a researcher in a particular area of science at a world-class university. She also has a baby daughter. She couldn't face having to move countries ever four years or so - she's from another European country, her dh is British (and has a career that involves travel).

She's left the university and taken a job as a press officer at a research institute in the town where she lives. The press officer job does have to be a scientist, it's not a role that any old hack could walk into, but what a loss to research! Far better work-life balance - even working fulltime, there's an onsite nursery so she can go and see her dd at lunchtime and pick her up the minute she leaves work.

But why is academia squeezing out people like my friend, who is now not conducting crucial biological research, but dealing with PR in an entirely different area of science?

uptoapoint I think it might be good advice for some women, but I also think it's difficult to say what we should do once babies are on the scene as they all behave so differently. I found my DD hard work, and my experience of early motherhood was not easy, so I think the added pressure that I should also have been cranking up my career might have caused me to crack! But, not everyone has the same experience as I did, and for others it may well be a good time to put in more to their careers.

That's a good question edam! Most of the time I think it's somehow my fault for not being able to get on in academia, like if I'd done something differently or made different choices it'd be easier. But then other times I just want to stamp my feet and demand that the system do more to keep me because I'm brilliant(!) and it'd obviously be a big loss to have me move elsewhere ;)

ruby - yes, no one-size-fits-all, inconvenient!

edam - it is a shame.

Which brings us to an appropriate John Stuart Mill quote: "In all things of any difficulty and importance, those who can do them well are fewer than the need, even with the most unrestricted latitude of choice: and any limitation of the field of selection deprives society of some chances of being served by the competent, without ever saving it from the incompetent." From The Subjection of Women.

I was an academic. DH still is.

My 3 pregnancies were difficult (hyperemesis) and I lost a lot of time and, worst of all, there was a lot of time when I wasn't off work but wasn't working at anything like full capacity due to all the sickness and it is difficult to get medical certification for that.

DH and I agreed that once my maternity leaves were over his career would take a back seat and he could catch up.
That time arrived, they were closing departments like his all over the place, his research had inevitably been affected by the children and sickness too, so we found ourselves in a position where not only was my career very uncertain, but if we risked him doing any less work than he had been doing, his could go down the tubes as well.

So I've been at home for nearly 4 years now and his is nearly back up to speed again

It makes me laugh, when I was at school a Very Successful Woman Scientist came to speech day. She told us about how lucky she had been to successfully manage career and family (she was really lovely and actually quite subversive because the message our school wanted to give us was that we would all do everything.) She explained that she was only able to do this because her dh had already got established in his field so he really could take a back seat and do the childcare once the babies came along.
I only later found out who her dh was. He was Ernst Chain and when she said his career was established by the time they had kids, she meant he had got the Nobel Prize for the discovery of penicillin

Oh, I do like that JSM quote, Lord Copper.

Crikey.

Good on Ernst Chain, then.

The strong message I get, however, is 'marry a man at least ten years older'.

edam that's exactly the sort of thing I worry about (though I think I would feel much more narked if, like your friend, I were doing something with demonstrable immediate usefulness!).

The thing is, there is a bottom line, isn't there? DH could be as lovely as possible, do everything, but he knows for absolutely certain he won't be recovering from a C section (just to take one example, obviously). So he can just plan things so much more.

No, xenia, it's not. HTH.

(Oh, ok, I know it's an issue but good lord. You're listening to people telling you why they felt pushed out and you still think we're all lazy sods who just wanted a rich husband? Really?)

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 :(

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?

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

I was told the JRFs this year had far more than that. I don't know how true it is. And of course they would get high numbers because they're open to so many people. I would bloody love to be applying for something with 30 applicants but most jobs I've seen, I've known about 20 of us applying for them at the same time, so common sense tells me the total number must be high.

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.

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.