Hi there,
In this week's weekend supplement the British newspaper the "Guardian" carried
a leading article ("In 2 minds") by Marek Kohn about differences in brain acti-
vity between men and women. From this article I quote the following:
" ...his [Steven Rose's] fellow neuroscientist Sandra Witelson finds brain
differences a plausible candidate to explain why women drop out of scientific
careers between the ages of 30 and 35. Yes, she says, the fact that male
scientists can bond over a beer or a game of squash may make them a lot happier.
"But it may not be the whole story", she continues. "It may be that the kind of stress that comes with success doesn't give the same kind of reinforcement to
one sex as another, that the natural neurochemical substrates that are related
to stress could be different between men and women. If that is the case, that's
important to know."
Sandra Witelson may very well have been quoted out of context here. The author
goes on to state that he "believes" the ability of women to withstand stress is
not the most important factor to affect career choices of women in their 30s
but he leaves the issue at that. Whatever he believes to be important is not
further elaborated in that article. The article touches very much on the issue
of how society is or is not responsible for the inequalities between the sexes
in terms of reasoning and professional achievement. However, statements of the
kind quoted above are balanced only by the authors personal beliefs or some
subjective interpretation about the respective values of rational reasoning and interpersonal skills. Doubtlessly, this is an attempt at political correctness
on behalf of the author.
I am mainly concerned with the implications of the quote above. In our 30s, many
of us will be faced with the decision of whether or not to have children. In thepresent competetive climate where a postdoc career consists of a succession of
short-term research contracts and the constant milling-out of papers, a career
break is not an option. The blame for this lies entirely with the establishment
and not with the women who have to choose between having a family or a career
as research scientists.
Normally, I would have written a letter to the Guardian in response to this
article. However, with the paper free to edit letters I am afraid this action
could damage my career as my future employers may think I am "in 2 minds" myselfabout continuing as a scientist (untrue). While Women in Biology is certainly
not a confidental forum, I feel that such issues can be discussed more detailed
and more freely within this group than with a national newspaper. As far as I
know, there is no evidence from social studies about what influences career
decisions in 30-35 year old femal *scientists*, but from what I have gathered
from this group so far, the decision to have children is certainly a major
factor. What do you think?
By the way, the e-mail address of the Guardian weekend supplement is
Weekend at Guardian.ac.uk - perhaps we could formulate a common reply.
Best regards,
Denni Schnapp (ds4 at st-and.ac.uk)
