S.L. Forsburg wrote:
>THis is a perfect description, not of school, but of real life--certainly
>of real life doing science. It's not so much a matter of being overmatched
>in terms of raw ability, as simply lacking the network and the
>politics and the "in" with the crowd that gives you a chance to
>get your foot in the door and do your work, get the grant, publish the
>paper....
I'm actually seeing, more and more, that this is not so much a
gender-specific thing. Or, at least I'm seeing and hearing young men in
science say similar things about their relationship with those senior to
them. As I've mentioned, my PhD advisor was an established, relatively
senior, woman in Neuroscience. I would sometimes hear younger male
postdocs or new faculty complain about having to go up "against her" if
they wanted to work on related topics.
However, when I was in her lab, I was always impressed with how well she
collaborated with other PI's, while still protecting her own (and her own
postdocs/students') interests. From my perspective, at first it was very
hard for me to see her as anything but an underdog, because I just had this
gut feeling in graduate school that all women were underdogs, just because
they were women in science, but I don't think she really saw it that way.
Instead, she worked really hard for the Professional Society, as a
Councilor, as a section editor for the Journal, and finally as President.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think that hard, good work *can* overcome at least
some of these competitive shackles. Even networking is something that can
be learned and worked at, and it doesn't have to be sleazy if it is
motivated by a desire to keep up with the science.
In another post, you wrote that sometimes a big "guy" will call up a little
"guy" and say "I'm working on what you're working on, collaborate or I will
blow you away." This sounds indeed very unpleasant, and I'm sorry it has
happened to you. In my own sub-field, I haven't seen that much of
this--there may be calls and offers to collaborate, but more often than not
the collaborations are a way *out of*, rather than *into* a nasty
situation. That is, nobody gets blown away or shut out, and everyone gets
a piece of the pie. At this point in my career, I'd probably be flattered
if a "big guy" (or gal) knew or cared enough about what I was working on to
call me and want to collaborate. After all, s/he could just go ahead and
blow me away before I even knew what hit me, and perhaps without even
knowing that s/he was doing it.
>In real life there IS no segregation by ability or by connections,
>and competition is far from fair. But would you want to be segregated
>apart from the Golden Boys of science and judged differently?
Well, as some people in the affirmative action debate have pointed out,
there has *always* been affirmative action for straight white males.
Similarly, I would say that yes, there IS segregation by ability and by
connections, it just happens by chance rather than by design. And the
Golden Boys and Girls of science are already segregated out and judged
differently, but again, it isn't done consciously, so people pretend it
doesn't happen at all, except when the negative consequences impinge on
them.
>Only if you grade on a curve! ;-) If you grade on an
>absolute scale, rather than a curve, then students are only competing
>"against the clock", not against each other. 95% is an A for everyone
>who gets it, and hurrah if they all do! (Fortunately I teach graduate
>students where this is feasible!)
Actually, this seems to me to be the best way to simulate the real world of
research for students. New drugs, better treatments, and true ideas, are
not found on a curve.
Karen
