>I just read the book 'Athena Unbound,' about women in
>science, and it made two points I hadn't thought much
>about. One, which Brian made here already, is that
>younger male faculty are also concerned about the
>difficulty of balancing family and science. The other
>was that the departments in which changes were made to
>solve this problem were usually departments in which
>a senior male faculty member became convinced that
>the changes needed to be made.
Someone has made the point (and no, my grant wracked brain can't
recall who) that senior men become involved when their own children,
especially their daughters, faced these problems. Thus, they always
felt the department didn't have a problem until their daughter,
struggling at another university, ran into gender discrimination or
the broader "family discrimination" and they realized she'd be
treated the same way at dad's institution.
>>This made me wonder whether there are any women-in-science
>outreach activities aimed specifically at senior male
>faculty. What about, for instance, a group to help the
>advisors of female graduate students?
>
I wince at lumping all female graduate students into a pile-each and
every person is quite different. I think that there are problems
unique to female graduate students, problems that occur for both male
and female students but more often for females, and then a whole set
of problems that occur in pigeon holes that cross gender-the advisor
from hell, the sudden loss of funding mid degree, etc. Rather than a
group to help advisors of female graduate students, which encourages
the idea that female graduate students are somehow a problem, how
about a focus on personal and career issues that effect grad students
in general?
Most faculty are clueless when it comes to the personal issues their
students are facing. We are trained to make them good scientists. The
old school idea is to teach the process of science, and let the
personal take care of itself. But watching my fellow graduate
students drop out of science one by one, I realized it was often
because of situations that could have been avoided through
compassionate advising (1) the advisor didn't understand that a
divorce in the middle of graduate school had effects on a students
work and should be taken into account (2 friends here) (2) the
advisor/program frowned on having children mid degree and made life
difficult, or at the very least commented constantly on the
questionable devotion to science of the parent (4 friends here, one
male) (3) family matters aren't given equal weight with science
matters (see below).
I still remember a research-in-progress talk I had to give to my
department. My daughter had major surgery the week before, and I was
doing coursework at the time (year 3). I managed to miss only one
class, but with my daughter home from the hospital I didn't think I
could pull together my talk in time. I asked my advisor if I could
reschedule. The answer was no, unless I found someone who wanted to
trade times with me (on a week's notice, which I couldn't) because
"you should have thought of this weeks ago and it's not fair to
others if you get special consideration". Frankly, I had other things
on my mind (the impending surgery). I ended up giving the talk
because my mother took a week off from work and drove from another
state to assist in caring for my daughter, but how many people have
that kind of support? And the worst part of it was-the talk was
MEANINGLESS in the big picture-it wouldn't have hurt anyone to
reschedule it, but my advisor was trying to prove something (I leave
it to the group to decide what he proved). Yet, the week before when
I broke down in the lab because I hadn't slept in days due to my
daughter's illness, he was quite understanding. If you asked this
man, he'd tell you what a compassionate advisor he is, and point to
my degree as proof-he kept me as a student despite the influence of
my at-times-chaotic personal life. I think sometimes we don't
realize the far-reaching consequences of little actions we take, for
good or for bad.
Having said all that, there's a school of thought that I half agree
with that says you shouldn't coddle graduate students because it
simply postpones the inevitable smashing against the hard cruel
world. Experiences like the one above taught me how to "produce" no
matter what my personal state. this is good for my science and my
students, but probably not for me as a person. And I still think
it's the hard cruel world of science that needs to change, not the
people who have a life.
Can you tell I should be writing something else-I'm procrastinating....
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Julia Frugoli
Asst. Professor
Biological Sciences
Clemson University
132 Long Hall
Clemson, SC 29634
PHONE (864) 656-1859
FAX (864) 656-0435
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