Science and Gender

Today a woman I work with sent me an e-mail about a male transgendered scientist (Barres) who wrote about his experience in science as a woman. He wrote a piece in Nature magazine denouncing a recent assertion by a couple of Harvard professors that essentially women by nature have a lower capacity for understanding math and science and so the gender gap isn’t all that surprising. Barres is obviously in a unique position as a transgendered individual who spent his early career as a woman in science and later career as a man.

The recent articles today have had me thinking a lot about the issues that women in science face. Throughout my life I have run up against plenty of gender disparity with regards to my career choice. Why did I persist? It wasn’t that people told me I couldn’t do it. No, my self-confidence was never that great. It was that people told me I COULD do it.

I remember as a kid when someone asked me what I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be a nurse. My grandmother, a nurse, piped up and said, “no you don’t, you want to be a doctor!” From then on, I wanted to be a doctor, then an astronaut, then a doctor… But for the most part, I always wanted to go into science. I had some really fantastic teachers who always encouraged me, never told me I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. Furthermore, my parents stood behind me 100% in my interests and aspirations. They only wanted for me to be a success in whatever I wanted to do.

I had a main rival in grade school named Dawn. She and I were constantly the top scores in math and science. The first ones done with everything and done perfectly. We were fiercely competitive, to the point I remember her refusing to surrender her place in line in front of me to have our math quizzes graded when she needed to go to the bathroom. Yep, you know what came next.

It wasn’t two boys in our class that were the top of the class in math and science through grade school. Nope, two little girls.

My first experience with the word geek was when I was in 7th grade and I was so excited to join the computer club and learn LOGO. I loved computer club and never knew there was anything “wrong” with it until a woman that worked with my mom, whose son was *the most popular boy* in my junior high was having a party. I found out he wasn’t going to invite me to the party because I was a computer geek. Days later I quit the computer club and gave up one of the things I really really loved.

I decided at that point that I didn’t want to be smart anymore, I wanted to be one of the girls that the boys liked and that beating them at math scores and computer competitions was not going to be my route to that particular end goal.

I graduated from high school with decent enough grades, decent enough that I could get into any state supported university I wanted, I didn't apply private knowing I didn't have the money. I did this without trying and hanging out with people who didn’t know or care what classes I was in. They probably thought the reason I wasn’t in classes with them was because I was skipping.

I worked my way through college for a dermatologist. He served as a mentor to me and I often babysat his kids. One weekend his son asked me what I was studying at college and I told him pre-med, so I could be a doctor like his dad. He laughed at me and said, “No really, women can’t be doctors!” The little boy was in 3rd grade and I was shocked. He got an earful about that women can do anything they want and probably still remembers it. But really, it wasn't his fault. It was his parent's fault. I left there feeling more sorry for his little sister who was in kindergarten, and probably believed that her brother was right. My first inkling that my childhood was probably different than most other little girls was here.

My first real exposure to gender disparity in science came when I interviewed for grad school at Colorado State University. It was my first real interview of such and I never felt more like I was taking up someone’s valuable time than I did there. At first I didn’t see this as gender bias, but throughout the day it became evident. A man was also interviewing the same day I was. I was taken to lunch by a female grad student. She was not kind with her words about being a woman in that department and I believe it was no coincidence that we went to the same place for lunch as did the man who was interviewing. Only two professors escorted him to lunch.

Later that afternoon, I was meeting with the chair of the inorganic chemistry group and I asked him what classes I could be expected to teach? He responded that I would teach Chem 101. Would I ever teach an upper division class? “Not likely, women TA’s just aren’t as well received as men among the student body”. I will never forget that line as long as I live. I remember having a break in my schedule and calling my mom on a payphone nearly crying, telling her I did not want to come to school here and wasn't sure I really wanted to go to grad school. I was so close to walking out the door at that point, but for some reason I continued the day. I left, never feeling more dejected in my entire life.

My other grad school interviews were nothing like that and I ended up at a school with an amazing ratio of women faculty, THREE in a department of 12. Wow, one in four profs was a woman. So advanced were I thought. My class was 50% female to start out. But in the end, I was the only female to graduate with a Ph.D. in my class. Only one man dropped out. Why did the others leave? One was just a stupid dumbshit who on the first day proclaimed to us all that the periodic chart should be just made into a square box, the shape was just too funky. She gave a bad name to the rest of the women in the class. One transferred because she felt sexually harassed by her advisor. Two married and quit because they wanted to be wives and moms and not really scientists. (Both of them were not from the US.) And one other took her Masters and decided to go to work and earn some real money.

Oh and my second semester I taught upper division lab. I never really had any trouble garnering respect from my students. I had one student threaten me physically and I do not believe that he would have done so with a male TA. But he was psycho anyways. Otherwise, female students were often inspired by me (or so I was told) and my male students found me to be a quality TA (as shown by my teaching ratings) and the fact that I was awarded both department and university wide teaching awards. I won a research award at a national conference beating out many men from top universities. By the time I finished grad school I had my self confidence. I was as smart as the men around and had no problem proving it.

I interviewed at a company in Silicon Valley where the head of human resources asked me how my husband would feel about leaving Reno? Would he have ever asked that of a man?

Real life as a scientist has beaten me back down over the past few years. And you know this if you have read my blog. I work in an incredibly tolerant setting for a company with a very accepting and diverse philosophy. However, it is the individuals where this acceptance does not always resonate. Sexual Harassment training is scoffed at and joked about among the men I work with. It’s a joke to them. They all see nothing wrong with their behaviors. When I worked in the lab routinely, there was nothing wrong with them walking into the lab I worked in, seeing me and saying "Hi honey, I am home!" Despite the fact that I am a married woman and that line dripped of "she's the little woman of the group" to me. I wasn't invited to lunch with the guys and on every deployment (five while I was on that project) I was cut at the last minute for "lack of funds". None of the men were ever cut.

I jumped at a chance to leave my former group (run by a man) that had 75 staff members, three of whom were female scientists out of the nearly 50 scientist level staff. I endured being treated as an admin, not having an office when my male counterparts at the same level and with less experience than I did. I was told I would have to pump in the bathroom when I expressed concern about not having a place to pump when I would come back from maternity leave. When I said there were no outlets in the bathroom my manager told me to buy a battery pack. And I was passed over for a promotion because (I believe) I was on maternity leave. I was also removed as PI on a funded project, because I was on maternity leave. This was admited to me recently. Yet, my current team lead still cannot fathom why I made the switch to my current group, when I have so little in common research-wise with most of them. I have yet to tell him it is because my new manager is a woman. Since moving, I can honestly say that I have experienced, within my line management, no discrimination. We won’t talk about projects… but I am starting to hold my own. Although I will say that I believe I have had to work harder than my male counterparts to get to the same place.

It is different everywhere, many women cite no problems with being a woman in science.

What does this say to me? Two things. To encourage girls to pursue their interests in science we need parents and teachers to encourage them, give them praise and show them options. Once those little girls become women of science we need to treat them with respect, equality, and do our best to compare achievements with a blind eye to gender. We need to not be afraid to confront people who say and do stupid things. And we need to raise our little boys and girls with the belief that boys and girls can do anything they want to in life without bounds.