Balancing motherhood and a physics education

Today I read an interview by Physics Today with Randi Ludwig, an astronomy graduate student who has been a mother since her sophomore year of her undergraduate education.  The interview offers a really helpful perspective on what it’s like to be a mother and a student in the physical sciences at the same time.  And although it’s clear that it isn’t an easy thing to do, Randi Ludwig shows that it is definitely possible! The interview also makes a strong case for family-friendly science departments; one thing that made balancing science and motherhood easier was the fact that she could bring her daughter to class with her.  It’s really important that science departments be family-friendly as careers in science can make motherhood difficult.

Here’s the interview: http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition/singularities/forging_ahead_with_astronomy_baby_and_all

Study: Women physicists have less access to resources

In “Women in physics: A tale of limits”, an article recently published in Physics Today, Rachel Ivie and Casey Langer Tesfaye stress looking beyond the underrepresentation of women in physics to determine whether women in physics have equal access to resources.  Although women in physics are still underrepresented (they make up 17% of physics PhDs), concentrating on that can take focus off the day-to-day issues women physicists face.

In all, the authors had survey data from 15000 physicists from 130 different countries.  While the article can be read in it’s entirety here, I’d like to highlight some main points.

1) The majority of housework is more likely to be done by women than men.  The female physicists are also more likely to be married to someone with a high level of education. The authors write, “Taken together, the survey results indicate that if family responsibilities do affect physicists’ careers, they are more likely to affect women than men.”

2) Having children slows the career progress of female physicists, but not the career progress of male physicists.  In fact, according to a different survey, male faculty members with children are the most likely group to achieve tenure.

3) In both less developed countries and highly developed countries, women have less access than men to key resources such as funding, office space, lab space, and equipment (among other things).

4) In both less developed countries and highly developed countries, women have less career advancing experiences, such as being invited to give talks at conferences, and serving on committees for grant agencies.

I highly recommend taking a look at the tables and figures in the article, as they reveal distressing facts about the status of women in physics worldwide.  Not only are women physicists underrepresented, but they have less access than men to important resources and career advancing experiences.  The careers of female physicists are also affected negatively by family responsibilities while the careers of male physicists are not.

Show me what a scientist looks like…

…This Is What a Scientist Looks Like!

I recently stumbled across this really awesome blog called “This Is What a Scientist Looks Like“. Essentially, this blog tries to change the stereotypical perceptions of who a scientist is and what they look like.  Some of the pictures posted on the blog show us scientists who are women, and scientists who have families (including several with young children).  But it also shows us scientists doing things that aren’t science.  Scientists are not one-dimensional, and spend plenty of time doing things outside the lab/classroom.  There is a weightlifting entomologist, a soccer-coaching psychologist, a bagpipe playing biologist, a scuba-diving planetary scientist, and a fashion blogger/pharmacologist.

I think that showing that scientists come in many different forms can go a long way in increasing the representation of women in the sciences.  Scientists are not mythical men in lab coats, doing experiments through the night in their basement laboratories.  We do not all wear nerdy glasses and sport pocket protectors.*  Scientists can be your sister, your friend, your neighbor, your mother, and may even be you!

What stereotypes about scientists do you think need to be dispelled?

 

*Despite this, we will probably be nerdy in other ways. And actually myself and most of my friends wear glasses..