Academics have historically been a domain overwhelmingly reserved for men. The realm of academics has only relatively recently been made available to women, and within it few fields remain as sexually exclusive as the sciences. The gender disparity within these fields is remarkably high and challenges both female professionals working in the sciences as well as female students breaking into the field. The vast majority of men still working in the field compared to the smaller number of women calls into question women's opportunities versus their expected roles. Through each phase of women's education in preparation for a career in science, most notably biology, women drop out of their education at a much higher rate than men. This is often due to various social factors and pressures which range from a sense of not belonging in a major increasingly dominated by men as the level of education increases to suddenly being faced with social pressure to raise a family. If the science of life continues to center around the investigations and experiments done by men more than those of women, how can equality for women be achieved, and stereotyping of women's abilites and roles be defeated? In order to better understand the situation of women in this field, we have interviewed three prominent female biologists from the University of Georgia: Dr. Sue Wessler, Dr. Ellen Neidle, and Dr. Rebecca Bartel.
Purpose of the Research
Statistics show that fewer women than men choose to go into scientific fields, and even fewer become successful professionals within the field. The purpose of our research project was to interview three women who have achieved success in scientific fields, in order to understand how their gender has affected their experiences in the scientific community. Throughout the years, women have overcome huge obstacles in order to become advanced scientists. Our research means to understand this process.
The Interviews
Dr. Sue Wessler
Dr. Wessler is a professor of Plant Biology at the University of Georgia. When she came to the university in the 1980s, she was only one of two female faculty members in her department. Now the female to male faculty ratio is closer to 40-50%, she says. Although she does not feel that she has ever been hindered by her gender in the scientific community, she is quick to point out that her female predecessors in the field (prominent female scientists such as Mildred Cohn and Barbara McClintock) did face many struggles because of their gender. "I feel very fortunate for when I was born, and where I was born.... I feel that this is one of the first times in the history of humanity that women have been allowed to excel," she says. She points out that most students nowadays are female: most students in college, in graduate school, and in medical school. She does mention that she feels she sometimes treats her own female graduate students differently from the male ones--she feels that, on average, her female students need more encouragement than the males, because, "on average, women are more honest about their shortcomings [than men]" and, sometimes, therefore more insecure. From her perspective, gender dynamics in her field are changing, and women are continuing to overcome the disadvantages that faced early female scientists.
Dr. Ellen Neidle
Dr. Neidle is a professor of Microbiology at the University of Georgia. She was happy to meet with us and ready to answer our questions, and she seemed excited to have an opportunity to discuss women's issues in her field with women's studies students. Dr. Neidle told us that she had actually attempted talks and made efforts to raise awareness of gender issues present within the biology field, especially at UGA. She talked extensively about the way that common societal structures of families often put a halt in women biologists' educations and careers. Dr. Neidle noted that, in her experience, undergraduate women tend to drop out more than men, but once they reach graduate school, the proportion of the sexes are fairly equal. She mentioned that in her graduate class, there were six women and five men, all of whom received their doctorates. However, the proportion of women being hired into the scientific fields is much less than even with men, in Dr. Neidle's experience. By the time biologists are done with their doctorates and post-doctoral research, they are in their mid-thirties, and so women disproportionately find themselves in positions where they settle down and begin a family while the man becomes the breadwinner. As Dr. Neidle said, she felt that "there's a lot of denial.... I've been really trying to make my colleagues more aware of the situation, and they really deny that there is an issue and yet I don't understand how women could have been getting Ph.D.s at the same rate as men for twenty or thirty years and yet for [biology] faculty to have very low percentages of women."
Dr. Rebecca Bartel
Dr. Bartel works in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. She was very open to talking to us about all of her past experiences that have gotten her to where she is today. She stated that she did not feel that more women have dropped out of graduate school than men, and that her classes in graduate school felt very evenly distributed. The main problem women are having at this point is staying in the academia field and trying to maintain a family. Dr. Bartel said that while she was in school, she had no female advisors or professors. Although she had no female role models, all of her male advisors were very supportive of her decision to continue her graduate studies Dr. Bartel also talked about how gender was always an issue when it came to women in science. Employers are always wondering when women will begin to start a family, and how much actual working time these women will have. Dr. Bartel really stressed how hard it can be at times to have both a family and a career by saying, "I do think that it is challenging to be this sort of superhero, and try and you know, juggle all your balls in the air, with your family, and trying to have a family, and trying to be successful professionally. In her specific field of ecology, there are always gender risks that occur. She used the example of traveling in the woods with a 50 pound pack, and how men are always offering to carry it because they do not believe that she can handle it. As more times goes on, Dr. Bartel has noticed that women have started becoming the dominating force in the scientific field and she really hopes that trend continues.
Conclusion
All three women that we interviewed mentioned the struggles of their predecessors, and what those women had to overcome to be accepted and appreciated in their field. All of the women noticed that ever so slowly, women are starting to become the majority in college and university settings, and also even (in some cases, such as in many classrooms) within the scientific field. But even with the huge strides that women have made in broadening their opportunities in this field, there are sill unique challenges that they face in the scientific professions. These challenges are mainly due to overlapping roles that women in the workplace must face, particularly those roles within the family. These are the issues facing the current generation as it makes its way into the scientific field.
Group Reflection
This project was very instructive for us as an entire group. We learned so much about women in science, and just how strong these women really are. One thing that really shocked us was how informed all the women seemed to be. They were all well informed in the women’s issues that are going on in the scientific field. Another thing that we all got out of this was the connections these women gave us. All three of the women were extremely willing to help us discover more about careers in science, and answering any questions that we had. Having those connections could be beneficial to us later on in our education.
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