Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman (in science)

amy.r — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:01:03 +0000

Obtaining a senior academic position for any aspiring young academic is one of those uphill struggles with roads lined with self doubt, setbacks and sacrifice. Some call it the way to tenure-track, in my mind it’s one of those ill-defined paths through a potentially haunted forest inhabited with monsters, gigantic poisonous spiders and creepy people who communicate by screaming. It can be harder still to even reach that point, particularly for young women. While the number of women professors in Europe, N. America and Australia has increased over the last decade, universities still have a disproportionately small number of women in senior professorial positions.

While the numbers of female students are high at undergraduate and postgraduate levels (in my undergraduate studies there seemed a 1:3 male to female ratio), the senior academic positions tend to be held by men. This discrepancy is certainly not a question of ability. It sadly appears that a large proportion of talented female students either abandon their career ambitions in favour of a non-academic job, turn down fellowships or accept jobs at less competitive universities allowing a focus on raising children and enjoying family life. Quite simply, it appears that many women in academia lose faith in being able to “have it all

Cite this article:
Reichelt A (2013-01-29 00:01:03). Sometimes it's hard to be a woman (in science). Australian Science. Retrieved: May 19, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/women-in-science-2/sometimes-its-hard-to-be-a-woman-in-science/

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Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman (in science)