Nobel Prize winner Carol Greider: Women scientists need flexibility
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor Carol Greider receives her Nobel Prize in medicine today for her research into how chromosomes protect themselves as cells divide. While lauding her for her prize, I'm interested in what she and one of her fellow laureates, Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, had to say about prospects for women in scientific research.
Despite their own wonderful achievement, the two paint a bleak picture of opportunities for women in science, according to the Associated Press. They say that the career structure is still very much geared toward men -- and that promising female researchers fall away from the work not because they can't do it, but because it isn't compatible with having a family.
Blackburn said there need to be more opportunities for part-time work.
I think frustrated mothers in many professions would say the same, but it's startling to hear these extraordinary women articulate it on the eve of accepting their prize.
How do we make things more flexible, though, when the state of the economy makes many of us feel lucky just to have any job at all?
Comments
Family should come before everything else. You can't have it all...at once. Something has to give.
Posted by: NotableM | December 10, 2009 11:37 AM
It is a sad situation that of working women in general. Men can NOT have babies! So, it should be a way that women can work AND take care of their families. Nowhere is written: you should choose between your brain or your womb. People talk about staying at home as if it is an option to everybody when it is not. You have families that broke apart and you have other families were the father is sick or had an accident. Women work very hard and most of the time longer time than men (new research shows that in the USA men have an extra 38 min/day of free time compared to women. In a year that is around 10 free days). Women don’t want to be slackers just to have a fair chance.
In the institution where I am, there are in my field five professors, all men....
Posted by: Ana | December 10, 2009 11:53 AM
First a question for Dr Greider: Don't you find it pretty pathetic that after all your years of sweat and hard work, you finally get rewarded, whereas Barrack Hussein Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing?
Now a comment:
Please stop the whining about how difficult it is to do two things (science and raise a family) at the same time. May I suggest interviewing the many women out there who are in the work force and raising children on their own without the childrens' father in their lives? Or is it that you think being a "scientist" is sooooo above the "menial" tasks of having children and working at a real job? Spare me the condescension.
Posted by: Thatsmightynobelofyou | December 11, 2009 9:57 AM
Thatsmightynobelofyou, I happen to know Carol Greider, and I have to say she does not whine. She has been nothing but gracious as far as I can see.
Appropriate Captcha: In strangle
Posted by: Dahlink | December 12, 2009 12:31 PM
Actually, being a scientist is MUCH more demanding than a "normal" 8-5 job. Experiments take hours to days, and can't be stopped just because a child is sick or even needs dinner. But experiments are a minor task in research! In addition to experiments, there are grants to constantly write, papers to write (if you're lucky), students and postdocs to supervise, courses to develop, classes to teach, student committees to serve on, conferences to attend and all the other demands your division director places on you. Oh, and then in your "free time," you keep up with the constant stream of literature in your field. It is a 24/7 PLUS job. Taking time to take care of the kids means losing ground in this extremely competitive field where productivity is the difference between getting a grant (having a job) or not!!
Posted by: former researcher and mom | March 2, 2010 1:59 PM