Book Tour Thoughts
Hi friends of women in science,
This summer I've spoken about my memoir, Breaking through the Spiral Ceiling, at Pepperdine University to their research students, at the invitation of Professor Jay Brewster, at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, at the invitation of Lee Niswander, a faculty member of the Embryology course, and at the City of Hope, Beckman Research Institute at the invitation of Michelle Navarro, coordinator of students' programs.
I've also been interviewed for general magazines, blog radio shows, and signed books at Barnes and Noble. I would say that for the purposes I wrote the book, to provide evidence that a woman can be both a scientist and a married woman with children, that she can continue to make scientific discoveries as a family woman, and that it's worthwhile to try to achieve this difficult balance, talking to groups of scientists seems more on target. I've had a great time at all kinds of events, but it's really a thrill to talk with women in science at a place like City of Hope over lunch and discover that most of the women there, undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty members, have children or are seriously considering it or wish they had. It was a magical moment when we all introduced ourselves over lunch and almost everyone had something to say about children, mostly that they had some!
I hope that the doors are open for women in science with children, and that none of the shining faces I saw at that lunch will have their brightness dimmed by being rejected because of the old prejudice that women can't be serious about science and also have a family. It is simply NOT SO, but some men make it so in their own vicinities by bad choices they make. In my opinion, they lose out on having brilliant women associates who also happen to have reasonable aspiration to have a family life.
If you know young women who might want to know about a role model who made the combination work, please consider recommending Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling to them. It's only $14 on Amazon.com new, cheaper if used. If you know people who teach classes in introductory science or women in science, please recommend this book to them. It needs to reach and inspire as many young women as possible.
cheers,
Laura
Hi all,
Thanks FBP and Gunilla. I agree Carolina, but I can't do it all. I've started working on a double biography of Joan Steitz and Jennifer Doudna, to reflect women at the top tier R1 universities, HHMI professors, members of the National Academy, contenders for Nobel Prizes, who are married and have kids. There's plenty of room in the field for people to write others. I would like to recommend A LAB OF MY OWN, by Neena Schwartz, who writes movingly of her career at an R1 university in physiology, and how she interwove her life as a lesbian without letting it show too much in her scientific life until near retirement. It's available on Amazon and shows the importance of both relationships and science, with moving instances of how hard it can be to feel relationships must be hidden (don't ask, don't tell in academia).
best,
Laura
I agree with both Gunilla and Carolina. I wish there were many more such memoirs. When people find one, please post about it on this forum, so we can add them to the list. But for now, I think even one is better than nothing, and Laura's is far better than nothing, it's truly inspiring.
Hi Laura,
I just want to say, it's important for women in relationships with other women to see role models, and for African American women, etc. I think we need a lot more books like this. Maybe other sciences too. I don't, with all respect, think just one memoir is going to satisfy all the need for role models of family/science career balance.
Carolina
Yes, it is very hard to find something to recommend for young women to read that proves it's possible in the real world to be married with kids and be a working scientist. And people, this book is well written and easy to read. If you don't believe me, Laura has a free sample available on Amazon.com and it's few chapters long, enough to see how effective it is. Take a look, and then recommend it to your students.
