Who Is the Ideal Worker?
Hi Friends of Women in Science,
The Stanford gender-in-science news from the Clayman Institute recently featured an essay by Lauren Aguilar on the Ideal Worker as an outdated concept. Here is a quotation from the essay, selected by Aguilar from a label on an image in Wikipedia Commons: "Man in suit circa 1903 (Wikimedia Commons) At 6:30am he gets dressed for work, eats a home cooked breakfast, and says good-bye to the wife and kids. He tackles the workday with single-minded focus. He is available to stay late or take a business trip at the drop of a hat. After a long workday, he returns home to dinner and relaxation, while his wife takes care of the meal, home, and kids."
What we see here is a workaholic male figure, able to pay little attention to any human features of his life because of his devoted wife. Lauren points out that, although aspects of this sound dated, today the employer stil expects a worker who is, "perpetually available, has no outside responsibilities or interests, rarely gets sick, and prioritizes work above all else." She says that Professors Joan Williams and Mary Blair-Loy gave a presentation that previewed their work that is about to appear in a forthcoming special issue, "The Flexibility Stigma," in the Journal of Social Issues. They noted that 48% of households of married couples today are dual-income, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additional data showed there are more working mothers than working fathers currently employed in the US.
It's easy to say we should change our expectations to meet today's realities, but it is not an easy task since the expectations are embedded in our society. Our concepts of self-identity and worth are very much linked to being a committed worker. However, these professors found that some companies are trying to make a change. Best Buy began a 'Results Only" approach that meant that employees were given flexibility in how they accomplished the required results. As a result, Best Buy realized increased productivity and reduced recruitment and training expenses.
But there can be reluctance to ASK for flexibility because of the link between self-image and the good old work-first mentality. Academics see that in the low number of those eligible who request parental leaves: it's seen as weak and uncommitted to hard work, so people don't want to be branded with those labels. Even when they need the leave, they don't take it.
How do you feel about these ideas as they play themselves out in your own life?
best,
Laura
The construct is Joan Williams' (see her book Unbending Gender and her work here: http://www.worklifelaw.org/). It's also worth reading Lotte Bailyn on the status of support workers.
I think that in science there's more at stake, though, than the round-the-clock fear of business competition, which is the ideal-worker story. There's fear, to be sure. Only so many grant dollars, only so many positions. But I think there's also a very hefty push from the fact that so much of science is still run by people who, not to put too fine a point on it, grew up getting beat up a lot. Which makes it important that their work look serious enough to command large money (in terms of grants and facilities, if not pay) and respect. Look at it this way: If your "babies are a nuisance, I shouldn't have to think about them" boss lost his lab and title, lost his career, how would he fare in the world socially? Would it be junior high all over again?
These things are difficult to talk about, but I think they're significant factors in the attitudes I find in science about what's required. I don't think we're talking merely about ideal-worker issues; these are issues of identity and belonging. And while in some senses it's easy for me to sit on the sidelines -- as a woman and a nonscientist -- and say these things, I really don't think a lot of headway's going to be made unless some of these psychological factors are addressed. To be sure, this isn't all men in science. (Or women. I'm not talking about women here, but we could.) But I talk with enough scientists to suspect that it's still very much a live issue.
Consider how the ideal-worker business plays out In the non-science business world, for instance. People recognize that mid-career, you might need more school. So there's night classes, part-time MBA programs, distance programs. You man up and do your job while going to school at night for four years, or whatever, and get the degree. Can you do this in science? Part-time MS, night classes, evening lab rotation? Christ, no, not that I've seen. Even for the training, you've got to commit like you're taking orders, shave your head, renounce everything else in your life, turn it into your 80h/wk job. Is this really necessary? Of course not. Sure, you've got to be around in the lab when whatever you're working on needs you -- unless, of course, you can split up the duties.
Whence this desperate sense of urgency about throwing all in, to the exclusion of everything else? It's not about making money; it's about becoming part of a cadre, finding a crew, a uniform that commands respect and guarantees a haven -- *if* you can measure up in the narrow terms that happen to be your strengths. And of course it's a trap for men who not only want to do the science and are passionate about it, but love their families and know they must put in the time there, too. I think it sets up a seriously damaging dynamic in which these men are told they simply aren't very committed scientists, which is of course absolute crap. I see men in science pushing back against this hard, not just on their own behalf but on the behalf of others, and finding that the cadre mentality is nearly impossible to overcome. And at that point we must ask why. I suspect the answers are both more complex and more intractable than what's generally bandied about in these conversations. It may be a question on which to recruit the humanities & soc-sci types, outside looking in.
And these conversations have been going on for so very long now. The tiresomeness of it makes me wonder how much room there is in the world for Small Science. (I just made that up, though no doubt others have, too.) Big Science seems to have tremendous problems, notably the fact that you need gazillions of someone else's dollars for it, and these gazillions are less & less often available. It seems to me unlikely that there's no more important work to be done that's inexpensive and pocket sized, or the sort of thing that can be done in the way books are sometimes written, intermittently, over years. It can't all have been finished up in the early 20th century.
Laura,
I regularly tell my staff to put family first. I know that they don't always, but I've been known to "ground" someone when they are spending too much time away from home. Family is what is what's important at the end of the day/job/career.
Family vs. work is always a hard choice. I know the travel related to my current job is hard on my husband. I probably wouldn't do it if my kids were younger.
Marian
Dear Laura,
I don't think it's bad to want to be loyal and hardworking, but I do think I want my employer to value family as well as work. I know not all bosses do that, so a change in society to make that more likely is what I'd like to see.
SP
FBP, I think what you do makes perfect sense. As the situation changes, you simply respond appropriately. I didn't mean to imply only consistency was admirable!
cheers,
Laura
Well, Laura, I hate to be wishy-washy but on this one, I am. It partly depends on what's going on at home and at work. I do WANT to be dedicated to work, so in that sense this societal imperative did get inculcated into me.
FBP
