More Thoughts on Naturally Obsessed
Must you be obsessive-compulsive to become a scientist? My last post about Naturally Obsessed, a new documentary about the lives of three science graduate students, touched on the issues raised by the character Gabe, the only female graduate student. But this got me thinking about the overall message of the movie, and the somewhat male-centric notion that one must be obsessed to succeed in science (think Albert Einstein, John Nash, Grigori Perleman, etc).
In this documentary, the only student who succeeds by conventional academic standards is stated to be the most "obsessive" one. I really don't like the message this sends. This message, the one focused upon by Kimberley Tanner in her article in Cell Biology Education in 2009, is that you must be obsessed to succeed. To Tanner, this implies a single focus, no room for family or real life, no room for non-R1 cutting-edge science. With that vision of what it takes to succeed in science, I also would disagree. Who needs today's women to think they must be as focused on science as Barbara McClintock or Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel laureates who more or less married their science?
But I'm not sure that's a completely fair analysis of the film, although it is probably what the filmmakers wanted to portray. Reading between the lines, the "hero," Rob Townley, is married and has a son during his graduate career. His wife is also a graduate student, although we see almost nothing of her. We do hear from him that he has dropped out of college three times and returned, and that he was kicked out of another laboratory (run by a woman) before settling on his dissertation lab. As she is described by Rob, his former mentor appears to have been unreasonable. Maybe looking more closely at this female professor would have offered the film makers an opportunity to explore a successful female character. I wish they had done that. What I'm focusing on, though, is that in spite of the title of the film - which connotes single mindedness - Rob is a character of some complexity. He rock climbs, has a wife with whom he seems to get along well. By the end of the documentary, he has a child whom he is proud of, and he still is thrilled at the images of regular spots revealed by the beamline. I agree with Tanner's point that, contrary to what the movie says, one does not need to be obsessed to succeed in science, and that there are many ways to enjoy science careers beyond the model prevalent at ultra-competitive R1 research universities. But I believe that the Rifkinds made a movie (perhaps accidentally) in which a real person with a real life outside of science made a spectacular discovery and became a "success."
Since the title and narration emphasized obsession, I wonder, do we as women, multitasked and often facing much different challenges than men, have the leisure to obsess? Is obsession with something afforded more often to men who have supporting partners at home, more so than women, partnered or not? Do we as a culture admire this "obsessive" nature somehow, and by virtue of this cofactor, see men succeed more often than women?
What do you think? Is obsessive behavior rewarded in science? Does it seem particularly male? Would you show this film to your students? Let's take a poll: choose one of these answers when you comment, and if have a minute, talk about why you feel that way:
A. I would never show this film to an audience of young students.
B. I would definitly show this film to students considering a science career.
C. This film has its good points, but it's too specialized and has too limited a view of science.
Multitasked obsession! I really think that idea describes what my life was like when I had my daughter Heather and was madly writing papers and grants and teaching students, and, and, and.
I think scientists seek answers. Because of this need to find an answer, they are inherently obsessive, regardless of gender. Because women have so many other hats to wear beyond just the scientist hat, we appear not to be as obsessed as our male counterparts. However, that doesn't mean that we are not obsessed. It just means we are able to multi-task our obsession! I can obsess over my child's runny nose while also obsessing about whether my experiment will work. They two processes are not mutually exclusive. Or at least, they don't have to be.
I agree that repeated failure is a part of science. But I would argue that it's more a part of crystallograpy than most science endeavors. My own students cheer when they get a good RNA gel and yield. The next step, a good microarray, may take several tries, but they get it too. It's not years before any result. In the film, the graduate advisor looks at his students' trays for crystals. I would have hated my graduate advisor to check my results and detect repeated failure. I tried to keep failure away from him until I could replace it with a successful run or two. In this film, the highest tension for me is when a student and the advisor took crystals to the beamline, where everyone at this big facility could see that the poor student had crystals that failed. What a terrible moment that must have been. For a molecular biologist, it's easier to keep the inevitable failures more private, and thus less embarassing. And the successes come more often.
cheers,
Laura
B. There is a lot of truth in this documentary. We need to show students and everyone what it's like to fail repeatedly.
OKAY, I'll say B. One of the biggest hurdles in getting students to consider science is that they think it's boring, isolating, lonely. That's what this film works against, showing funny people who work together and support each other. At least mildly hip too. So, I'd show it to students.
I don't think scientists need to be obsessed, any more than normal people need to be obsessed with their partners. Obsession is over the top. People need to have a natural relationship with their scientific questions, and not feel like the work is totally eating their lives. Balance is all-important. If you can't bear to go home and sleep, or if you never want to leave the lab, that's abnormal and won't make you a happy person.
I don't want to give anyone the idea that you must be obsessive to be a scientist, so I wouldn't show the film.
C. I think the film makers captured something important about science, that it's not boring. But they needed to think more about who sees science as obsession and who is and should be in science period.
Female Biology Professor
