More on Women Funded by NIH with Dr. Sally Rockey
Dear friends of women in science,
This week, the NIH Extramuralnexus report was released with an extension of Dr. Sally Rockey's earlier article on how women fare in the NIH Extramural funding competitions. She pointed out this time that in the journal Academic Medicine, if you subscribe, you can view an advanced copy of the article on these matters, which will be freely available on May 25. As before, she noted that women do very well in first grant competition. The only matter for concern was that women's share of funding dropped off as more and more advanced grants were examined. I will paste below the graph from her newsletter, also appearing in the article:
I am not saying that women cannot do these things, and neither is Dr. Rockey. There are some spectacular female research scientists who get the ~17% of grants for the mature scientist that go to women. But attrition has been severe here. A woman who isn't promoted to full professor is not going to be competitive. A woman who has reduced her hours is not either. And plenty of women who ARE full professors with full hours and more have trouble getting the huge grants. A recent competition for grants in California to fund stem cell research originally proposed a funding schema with NO women as awardees. When the final grants were announced, the PIs included some women. At least some of the women proposed projects that were more in line with the state objectives than those male chosen ones from the first draft of selections.
So, indeed more work needs to be done. Not just about child care, but about everything that makes a woman scientist think she'd rather be in Bermuda sipping a mai tai than discovering something new under her specific working conditions. That includes how valued she feels, how much her male colleagues act like colleagues, how much she is connected to her specific world of scientists working on similar projects, and other issues. It surely is important that we stop losing the women who have proved themselves worthy at every step up to tenure. Somehow, we must find a way. What do you think matters most? What should we do right now?
cheers,
Laura
@Laura, I think that is exactly it.
Hi SciFemXX,
They may not even ask that small things be addressed, because they sound so small. The disheartening effect of so many small things over time is very definite, although the rain of slights is hard to measure. But complaining about them makes a woman sound picky and touchy and crabby, all things she's not looking to be, or to be perceived as. So she may just take the knocks and then one day, she quits.
Cheers,
Laura
Just a comment on Susan Forsburg's comment. Women are deciding themselves, but if they are tired of swimming upstream, aren't there things that make it so hard that could be addressed, if people were serious about keeping women in science? Things that seem small but accumulate day after day, perhaps?
Also, let me comment on leaving under pressure and how it makes one feel based on my coping with cancer. After deciding to leave, I would expect women to spend some time reflecting about what is rewarding to them, as they search for and work in a less stressful job. I hope that at least some of these women can find other ways to keep science in their lives if they get enjoyment from it.
best,
Laura
Yes, Susan and Helen,
I'm sure that adding the recessionary pressures on top of an already stressful career has made academia lack much enjoyment for many, not just women, but women have that extra stress from fighting bias. So no lawsuit would help, and surely cutting the budget would only make matters worse, along with making the US less competitive. Looks like a big mess to me. I just hope we don't lose all academic women in science during this time of crisis.
I don't think the ones who leave are necessarily happy about it. My point is that they often choose to leave, and by then it's too late to persuade them to stay.
Well said Susan!
With the current funding crises butchering a whole generation of scientists, I know plenty of female professors who are not devastated by closing their labs. Several have reported feeling free for the first time in a decade or more.
The assumption being made is that the universities or community is doing something overt that disfavors women's participation. But as Laura said, often this is a decision the women make themselves.
I know too many women who have "made it" through tenure, who leave anyway, worn out by a career spent dealing with a thousand small cuts. They tire of always being paid less for doing more by their institutions. They tire of being ignored or taken for granted.
They tire of the relentless self-promotion and aggression of the profession, where publishing a great paper may take you a year of fighting with reviewers and editors, where each grant renewal is a prolonged siege that makes you sick in your gut about how you will support your staff while you revise.
Frankly, they burn out.
I don't think that you can file a lawsuit to solve that problem.
Well, Laura, I think Scifeminista is right, it does look terrible. I am not sure after all this time that we can make the universities apply Title IX to science in this way. But lawsuits could help. I wonder if there is a national group that would consider filing suit about this? It looks actionable to me! MKS
This looks terrible. I didn't know it fell off so much with age/experience! I'm sure the government won't let NIH or NSF fund grants targetted just to women, so another way must be found. Maybe back to Title IX? Tell the R1 universities, which receive these big grants, that they won't be eligible next year unless they file a credible plan to increase women's participation?
