Women's issues at MIT
| 21 March, 2011 | Richard P. Grant |
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The problem of the under-representation of women at the higher levels of science is a thorny one. Despite the biological sciences at least churning out roughly equal numbers of male and female PhDs, there are still far fewer women in senior positions than might be expected.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as reported in the New York Times, seems to have a runaway success on its hands however, at least in terms of supporting gender equality, if not in appointing women at the highest levels.
I never dreamed we’d make this much progress in 10 years
–Lorna J. Gibson
But there are unforeseen side-effects of the progressive policies in place at MIT. Because become every committee must be seen to be diverse, they must include a woman (especially diversity committees), yet the total number of women on the faculty is still low. This means that women professors are disproportionately missing out on research time (and my own, anecdotal evidence suggests that women in top roles get roped into far more than their fair share of committees).
Equally serious (but surely this was foreseen?), women perceive that they win prizes, or get appointed to top jobs, or get into MIT just because they’re women. Women undergraduates apparently have to ask for advice on answering men who tell them they got there “only because of affirmative action.” On the contrary, the women on faculty are determined to maintain standards, and the increase has come about not by choosing less-qualified candidates (nobody is hired without at least 15 recommendations from academics outwith MIT), but by broadening the search. Again, anecdotally, women are overlooked for (non-sex related) panel discussions or whatever simply because the organizers–who often include women among their number–simpler don’t consider women. Yet when prompted to consider this, they can come up with dozens of names. There may be an inherent bias against women, but it’s not necessary to be a slave to it.
Another area where problems remain is in family care.
While women on the tenure track 12 years ago feared that having a child would derail their careers, today’s generous policies have made families the norm: the university provides a yearlong pause in the tenure clock, and everyone gets a term-long leave after the arrival of a child. There is day care on campus and subsidies for child care while traveling on business.
It’s women that get invited to sit on panels discussing work-life balance. Parenthood remains a women’s issue, not a family one. Some men, according to administrators, use family leave to do outside work instead of being their children’s primary care giver, creating further professional imbalance. And now, of course, MIT has to try to accommodate two-career couples, rather than simply dealing with women married only to their careers.
The MIT is today releasing the results of a report assessing its progress on gender equality. Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment thread.
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MIT has provided data, commitment, and support. And this has all led to progress. We should all remember that this is first and foremost a science issue, not a women’s issue.
I think underlying this problem is the still strong bias against “househusbands” or men who only work at their jobs. Nobody looks askance at a man who marries a woman who is willing to stay at home with the children, but a man who makes that choice is not only thought of as being a slacker but I would bet that relatively few highly educated women would find such a man to be interesting enough to marry. This stacks the deck against women because I would wager that most highly educated women would want to marry an intellectual and educational peer. It is true that there are more two-career couples (which is not the same as two-job couples or one career and one job couples). So, in the end, child care disporportionately falls on the woman. Let’s also face it. Science is a jealous Mistress or Master and demands more than a 40 hour week.
I was amused to read about how the biggest waste of time, academic commitees, are falling disproportionally on women. One should be cautious about one’s wishes–they may come true.
All these policies are a failure and all the related research is in-vain. How can you achieve gender equality if men can not bear child naturally. Naturally female is assigned to care for the young. Roles in the society are defined about what a man can,should and must do and so is true for women. This is also true in animal kingdom. How is any one going to change this by changing some policies here and there? Biological evolution is necessary to take care of such a thing which wont happen in near future.
Diversity is over-rated. If I want a group of 10 for battle and hunting, there is really very rare chance that it will have 6 women based on true merit.
Women get involved in more committees because they have fear of declining assigned responsibility and high levels of guilt if they choose to do so.
Actually, as a full-time student heading into a career in science, I favor men who are willing to be househusbands so that I can worry less about the children and home and dedicate more time to my studies. Society has a tendency to frown on men who are willing or even eager to be more domestically-minded and I think that is a shame.
I also feel that more needs to be done to support single fathers, regardless of the field that they work in. A father should be just as able to take time off for a sick child or a parent-teacher meeting as a mother.
I would suggest that there are some animal species where the female is the hunter (lions), so a biological basis is not a strong argument. I would look to the inherited career structures of science, where the demand of time and unfettered commitment to career progression is during the most fertile years for women to bear children. However, this did not come from ‘on high’ – we just created it. Women are beginning to display their most productive years later in their careers – an interesting trend. There are all kinds of ways to share work, family duties, and committee responsibilities. Ultimately the question I am interested in is: how can we best organize ourselves and our work-contributions so that everyone thrives?
When I was a student (1948-52), there were perhaps 6 women in my class and, as I recall, none on the faculty. The scene has clearly changed, but I suspect some of these dysfunctional rules need to be changed or there will be unfavorable consequences. An alert organization need to have the ability to modify regulations as needed.
It is a truism in evolutionary biology that strong selection for any particular characteristic suppresses selection for other characteristics. This is such a basic mechanism that it’s probably applicable to any form of selection, including selection of students and faculty in academic institutions. Whenever achieving gender or ethnic balance is afforded a high priority, as it arguably should be,