International Women's Day

Yesterday was International Women's Day and like most of society, I'm late to recognizing women. IWD is meant to empower women and raise awareness about the prejudice and hardships that women implicitly face based on their sex. In science and academia women face a number of issues that are slowly and hopefully successfully being addressed.

My wife and I have a unique perspective on these issues as we have the same educational background albeit slightly different research agendas. When I finished my PhD and went to take a postdoc, there was implicit belief that she would move with me and finish her final year of her PhD from afar. When we said that she wouldn't do that the next question was whether she was looking for postdocs or jobs in Toronto for when she finished. Finding a job in academia is hard, finding jobs for academic couples near each other is very difficult and finding jobs for academic couples in the same field is likely impossible. With these issues if we look into these couples and their difficulties we likely see that for women have the more difficult job search in the couple.

In the midst of the difficulties applying for jobs I recognize that as hard as it is for me, my wife faces a number of biases both within and outside of academia. All of her thoughts and actions carry certain connotations that are generally viewed negatively. It also seems like she has to work twice as hard to get half as much back. With a full competitive fellowship, multiple first author publications (with a clear research plan that can be carried out with undergrads) and experience teaching at two different small liberal arts colleges, she seems like the perfect candidate for a tenure track position at a liberal arts college, or as visiting professor or as a teaching postdoc. I don't think about it too much but I wonder if I had been a female if my experience through grad school would have been different, would have applying for postdocs been different and would apply for tenure track jobs be different.

In my own supervision of research and some of my engagement work I have worked to advocate for women in science. I'll continue to fight for the rights and treatment of women in science and recognize my own implicit biases and advantages as a male scientist, while doing my best to not discount that differences in sex are leading to two very different experiences in science.