Dr Hunt,
Yesterday I woke to your comments about women in science:
“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls,” he reportedly said. “You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry!”
I am sorry you seem to have problems with us in the lab. It must be horrible for you. You are right, when I first started my M.Sc in my current institution I did fell in love. Twice actually, once with my research, which is why I am still working in it as a PhD student with 2 papers to my name, I had a full scholarship for all my M.Sc and for most of my PhD, several presentations both oral and by poster, I am the current ambassador of my institution and truth be told sir, I am the one who knows where everything is in my lab.The other time I fell in love was with another wonderful scientist; he is from another lab and we are engaged. I asked him, he never felt his research was affected by my presence, but maybe he has better self control? I have to say I do not know if anyone other than him has fallen in love with me at the lab, but maybe, who knows, I mean, look at this picture, I was so distracting while working with Phenol!
Have I cried in the lab? Yes, several times actually, the first time when after a +14h day in the lab without time for eating or resting, and with barely 4h of sleep before, I lost one of my samples. I have to say, it was quite frustrating to lose a whole day's work.So yeah, I cried. And then shook it off and continue working, because, you know, science. Another friend of mine cried at the lab when she lost her dearest uncle. Since she is a foreign student, working her ass off in the lab, having to do double what her male counterparts do around to get some recognition, she wasn't able to be there with her family. But I guess you would say both cases have to do with us being "emotional". Have I cried after being criticized? Yes, although I am pretty sure it had more to do with the fact that I don't respond well with someone towering over me (I'm 5'1" or 1.59m) while screaming at me and not with the fact that I am a woman. This is a theory I have, considering that the same person has made men cry too, but you know, I might be biased.
I see you are in favor of single sex labs, and you know? Maybe you are into something there. Maybe if I was in lab with only girls I wouldn't have arrived to my lab one day and see that all the vacuum pumps (sometimes called "suceuses" in French, you go and Google that to get the implication) had stickers with female names all over the lab. Have to admit that was indeed, distracting. Maybe in a single sex lab, I wouldn't be expected to take every phone call, even when I am the one in the middle of an experiment and a male coworker is literally sitting next to the phone. Maybe I wouldn't be expected to know where every single chemical in the lab is or take care of the orders in the lab because "you're a girl, you are better at this than we are, wink, wink".
You "apologized" for your comments, saying that it was a mistake to say such things...in a room full or journalist. Did I expect someone with a Nobel Prize to be maybe slightly less misogynistic and narrow minded? Well, not necessarily, but one can have hopes.
But one good thing has come of your words, Dr. Hunt, and I do hope you are familiar with social media and see the response you've gotten, from people all over academia.
Have a nice day, hope you don't get too distracted with the pictures all over with #distractinglysexy
As a woman working in science, last week came with 2 contradictory (to me at least) news. The first one was in La Presse: 2 women researchers quit the jury of the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame after, for the second year in row, none of the nominees was a woman. There had been campaigns all through the year to call for nominees, encouraging them to be sexually diverse. There are presently 60 "Canadian scientists, engineers and innovators recognized in the Hall of Fame"...only 9 of them are women.
On the other hand, through the Nature podcast, I heard about a new study where apparently "leading scientists favour women in tenure-track hiring test". This has the caveat that the study was made with hypothetical job seekers. Now, I looked at the original article, and I didn't see (maybe I missed it) if the people questioned knew that these where hypothetical. As the discussion piece from Nature points out, this is all good but before getting to tenure-track, you need to be hired and considered for several position (junior investigator, senior investigator, etc). Last summer, Current Biology presented a mathematical model that would calculate the odds of a scientist to become a PI. From the beginning, being a male scientist gives you 12% more chance of getting the position.
When I first started my undergrad program in Colombia, I remember thinking that the group that started with me was more or less 50-50 in gender representation. As we continued on our 5 year program, I noticed that the group shifted to more women than men. Reading about this, at least in biology, it's not rare that this is the case. However, when you look at faculty positions, considering how many of us are still in academia (or even want to stay in academia in the long run), the proportions once again have shifted.
I'm someone who thinks that you should be hired based on your qualifications, independent of your gender, sexual orientation, race or whatever other divide you might choose. I've seen in the past 6 years in my institute that the amount of women PI double which is great, but they are still under 35% of the professorial body. I do believe there are good news if in these hypothetical hirings, women are being considered at least as much depending on the field as their male counterparts. However, it shocks me when knowing the amount of women that go into science and knowing how many of them have made huge contributions in their fields, that there still seems to be a problem finding at least 1 woman "worth" nominating for the Hall of Fame.
I could now write about those times where I received comments about my performance in the field related to being a woman and not about my performance per se. But that would be a whole different post, even more so if I add stories from other women around me. Either way, the objective of this point is not to tell you that there is still a gender gap because you already know that. The whole point is that I want to stretch the fact that there are incredible researchers out there that happened to be women, and that it shouldn't be so hard to find them, if indeed academia is having a change of heart in gender representation.
What do you guys think? Who would you nominate for the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame? I am going to go with Connie J Eaves (PhD, FRSC). Maybe we can get a list ready for next year?
Since March is Women's History Month I would like to talk about my two co directors of thesis, back in my undergrad studies.
Maria Helena Ramirez and Marcela Camacho where the scientist that supervised my undergrad thesis. In Colombia, to graduate with a degree in Biology, you have three options: a little research project, an internship or a monograph. I chose the research project, since I wanted to go into research and this would give me the actual lab experience I was craving.
Maria Helena Ramirez was a biochemistry teacher when I was doing my studies. She had come back from doing 2 post-docs in Germany and was starting a group dedicated to allow students to learn the most basic techniques applied in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. I was lucky enough to be accepted into the group, and through this group I learned and performed techniques like Western Blot and PCR. Because we were associated with the LIBBIQ (Laboratory of Basic Research in Biochemistry) I also learned the basics of working in a lab. Lab chores, lab meetings, trouble shooting.
I was starting a project involving Plasmodium (the parasite that causes malaria), when I was accepted to do an academic exchange, and so I left the group for 8 months, but as soon as I came back to Colombia I rejoined it. My project change, focusing on Leishmania, and that's how I met Marcela Camacho, who was working with the CIF (International Center of Physics ).
These two women not only showed me what it is to work in a lab, but what it means to be a woman working in science. They were never shy to point out what struggles they had, the type of critique they would get, the differences of doing research outside or in Colombia.
I had very strong female role models in my family, but none directly in biological science (one of my aunts is a Chemical Engineer) and this was probably the last push I needed to take that step towards research, and the little nudge I didn't know I needed to look for my Masters abroad.
They are still going at it, Maria Helena and others organized the first Colombian Congress of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Marcela Camacho is a Senior Researcher and Director of the Biophysics lab. She has also been very vocal about Gender equality with women in Science, a hot topic anywhere you look at it.
Without these two women, I wouldn't have been where I am right now. There are a lot of things I learnt through them that I only realized when I was gone, and I am ever so grateful for the impact they had in my life.
