Children and Academia
Feb. 26th, 2004 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onefixedstarI started an entry earlier, but then made the mistake of going away, during which time it was devoured by my browser. (Yes, yes, I know, I should switch to Mozilla and all bad things would disappear from my life.) This is a much shorter retread of the original entry.
The topic of yesterday's theory class was gender, which made for some interesting discussions, though most of it is probably already familiar to anyone who pays attention to gender issues. First, of course, was the discussion of how difficult it is to balance an academic career with children (something we all know going in and undoubtedly one of the reasons proportionately few women choose to pursue a Ph.D.). The average completion time in my department is 7.6 years. Even assuming a more reasonable 5-year completion, that still puts many women around 30 when they finish. Add onto that another 2-3 years (minimum) to find a tenure-track job, and then another 6-7 to actually get tenure and forty's staring you in the face before you're stable and settled, which many people like to be when they start having children. The professor of that class waited until she had tenure and then used her first sabbatical to have her daughter (back in the pre-maternity leave days)--she was forty-four at the time. There are, of course, other options. Many women have children during the post-doc phase (although that's risky since it interferes with the publications you need to get a job), some choose to have children while still assistant professors (and hope that they can do enough research to qualify for tenure), and some wait until they've done enough to be fairly sure of getting tenure (and hope they're still young enough to get pregnant and keep up with a kid). And of course, there's always the no-children option, which also greatly improves a woman's income, bringing it almost in line with what a man would make. About the only thing that doesn't work, or so I was told, was having kids prior to finishing the degree, because apparently the degree tends to fall to the wayside.
So where's the theory from the theory class, you ask? Maybe in tomorrow's posting. I'm now heading off to bed so as to avoid falling asleep in tomorrow's class (unlike a couple of my fellow TAs in yesterday evening's class, and it's probably a good thing we sit in the balcony where few of the students can see us).
The topic of yesterday's theory class was gender, which made for some interesting discussions, though most of it is probably already familiar to anyone who pays attention to gender issues. First, of course, was the discussion of how difficult it is to balance an academic career with children (something we all know going in and undoubtedly one of the reasons proportionately few women choose to pursue a Ph.D.). The average completion time in my department is 7.6 years. Even assuming a more reasonable 5-year completion, that still puts many women around 30 when they finish. Add onto that another 2-3 years (minimum) to find a tenure-track job, and then another 6-7 to actually get tenure and forty's staring you in the face before you're stable and settled, which many people like to be when they start having children. The professor of that class waited until she had tenure and then used her first sabbatical to have her daughter (back in the pre-maternity leave days)--she was forty-four at the time. There are, of course, other options. Many women have children during the post-doc phase (although that's risky since it interferes with the publications you need to get a job), some choose to have children while still assistant professors (and hope that they can do enough research to qualify for tenure), and some wait until they've done enough to be fairly sure of getting tenure (and hope they're still young enough to get pregnant and keep up with a kid). And of course, there's always the no-children option, which also greatly improves a woman's income, bringing it almost in line with what a man would make. About the only thing that doesn't work, or so I was told, was having kids prior to finishing the degree, because apparently the degree tends to fall to the wayside.
So where's the theory from the theory class, you ask? Maybe in tomorrow's posting. I'm now heading off to bed so as to avoid falling asleep in tomorrow's class (unlike a couple of my fellow TAs in yesterday evening's class, and it's probably a good thing we sit in the balcony where few of the students can see us).
