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About half of the undergraduate and roughly 40 percent of graduate degree recipients in science and engineering are women. As increasing numbers of these women pursue research careers in science, many who choose to have children discover the unique difficulties of balancing a professional life in these highly competitive (and often male-dominated) fields with the demands of motherhood. Although this issue directly affects the career advancement of women scientists, it is rarely discussed as a professional concern, leaving individuals to face the dilemma on their own.
To address this obvious but unacknowledged crisis – the elephant in the laboratory, according to one scientist – Emily Monosson, an independent toxicologist, has brought together 34 women scientists from overlapping generations and several fields of research – including physics, chemistry, geography, paleontology, and ecology, among others – to share their experiences.
From women who began their careers in the 1970s and brought their newborns to work, breastfeeding them under ponchos, to graduate students today, the authors of the candid essays written for this groundbreaking volume reveal a range of career choices: the authors work part-time and full-time; they opt out and then opt back in; they become entrepreneurs and job share; they teach high school and have achieved tenure.
The personal stories that comprise Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory not only show the many ways in which women can successfully combine motherhood and a career in science but also address and redefine what it means to be a successful scientist. These valuable narratives encourage institutions of higher education and scientific research to accommodate the needs of scientists who decide to have children.
Introduction
Section I. 1970s
Balancing Family and Career Demands with 20/20 Hindsight
by Aviva Brecher
Extreme Motherhood: You Can't Get There from Here
by Joan S. Baizer
Careers versus Child Care in Academia
by Deborah Ross
Identities: Looking Back over Forty Years as a Social Scientist,
Woman, and Mother
by Marilyn Wilkey Merritt
Costs and Rewards of Success in Academia, or Bouncing into
the Rubber Ceiling
by Marla S. McIntosh
One Set of Choices as a Mom and Scientist
by Suzanne Epstein
Section II. 1980s
Three Sides of the Balance
by Anne Douglass
The Accidental Astronomer
by Stefi Baum
At Home with Toxicology: A Career Evolves
by Emily Monosson
Geological Consulting and Kids: An Unpredictable Balancing Act?
by Debra Hanneman
Career Scientists and the Shared Academic Position
by Carol B. de Wet
Section III. 1990s
Less Pay, a Little Less Work
by Heidi Newberg
Reflections of a Female Scientist with Outside Interests
by Christine Seroogy
Part-Time at a National Laboratory: A Split Life
by Rebecca A. Efroymson
The Eternal Quest for Balance: A Career in Five Acts, No Intermission
by Theresa M. Wizemann
Reflections on Motherhood and Science
by Teresa Capone Cook
The Benefits of Four-Dumbbell Support
by Catherine O'Riordan
Extraordinary Commitments of Time and Energy
by Deborah Harris
Finding My Way Back to the Bench: An Unexpectedly Satisfying Destination
by A. Pia Abola
Mothering Primates
by Devin Reese
Finding the Right Balance, Personal and Professional, as a Mother in Science
by Gayle Barbin Zydlewski
What? I Don't Need a PhD to Potty-Train My Children?
by Nanette J. Pazdernik
Variety, Challenge, and Flexibility: The Benefits of Straying from the Narrow Path
by Marguerite Toscano
The Balancing Act
by Kim M. Fowler
Juggling through Life’s Transitions
by Cal Baier-Anderson
Having It All, Just Not All at the Same Time
by Andrea L. Kalfoglou
Section IV. 2000s
Exploring Less-Traveled Paths
by Deborah Duffy
Standing Up
by Gina D. Wesley-Hunt
Because of Our Mom, a True Rocket Scientist
by Elizabeth Douglass and Katherine Douglass
On Being What You Love
by Rachel Obbard
Parsimony Is What We Are Taught, Not What We Live
by Sofia Katerina Refetoff Zahed
Role Models: Out with the Old and In with the New
by Marie Remiker
Pursuing Science and Motherhood
by Kimberly D’Anna
Conclusion
Contributors
"Women trying to squeeze a career and family duties into one 24-hour day will gain much affirmation from this collection of essays. The writers, who all balance science careers and motherhood, provide a fascinating insight into a world too often kept hidden. For those without children it should come with a health warning: the juggling and compromises these women have learned to live with may add up to a sobering reality check for those who still think they can have it all. For some it may prove a powerful contraceptive."
– New Scientist, June 2008
"In these heartrending essays, women who are well-trained and well-situated in science detail the compromises they have made in order to raise children and be scientists [...] The women who succeed – and there are many in this volume – are those whose partners take an equal share of the responsibility for raising a family and making the household function."
– American Scientist
"Emily Monosson has edited a very interesting book. She has collected essays written by 34 female scientists on how they managed to combine being a scientist with being a mother. It is regrettable that the subject of this book has continued to be relevant despite many decades of struggle by scientists to find a balance between work and family. The problem remains unsolved."
– Alice L. Givan, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April 2009
"At last – a book to convince women scientists that there is life beyond the professoriate. These brief life stories demonstrate that women professionals do not have to play by men's rules to have a career. They also show the world that women scientists are not only literate but also witty."
– Phoebe Leboy, University of Pennsylvania, President, Association for Women in Science
"Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory is an engaging, moving, and informative book. It depicts the challenge of combining a career in science with motherhood, using the voices of real women to portray the diversity of possible experiences."
– Jo Handelsman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Chair, Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
"The stories in Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory are captivating and the picture of science as a field was truly sobering. I found myself thinking about the authors' fascinating stories long after I finished reading this book."
– Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law
