Hey all,

how many female/ male co-workers or co-students do you have in your class, company?


In belgium almost all the biochemical, biotechnology and medical biology courses are filled with females.
(50% ratio and sometimes even 65-75% women)
(ex. biotechnology (biochemical) engineering, biotechnology ,and medical biotechnology especially. And specifically for the courses that are research orientated or to become a teacher, the industrial paths seem to attrackt more males.)
In my case: 12 students during the last year of education and 4 male, 8 female.

I wonder if it is in your country too?

Strangely at later stage (work, research and even to get a phd the women seem to be vanished: not a lot of women in research nor education.
(compared with the ratio during university at bachelor master stage)

9M : 3 F

at work or at school?

It seems strange but at work there are more men then women (research or production or even teaching) here while at university there are more women in the specific domain.

Overall, in our institute, the balance is pretty even. On a lab-by-lab basis, however, the bias ranges from 100% female to 80% male (only the PI is female).

In medical school, 50% male and 50% female students.

In research Institute, 80% female 20% male.
But in PI level, 80% male and 20% female.

Our lab has changed ratio's today- 3M: 7F (of which 3 of us are PhD/Postdoc). At the senior level no females are professors in my department, I think I'm the furthest up the chain infact. All the technicians are women in our department and only 3 female PhD students in whole department.... equal rights has a long way to go here I think.

Sorry. Wrote that in hurry.
(New Data)
1F-Lab Manager and Research Assoc(technician), 1F Research Assoc (tech), 1M Prof (MD-PhD), 4M (MD-PhD), 1F (MD-PhD Student), 6M (MD-PhD student)

Are you one of the MD-PhD student?

Bull's eye!

That's realy a high ratio. Probably girls like biology more than boys?

2:1, M:F

what do you mean by PI ?

its not private investigator I suppose


And
I do not know, its just something I noticed.
There were always a lot of girls in the "medical" orientated courses and even biotechnology, biochemical courses (except the industry orientated ones), but once on the workfloor especially research and teaching they were gone... very strange.

Not strange, they just get pregnant. And drop out if the environment is not friendly enough.
Around 70% PhD students are female in here, and my institute is family-friendly, so three postdocs had a baby lately and one is already back, gradually starting the work. Basically you need the boss who is tolerant of maternal leave and later absences and can balance the team (like, the postdoc mom has responsible students, who will do the experiments while she's not there). Also here, there are science marriages and if she has a baby, he shares responsibilities and takes some mornings or days off, working odd hours.
Family-friendly politics pays off to the boss, I guess - if you lose a valuable employee, you lose a part of knowledge she has.
In the faculty (the bosses), 17 F, 14 M.

Ooooo big call on this one Telomerase !! I don't necessarily agree that women are any more sensitive to an unfriendly/uncomfortable work environment than men. In fact, the only people in my department to leave for personality clash reasons have been men (in the last 4 years I've been around anyway).

But I whole-heartedly agree that the reason that there are less women higher up in science is due to the baby factor. Luckily in Aus (and particularly at my uni) there is a big focus on keeping women in the work force, so many employers have maternity leave, back-to-work bonuses, child care facilities etc etc

In my lab, we have 3 men (all PIs, one is also Professor), and 4 women (3 PhD students, 1 PI).
In my department, I would say it is about 60% men in the upper levels (lab heads, lecturers, PIs, Professors), post-docs are 50:50, PhD students are 80% female.........and in undergrad classes, I'd say roughly even, but with yearly fluctuations.......


Oh, and I work in a Microbiology and Immunology department

I meant family friendliness, leelee.
Some institutes are more accustomed or tolerant to young mothers than others.

hehe my group has 7 women and no men... such a peaceful environment to work in

no control groups for comparison?

oh, woops sorry Telomerase
my bad

5M:2F
I have seen labs with 100% female population and believe me, it can't be good
A friend used to say it should be compulsory at least a 3F:1M ratio, otherwise it becomes a extremely twisted working environment.

I agree...it won't be fun if we don't have at least one to torture ...besides, who's gonna do the lifting jobs...

Someone said that a tall strong male has more advantage in applying for a job in a lab than a short weak female, such as minnie.

don't worry. that's alright, don't you think it's best for the strong tall guy to do all the the heavy lifting jobs?
as it refers to jobs in general most places have strict policies on no discromination on gender, religion, sexual preferences, and others i can't remember right now.

.. . and other disabilities.

...such as age....

remember aging is mind over matter, if you don't mind then it doesn't matter.

I agree!! When I first started in this lab it was 7F: 1M. ARG! Women can be such b*&^es!!! The one male was the PI. At least we now have a new post doc who is male

Clare

those kind of PIs are called alpha males, and they loooove so much being surrounded by women. have seen a couple of those around here...

In german we'd say "Hahn im Korb" translated as "cock of the roost" or "rule the roost"

hehehe he's actually ok He says he has a lab full of women because they have always been the best candidates at the time

Clare

During a visit today I noticed that there were a lot of females at the lab I visitied.

I saw only 4 male workers there and 9 female.

And supringly al the males made critical mistakes while working , the females only 1.

They didnt work aseptically when they had to etc... really strange how they worked there.

we have a quite balance M:F ratio at the moment......although some of our males but really nice to work with these guys....they usually do what they are told to do

I have seen all female in a large lab (>8 people), but I never see all male in a large lab.

There is a spy amongst us or someone seriously read this thread

Univ of Tokyo to increase number of female researchers, ban evening meetings

Meeting starts after 5pm in University of Tokyo!! Then, when do their meetings end?...7 - 8pm!!

I never have lab meeting that starts after 5pm. I have meeting that ends after 5pm.

Huh! U r not kidding right ? @ our lab it starts at around 7:30pm and ends . . depends on the contents and discussion - normally 9:30-10:00

That is the oddest lab custom I've heard of. I mean, nobody pays real attention at the evening meeting. Morning is the right time, like you come, set your experiment, go to meeting and then continue the experiment.

It all depends on the people: I have seen people that just do their jobs at thats it, they are not inspired by what they do. Others are and they can stay very long just because they are intrigued by something.




in general:

I think discrimination based on gender is wrong, however at the moment I do notice some "positive" discrimination in favor of females when I read certain posts. They are starting to bend the rules so females can do a certain job.
And I am not speaking in specific on labworkers or so, but in general. In the army here , when being a female they almost automaticly accept you, even if you are very very bad. Just to get more females in.

A general rule like no meeting after 17.00 seem stupid to me, they should make more general agreements.
At a lab that I visited the women that are pregnant get to pick (o some degree) when they work as long as they do their hours or they are allowed to work more from home out etc... especially when doing a phd or something like that you have a lot of hours that you spend behind a pc searcing for info or you are helping other students etc... well some of those things are easly done at home.

I think the pregnancy is indeed a big problem like Telomerase allready stated.

I once heard of a firm that made the women "sign" a paper stating they werent allowed to become pregnant the first 5 years when they worked there. (its not legal and its not a "real" document, but some sort of verbal agreement they had to agree with or they would be fired and they would simply find some other reason to kick you out)

Odd might be; but that's how we enjoy doing it over here. For me, early morning meetings are something I do no want. Beside, there are other meetings in the morning to start the day and plan for the day. The evening meetings which we call the lab meetings are where we have a lot of teaching-learning and discussion. Someone might present their data and others give their view. Someone might present some interesting paper and make a proposal for another project. We also plan of days ahead - long term and short-term. On top of that, we have dinner together during the meeting. Everyone is relaxed after a long day of work in the lab, hospital, or other part-time works.

My class: me and 1 other guy, other students are all girls: 10 girls in total

It looks like there are good number of girls in biology. For some reasons they cannot make it to the top, if I got it right.

But, what I was thinking today was. . how many Lady speakers/presenters are there in conferences you attend. I have not attended many but I can remember only a handful. There got to be good reason for that.,

haha the only reason I need a man in the lab is to reach things for me.. (im only 5 foot )

you're right, there might not be as many women as men presenting (in a general context), but in this conference i went to the presenter said something like, "today we'll count with two researchers who you will know only by mentioning their first name: Vicki (Chandler) and Marjori (Matzke)", i'd say for the quality of their research rather than their gender.

Does this mean people often look at gender before looking at the quality of work?

If I am Mickey, people would respect me more in research.

I remembered reading from Science or Nature that a researcher converted from female to male, and noticed the difference in people treating her and him.

there's definitely some 'old boy network' going on in research, in my limited experience. there are many women techs and few women PIs. it IS getting better, but it takes a long time.

Reminds me of something I once read.

(With apologies to Bill Bryson for my misquoting)
Science was able to make great progress in the 20th century because sexism ensured that at least half of its’ best and brightest talent was retained at the ‘lab bench’ where the useful work was done.

what i meant is that because there are fewer women it is easier to recognize their names (at least in some areas).

I've seen young women with spunk being put down in the lab until they "get" their place. Had my share of it. I have still much more doubt about myself, hesitate more, speak less directly and with me, it is definitely learned, because naturally I was always impulsive and a bit tomboyish. In some places, PI's still train women to listen to orders, and they speak on the equal basis with guys. It's so subconcious I swear sometimes I wish I punch those people, or do anything else to make them realize. Hadn't I change the lab, I'd probably get myself in the situation of one young female assistant professor, who was in fact a puppet of the old prof, and in the conference, he started to answer the questions at HER OWN PRESENTATION, not letting the woman speak. I am not there anymore, thanks heavens!

Pretty ones have it even worse! How many times I've seen the reaction... What was this lady with nice bosom speaking... what, what cloning? Wait, is she really smart, because she's too blonde to look like one? I avoid dressing nice at the lab.

100% male a the moment
(7)

little sickening

Is the purpose of science to produce sound and novel observations and advance understanding of the special area or serve what some might see as poltical correctness in a balance of men and women in the lab? If we presumed the former as primary goal - is it best served by accomodations made for maternity?

As for stats - there are clearly more girls in te nation's science fairs and, as they progress, more at most professional meetings. Suggest that fewer at the prof rank (and I'm not familair with the stats there) is prob not due to maternity limitations because there are so many accomodations.

Hi George,

If this will provide more opportunities and make it easier for women who’d like to contribute to achieve this purpose, why not? I know this sense of entitlement grates but only if we’re living in a just world that there is no need for it. If women demand for equal opportunity, then would you say we’re not entitled to it?

Besides, I wonder what you’d include in these “many accommodations” but, ok….granted we now have legal recourse against sexism, paid parental leave, better salaries for women (although disparities still occur), subsidised daycare systems etc. but what about subtle forms of sexism that still exist? An employer who’s trying to choose between two equally qualified applicants but one’s a female in her child-bearing years, who’d get the job? And the same with job promotions.

Oftentimes, it’s the women themselves who put up the barriers…. How many women PhD or postdoc students get pregnant while in the experimentation stage of their theses? Can you imagine the paperwork/hassle that they and the PI have to go through so they can continue working in the lab? No acrylamide, no radioactivity, no solvent esp DMSO etc., they must replan their work schedule throughout the duration of the pregnancy and it’s not only them but the entire lab is also affected. Then not to mention all the physical and physiological changes...So having children is always a very difficult decision and no wonder it’s always postponed for much later and sometimes, already too late. Would it then be fair to say that men don’t go through this same difficult decision making?

How often do we hear that guys have a hard time choosing between family and career? Or have a ticking biological clock? And when the child arrives, more often than not, who’d be taking care more of it? Whose priorities are going to change? Science or at least research would lose a lot of these talented women if the working environment and esp the bosses/PIs would not be equally supportive…and if we have to count on this “entitlement” I ask again, why not?