Survey: More Women Entering Chemistry, But Career Advancement Poses Problems

A recent work force survey by the Washington, D.C.-based American Chemical Society (ACS), building on data from a 1990 ACS salary survey, concludes that women in chemistry still face obstacles to advancement, despite an improved professional climate in recent years. Even so, conversations with women chemists working in the public and private sectors Lind many optimistic about their work and futures. But most also point to changes they would like to see in the profession of chemistry to lower the barriers to women's career advancement. "I have an international reputation in a number of the things I do," says Debra R. Rolison, an electrochemist at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C. "I get asked to organize seminars and give invited talks, so I can't complain. But 1 also notice at any given symposium that issues invitations, you don't see as many women on the program as you think should be there." The survey findings are likely to be a topic of hallway conversation, as well as a subject of several papers, at the ACS meeting August 23-28 in Washington, D.C. Figures on the numbers of women among the authors of the 4,200 papers scheduled for presentation were not compiled by ACS at press time, but the visibility of women on the podium at the conference is sure to be discussed. One key finding of the survey was that, while women are being recruited to chemistry in larger numbers than ever before, they are failing to move into management positions or into higher academic ranks in pro-portional numbers. In addition, according to the survey, while women of similar rank and experience as men are paid comparably to them, lower percentages of women reach those ranks than do men. "Women seem to be getting into industry in larger numbers than ever before," says Mary Thompson, chairwoman of ACS's Women Chemists Committee and a chemistry professor at the College of St. Catherine, a women's school in St. Paul, Minn. "But, [1 hear] some of my young friends in industry, who graduated from our college, saying that it seems to be hard to get up to the next level." Recruitment of women to chemistry is up, according to several measures. The percentage of women in ACS is increasing, from 8 percent in 1975 to 17 percent in 1991. The proportion of B.S. degrees in chemistry going to women rose from 18 percent in 1970 to 39 percent in 1989, and Ph.D.'s awarded to women in chemistry climbed from 8 percent in 1970 to 25 percent in 1989. And income of men and women chemists holding the same or similar jobs was found to be nearly equal. But the numbers of women in higher positions in academia and in management are not rising with recruitment, the survey found. Of women Ph.D. chemists in industry, 13 percent were in R&D management in 1975; by 1991, that figure stood at 12 percent. In 1975, 3 percent of Ph.D. women chemists were in general management in industry; by 1991, that figure had risen to only 6 percent. And Ph.D. women chemists in academia achieving full professor status crept from 24 percent in 1980 to 25 percent in 1991. Three commonly offered explanations for women's being less represented in advanced jobs were examinedby ACS in the survey. One was the difficulty in balancing career demands and family demands, which include not only child care issues but also problems to do with managing two-career marriages. With 45 percent of Ph.D. women chemists and 25 percent of Women chemists with B.S. degrees married to another science professional, according to the survey, the two-career issue is seen as important to many. Gender discrimination in the workplace was the second potential reason suggested by ACS for women's not rising in their careers in the same percentages as men. Possible differences between men's and women's commitments to their careers was the third reason. The ACS 1991 Domestic Status Survey was sent in fall 1991 to 2,100 male chemists and 2,100 women chemists, balanced for age and type of employer; 72 percent of the women responded, 64 percent of the men. The purpose of the survey was to explore the validity of the three suggested reasons for women's failure to advance in the chemistry profession in expected proportions. Domestic Status The survey notes that women chemists, especially in older groups, are less likely than men of the same age to be married. They are also less likely to have children than men in the same age groups, with 37 percent of older women (over 50) having no children, as compared with 9 percent of older men. "It may be that women, more than men, find it less feasible, for many reasons, to combine marriage and children," the survey report speculates. "I had my first child when I was still untenured, and 1 believe that made it more difficult for me to get tenure," says Penny J. Gilmer, associate chairwoman of the chemistry department at Florida State University in Tallahassee. "lt was hard for the men to see this pregnant woman in the elevator, still doing research and giving seminars." She adds, "I would not advise a starting assistant professor to have a child until she was tenured. I remember nursing my daughter and reading an article at the same time-there were times I felt that pressured." Married women chemists are more likely to be working part-time, the survey found. And they were also more likely to have relocated to accommodate their husband's careers: 43 percent of women had relocated for their spouse's benefit, while only 7 percent of men had done so. Some women chemists report that it is possible to advance both careers simultaneously, without one person capitulating to the other's needs, but that the tradeoff can be a reduction in opportunities for both. "My husband and I were married as undergraduates," says NRL's Rolison, now divorced. "We had to look at universities where we could both get the quality education we wanted. We came down to two schools we thought were excellent in both of our specialties-but that was two schools, and not 20." The survey also found that women-and single men-with children get fewer job interviews and offers than do those with none. Looking at discrimination in the workplace, the second potential reason for women chemist's inability to advance in their careers, the survey found that 43 percent reported "discrimination to the advantage of men" in the workplace, and 33 percent said they had experienced sexual harassment. Surprisingly, harassment was not viewed in the survey report as affecting career opportunities greatly, according to the survey. Sexual discrimination, however, was seen by those confronting it as diminishing career advancement on several fronts, including training, promotion, and career progression. The hypothesis that women chemists are less interested or committed to their careers, mentioned as the third possible reason women falter in chemistry, was not generally supported by the survey. Single-Sex Schools In discussing the factors that helped them to build careers in chemistry, several women chemists note the special value for them of having attended single-sex educational institutions. "I absolutely chose it," says FSU's Gilmer. She attended Douglass College at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. "I didn't want to be in a place where I couldn't just love what I was doing and be smart and show it." Mary Jane Hellyar, division director for chemicals development at Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y., attended the College of St. Catherine. "That undergraduate experience reinforced the idea that whatever you wanted to be you could be," she says. "That kind of self-confidence was important in my first year at MIT [in graduate school] where there were three of us women in a class of 50 or 60." Sally Mallory, a senior lecturer in the chemistry department at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, agrees. She attended nearby Bryn Mawr College, now a coed institution, both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. "At women's colleges, you just assume that if you want to do something, you can do it," she says. "The [positive] influence of women's colleges on the opportunity you have to do science is complex, but it exists. It's real." Many women chemists identified the support of mentors as vital to the development of their careers. But available mentors, especially women mentors, for women chemistry students are too few in number for the task at hand, some add. "The easiest way to break into the established power structure is to have somebody within that structure show you the ropes," says NRL's Rolison. "That, of course, is your mentor." Effective mentoring can help women successfully deal with discrimination in the workplace, suggests Margaret Cavanaugh, former chairwoman of ACS's Women Chemists Committee and currently the inorganic chemistry program director at NSF. "I don't feel like I was particularly impeded [by discrimination]," Cavanaugh says. "But I am very much aware that I had important mentors. There were clearly people who took an interest in me and encouraged me." Not all women pursuing chemistry as a career are able to find the mentoring and other support needed to continue. Areatha Knight, for example, was a graduate student in the chemistry program atPrinceton University in New Jersey, until she dropped out this past academic year. "Mentoring is one of the most fundamental things," says Knight. "If I had had someone at Princeton to go talk to, it would have made a difference. There's only one woman faculty member in the chemistry department there, and she can't possibly be a role model for all 50 or 60 women graduate students in the department." Knight sees the role models provided by senior scientists as especially crucial. "As an undergraduate, when I would imagine myself as a scientist in the future," Knight says, "there was a complex shifting that went on in my mind. The only successful scientists I knew about-except for Marie Curie-were men. I somehow did this translocation of myself, reflecting myself onto them and then back in order to be successful." While other factors did enter her decision to leave chemistry, Knight places difficulties she encountered as a woman in science as among the most important. "Definitely, gender issues affected my exit from science," she says, "because I did enjoy it, and I was good at it." Unusually Tough? Is chemistry an especially difficult scientific field for women? The answer is yes-and no. "Chemistry and physics are two fields in which it is difficult for women to become established," says Catherine Didion, executive director of the Association for Women in Science, Washington, D.C. "Part of it is that these are old fields. Women have had more success in newer fields, such as environmental engineering and biotechnology, where the status quo is less established." But Margaret Cavanaugh notes that, while chemistry may be an old field, women have nearly as long a history of networking and organizing in chemistry. "The Women Chemists Committee of the ACS was established in the 1930s," she says. "And, for die last 20 years, die committee has been part of mainstream ACS governance. I don't think that's the case in other disciplines." While many women chemists feel that their careers are going well, they are aware that others do not necessarily share their good fortune. "I'm very happy," says Rolison. "I've been given research freedom, and that's paid off for me and for Uncle Sam. But we [successful women chemists} are so conscious of being misrepresentatives, because statistics aren't in women's favor. We don't want to say anything that's going to be extrapolated beyond our own situations." Despite die difficulties of a career in chemistry for women, for many the satisfactions continue to outweigh die difficulties. FSU's Gilmer says simply: "I put up with die environment because I love science so much."

Survey: More Women Entering Chemistry, But Career Advancement Poses Problems

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