November Scientiae: love it and loathe it

At long last, I give you the November Scientiae Carnival!  I was a little distracted this month, so if I missed your post please let me know.

The theme this month was best and worst.  I asked, "What is the best part of your job/life as a scientist, and what is the worst part?"  There were some great responses, many of which will probably sound awfully familiar.

Several of us reported that people are either the best or worst parts of our jobs.  Podblack Cat shared a particularly trying (and rather comical) experience trying to teach to a group of high school students obsessed with The Human Centipede*.  I really can't fathom the patience it must take to deal with this kind of nonsense!  Rebecca wrote about her recent experience conducting interviews for postdocs.  While she many wonderful people in the process, she also encountered some truly wacky candidates -- go read to learn another entertaining example of what not to do if you want a job.  I expressed my frustrations with waiting for other people to do their bits, which was pretty similar to Rocket Scientista's complaints about slow vendors.  On the other hand, she loves her awesomely awesome colleagues.

Several of us also wrote about about getting the data, which can be teh suck or teh joy.  Patchi's described her trials with a challenging lab protocol.  She had an experience we all dread -- getting unsatisfying results.  You know the kind, when you feel like you didn't do enough but you can't realistically do more.  Victor Poor offered a somewhat more lighthearted treatment of a related event--probably the worst moment in science--when you realize that months (or years) of hard work resulted in flawed data and no new knowledge.  Sad.  On a happier note, I shared how the thrill of intermittent inspiration keeps me going, and Rocket Scientista reminded us how great it is to get new! data! and gain new! knowledge!

Silver Fox and Karina both have significant field components to their work, and not surprisingly, identified that as both a source of joy and frustration.  Karina loves the exotic places where she gets to work, but misses home and her husband while she's away.  Silver Fox has lots of favorites about her job and finds that they mostly negate the sucky aspects.  After all, it's the sucky stuff that makes the fun parts possible. That's lemonade for you!

If Silver Fox has trouble finding fault with her work, ScienceGirl is momentarily at the other end of the spectrum.  New baby fatigue has her feeling like the incentives for her work have disappeared, leaving her motivated only by avoiding negative consequences.  We're sure this will pass, ScienceGirl, and we're rooting for you!  Likewise, in another post Podblack Cat wrote about her exasperation at being encouraged by Oprah, of all people, to go beyond the call of duty when really the call of duty is quite enough in itself.

Finally, A Life-Long Scholar described her favorite thing about academia - the freedom to set one's own schedule.  I couldn't agree more!  Of course, that comes with the risk of feeling guilty for not working enough (as a commenter noted), but it 's a risk worth taking.

Thanks to everyone who contributed!  The next installment of Scientiae will be hosted by Pat of Fairer Science.

*I saw this movie as a birthday gift to Ecogeoman who loves horror flicks.  The trailer pretty much covers everything.  Ick.

Best and worst

There are plenty of aspects of my job that I really love.  Among them is the tremendous variety in the tasks I do: field work, all different types of lab work, data analysis, reading, writing.  I rarely have to do the same thing for more than a few weeks at a time, so I don't get tired of the things I enjoy and the things I dislike are mostly over before I know it.  My favorite thing of all, however, is the thrill of inspiration.

I love it when a colleague or I have a new idea to discuss.  That feeling of excitement and possibility that comes from seeing how the pieces can fit together to show you something new about nature.  The daydreaming of how the experiments will go, what you'll learn from potential outcome A vs. outcome B, how you could build the story out of various pieces of literature, what journal it could go to.  I really like going to conferences for many reasons, but a big one is that they so often inspire new ideas.  The exposure to the latest research, expressed in a way that is much more lively that a journal article, combined with the opportunity to interact with the scientists presenting that research is so conducive to developing new ideas.  I always come home chomping at the research bit.

At the other end of the spectrum, I really dislike the frustration of waiting for other people to do their parts.  A couple of years ago I would have said that my least favorite aspect of my job is the guilt - of not working enough, working too much, whatever.  Now my ire is much more practical.  I just want to get shit done.  There's still an element of guilt wrapped in this, though, because sometimes people are waiting on me to get my bit done and I feel bad when it takes longer than it should.  And I feel bad for nagging people who I know are orders of magnitude busier than I am.

As I get more involved in the bench work necessary to my new field, I'll be curious to see how much my likes and dislikes might shift.  I think the moments of inspiration will remain the best part, but I wonder if bench frustrations will surpass collaboration frustrations in my new, more sophisticated and finicky lab work.

Don't forget!

Get your Scientiae posts in today! 

What is the best part of your job/life as a scientist, and what is the worst part?

Isn't that most, to say the least?

I'll be hosting the November Scientiae Carnival, and it's high time I announce a theme. 

Day after day on our blogs, we all write about the trials and triumphs of life in science. The guilt, the frustrations, the jackasses.  And the gratification, sense of importance, the pride.  But when you boil it all down, I wonder,

What is the best part of your job/life as a scientist, and what is the worst part?

How do these things motivate you?  Do the good parts function as a carrot and the bad parts a stick?  Or are the bad parts simply something you endure knowing that no job is perfect? 

As always, women and men both are encouraged to post for the carnival.  And if you have something you'd like to share but you don't have a blog, I'll consider guest posts here.  Get your posts in by midnight (American Samoa time) on October 31.

Want

For this month's Scientiae carnival, Karina asks what sorts of supplies we crave for back to school.  I'm not much of a school supplies kind of person.  I don't need highlighters and special pens and fancy scissors and tape dispensers.  I have some of those things on my desk as I need them, but when I think of back to school shopping I think of clothes.

When I was a kid, I always got new clothes at the start of the new school year.  My family never had much money, so new things mostly came at birthdays, Christmas, and back to school time.  My mom would take me out, sometimes via the city bus to the downtown shopping area (so exciting!), and I would always want to accumulate as many bags as possible (how un-eco!).  Even now when the weather cools, I fantasize about new jeans and sweaters.  I try to restrain myself these days, due both to my budget and my ideals, but I do indulge a little.

On another supplies-related note, I'm finding my new lab is missing so many basic things!  They aren't basic to my new PI, of course, as the lab is outfitted quite nicely for the kind of lab that it is as far as I can tell.  But I keep coming up empty handed when I open drawers looking for the things I expect to be in a lab.  Fortunately, a new PI just joined our department and will be pooling resources somewhat with our lab.  This new person might do some things in my old discipline, so I might get to recommend some items for the start up.  Methinks this is a good opportunity to get some of the things I need while forging collaboration with the new person.

Research continuity

I've written before that my research is interdisciplinary, and alluded to the fact that my postdoc is taking that to a whole new level.  My PhD work crossed two main subjects: A and B.  My postdoc research is still about A and B, but also includes C (which I knew a little about from my work in A), D, E, and possibly a little bit of Z.  These letters stand for disciplines that could have their own department at any typical American university.  Z is radically different from the rest.

Learning all this new stuff is exciting and overwhelming.  Fortunately, I still get to work with my PhD research adviser on the A and B, so there is something familiar among all the new stuff.  In fact, a big part of my job is to help develop this new highly interdisciplinary research by building the relationships between the A+B people, the C+D people, the E people, and maybe even the Z people.  So far it's cool, but much more complex than anything I've done before.  The science is complex, obviously, but the interpersonal/management aspects are also tricky. 

I'm glad there are at least a few familiar personalities in the mix to ease the transition into this new research.  I'm finding that I'm more excited to go to work than I have been in a very long time, and that the days just fly by.  But I'm also so tired by the end of the week, even when it feels like I hardly did anything.  It takes a lot of effort to learn (which is probably why kids need so much sleep!), so it's good that my whole world didn't change all at once.  I'm still with EGM of course, we didn't have to move for this postdoc, I still get to interact with Research Adviser, and I still get to work on my PhD topic, albeit in a very expanded way.   It's comforting to have some measure of continuity as I embark on new research territory.

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...who is the tensest of them all?

Lately I fell stressed. Even when I am doing something relaxing, I can feel an underlying tension that I don't think will go away until after I defend.

Some days, I get to my office all wound up and excited to get to work. But it's like anxiously waiting to start a race, hearing the gun, and then running in circles instead of following the course towards the finish.

Other days are much, much better. On those days, I get a lot accomplished, enjoy my work, and have a good time with my coworkers.

As I get down to the wire, the good days need to far outweigh the bad. I want to finish in the fall term, and I have a lot of work left to do. I guess there is a chance I could take another semester. That's unappealing -- I've already done that more than once and really, I think this thing will just expand to fill the time I give it.

So when I look in the mirror these days, I see someone bound and determined to finish her dissertation. I revisited the Dissertation Coach's advice the other day and made a timeline for the work I need to do, week by week. It's tight, but I think if I focus I can stay on schedule and finish without panicking towards the end. Every day needs to count; every day I need to arrive at work knowing specifically what I need to do. I see a person who will pull this off and not write a sloppy dissertation that was finished in a hurry*. My committee may have questions about my research, but it's not going to be because I wrote a crappy dissertation**.

*yes, I know no one else will read my dissertation, but each chapter will eventually get published as an independent paper, so I don't want it to suck.
**it will be because of the very limited replication in my experimental design.

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The toughest part of grad school

I'm late to the party, but I want to write on Candid Engineer's Scientiae topic, overcoming challenges. So far, the most challenging thing I've had to do in grad school is assemble and meet with my committee. I think that sounds pretty lame since it's an integral part of doing a PhD, but the process of building my committee hit an irrational nerve (subject for another post) that had me nervous for weeks.

I know part of a professor's job is to serve on thesis committees. Some of them even like doing it. But everybody always seems so busy all the time, and I really hate the guilty feeling that comes with the notion of wasting someone's time. I think really the problem stemmed from the fact that there weren't many faculty for me to choose from. Thus I had to ask people whose interests don't overlap much with mine, which means I have a committee partially populated* by people who don't really get what I do, don't have a whole lot to offer, won't get a whole lot from me, and don't know me all that well. It makes me dread my meetings with them, and it makes the meetings a lot less pleasant than they should be because it takes so much effort to get anything done.

I have learned from this though. There have been several subsequent occasions where I've had to ask people to help me with something in a way not completely different from my thesis committee. I'm happy to report that I was much more confident, the interactions went better, and I actually enjoyed the experience of having a reason to talk science with some different people. So I may not have overcome the challenge directly with my committee, but I did overcome my fear and inhibition. I'd say I even learned a skill, and now I'm much more comfortable dealing with the interpersonal parts of doing science. I'm still trying to find a way to get out of my next committee meeting, but I'm excited by some new relationships that have recently developed. Yet another reason I can't wait to graduate!

*Of course, I do have my two advisors who are both great. Plus an outside committee member who is great but also very far away and s/he doesn't know me all that well.

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A better world

I missed the February Scientiae deadline, but I'm going to write on the topic anyway. Pat wants to know about our dreams for a better, more equitable society. I have the same visions that many others have -- freedom to have the type of family you want with good, affordable childcare and access to any kind of job with no discrimination. But all of these seem to be symptoms of a larger, more underlying problem of bias and marginalization in our society. We're socialized to fit gender roles that have positives as well as all those negatives. So yeah, to make things better for women, we need to support daycare on site and all that, but to really chip away at the problem, I think we need to change things for men.

I want men to never think twice about doing "women's work". I want domestic jobs, from household chores that are done by its members to paid work like childcare or nursing, to be things men do too. Without anyone thinking anything of it. Without men getting extra credit for making dinner or ironing. And jobs like daycare teacher would be paid more because men would want to do it too.

I think women will have fair shake once they can stop doing two jobs at once. It needs to be totally normal and expected for men to do all the jobs that women do. I don't mean just in your relationship because you have a super supportive partner. I want it to do beyond supportive partners. Even that phrase is suspect; it's like saying "my partner helps me do the things I should be responsible for at home". No. People should be equally responsible.

I think a better, more equitable society is one where it's okay for boys to wear pink (we fight to get girls out of pink, right?), for boys to play with barbies (we fight for girls to play with trucks, right?), for a husband to clean the toilet without thinking he's doing to help out his wife, for hairdressers, lawyers, and professors to be equally valued, whether they are men or women. If there is no men's work and women's work, then there can't be any discrimination related to work. Even science.

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Whenever I write about gender stuff, I get a little nervous. I haven't had any training in gender studies but I know many of you have and I worry my ideas are silly. And now new, although they are new to me. But after watching how things work, they're the ideas I have. I guess the blog is pseudonymous for a reason.

Can your stilettos do this?

Last week, something I've always wanted happened to me in the night. It was way hotter than a certain pair of teal sequined pumps and it got me all hot and bothered in the bed. And no, it wasn't Ecogeoman (although he's definitely way hotter than sequined pumps too).

I got an idea while I was sleeping. An idea so sexy that it kept me awake for hours.

I've often been impressed by people's stories of their nocturnal inspiration. Of how they woke up, startled by their own fabulous idea, and positively could not go back to bed until they put fingers to keys and laid that sexy science down. But I'm just a run-of-the-mill scientist making incremental advances to a lab research program that is itself making incremental advances to our sub-sub-subfield. I never though that the science muse would visit me in the night and give me my own STEM version of a wet dream.

I had been mulling over ideas for two different review/synthesis papers. Both are related to my PhD work, but neither one really fit well enough into my thesis topic to warrant inclusion in my dissertation. Plus, I think someone else is working on a meta-analysis on one of the topics so there's no point for me to do it too. Another concern I had been pondering was how to connect two distinct pieces of my dissertation. At the outset, it didn't seem like the two parts would seem disconnected but now I feel like they need to be pulled together with some synthesis in a conclusion chapter. How to deal with all three of these potential writing projects before next summer, when I want to defend?

I woke up all flush on Wednesday night knowing just what to do. I figured out how I can satisfy my desire to review the literature for topic one without doing an all-out meta-analysis -- it will be to make a specific point related to topic two, a point I don't think I could make very well without the review of topic one. By combining them, I don't think I'd overshoot by status as a student in my particular sub-sub-subfield, either. I think it would tie up my dissertation so nicely and be a kick-ass contribution to my science. And, it would only be one paper instead of three.

I know we're all going apeshit for hot shoes lately. But seriously, I don't know of any Naughty Monkeys that can compete with that kind of total science hotness.

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Impending transition

I’m still far from my next big transition (graduation), but I feel like I am on the cusp of a change in mindset; I feel like it is an adjustment for me to transition from a student with a long way to go to one who is wrapping up.

I recently finished one big chunk of my research that will become a chapter in my dissertation (huzzah!). I had been planning it for ages, then working on it off and on for the past 18 months or so, and now the data are collected. One of the things that way always in the future is now at hand. Add that to the manuscript that is in preparation, the lab work for another chapter that is 70% done (see sidebar counter), and the last chapter that was dramatically reduced after my most recent committee meeting, and I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel different preparing for Big Conference next week than I have for conferences in the past. People always ask if I’ll be finishing up soon and I always have to say no. This time, I get to say yes, I expect to be graduating in about a year and yes, I’m starting to think about post docs, will you have one available? I’ve even ordered business cards (I hope they arrive in time) to give out during all the networking I have planned. I feel similarly about the job ads that sail through my inbox every day. Occasionally, I’ll see interesting job listings, but I know I’m too far from finishing to pursue them. That will be changing soon.

It’s a little scary to realize the thing I’ve been doing for the past five years (seven if you count the time I was a tech in my current lab) is coming to a close. I love where I am, so it’s sad to think about leaving. But at the same time, it’s exciting to think about leaving to pursue something new, or even about staying but with a new project in the same lab. I’m really ready to graduate, but apprehensive about the thesis writing and defense process which I know will be stressful given my advisors’ lack of enthusiasm for reviewing my writing. So, while it may seem trivial to think of the last year of grad school as a transition, I think my mindset and even my daily routine will be changing quite a lot. I hope it’s good.

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May Scientiae is awesome

I have had the May Scientiae Carnival at A Cat Nap bookmarked since Flicka Mawa published it last week, but I just got around to reading it today. If you haven't seen it yet, go check it out now! Flicka did an incredible job of putting together a whole bunch of amazing posts on "career paths, perspective, and a changing self-image".

The scientists who wrote posts for the carnival have taken a wide variety of paths to get where they are now. I'm struck, though, by how many have faced uncertainty along the way or had very different goals at the outset. I perceive many of these bloggers to be extremely successful, ambitious, and goal-orientated. And they are, but they don't all have the clear long-term vision that I thought they had. It makes me feel better about my own insecurities and uncertainties to know that not everyone has it all figured out from the get-go.

My career plan: shrug

I come from a working class family. My dad is a skilled tradesman, my mom stayed home with the kids until she became a receptionist/office manager when I was young. Most of my siblings went to college, but none had advanced degrees until S4 got a master’s to keep up her teaching certificate. In short, I had no experience with the concept of a Ph.D. before I went to college and had Ph.D.s for professors. Scientists were people interviewed on the news about cancer breakthroughs or marine biology.

I went to a smallish, non-Ph.D.-granting university with a tiny master’s program. I had little exposure to research until my last semester when I got to work in the lab of a new faculty for course credit. Right after I graduated, that assistant professor took me to a small, student-friendly meeting to present a poster representing my work. It was the best professional experience I’ve had.

Everything at that meeting was new and exciting. I didn’t know who anyone was, so I didn’t know who to be intimidated by and I was fearless. I learned so much and met so many people, including Research Advisor, who then hired me to be a technician.

I came to RA’s lab not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I still wasn’t considering grad school; Ph.D.s were for other people, not me. I figured I’d try the research gig for about a year, then try something more applied for a year and see what I liked best. After several months, the research bug bit me and I eventually enrolled in a grad program.

Now that I am approaching the end of grad school, it’s really hard to imagine the next step, let alone where I’ll be ten years out. In the fall, I’ll probably have to start seriously looking for post-docs, which just feels weird. There are so many different directions that appeal to me where I could use my current knowledge and skills in new ways. I sort of figure an opportunity will come along and the choice will be obvious. But now there’s Ecogeoman’s career to consider as well. And there are some great opportunities on the horizon in my current (non-university) lab. While I know that it sometimes isn’t good to stay in the same lab after a Ph.D., quite frankly it might be the best way for me to get on a nonacademic career path.

So, here I am, almost with a Ph.D. that I never expected and never planned for. I’m optimistic that it will all work out in the end. I plan to keep crossing bridges as I come to them since that has served me well so far. Really, it’s all I know.

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Once, I was a fool

Well, I still can be a fool sometimes. But this story is about a time when I was biased against a woman doing science, which I thought would be appropriate for Peggy's Scientiae Canival theme. I can’t believe I ever felt this way. I won’t do it again.

When I was in college, I worked in the lab of a brand new assistant professor. I went to a smallish school with no PhD program and a limited number of master’s student in the department, so undergrads had great access to research opportunities. Because this professor was new, she was still setting up her lab when I joined it. And because the department was small, she was doing most of it by herself. I recall one day I was there during the installation of a fancy piece of equipment that I now know is pretty standard fare for labs in our subfield. There were problems with the installation that required much troubleshooting during the first weeks she had the instrument. As this bright, capable women was buried up to the elbows in tubing and electronics, performing major surgery on the new instrument, I thought, Can she really fix this? She needs to get a man to deal with this. She’s going to break it! Of course, she didn’t break it. She fixed it. And when I moved on to the next lab, I met several very smart and technically savvy women who did similar work and expected me to be able to use and troubleshoot just such an instrument. Which I did, thank you very much.

I shudder now to admit those thoughts even crossed my mind! I would never think such a thing now. There’s no job a woman can’t do with the right tools. But knowing that someone like me could have had those thoughts once upon a time makes me realize that lots of people still have them. I think that’s why I’m drawn to women-in-science issues even though I rarely feel bias myself. Hopefully, women doing great work and speaking out about these issues will shown the remaining fools just how foolish they are.

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Oops, brain fart!

I forgot to call out the March anniversary edition of Scientiae. If you haven't yet, go check it out at Rants of a Feminist Engineer. Skookumchick did a bang-up job compiling the carnival!

New attitude (for now)

I'm sick of The Race. I'm both irritated and bored by the rush to finish projects and write papers and not get scooped (which almost never happens in my field anyway) and all the rest of it. I want to just relax and enjoy what I'm doing. If I do it right, then presentations and papers should come naturally as part of the process.

I want to do science because it’s interesting and fun and valuable. There are lots of other jobs I could be doing that would get me more money with less education. If science isn't fun or interesting, then there's little point in doing it for me. Sure, there's the benefit scientists provides society. But I feel like I could do as much or more good in another profession. It would just be a very different sort of good.

The other day, my carpool buddy was fretting about some deadline that he didn't think he could meet. Ecogeoman and I are constantly doing the same, both for external deadlines and the ones we set ourselves for motivation. But I suddenly realized how arbitrary our deadlines are. No one is going to die on an operating table or starve in the immediate future if we don't meet our deadlines.* My research is very important, but not it’s just not that urgent.

That thought brought on a welcome sense of relaxation. I have been thinking about how all this worrying about meeting goals takes mental energy away from actually doing the work. I want to focus on the parts of my job that are fun and interesting. I'm tired of spinning my wheels, planning and replanning my future, both immediate and distant. I need a break from all the fuss to just do my work and enjoy it for what it is rather than doing to meet an arbitrary deadline or because it's good for my career. I want to do it because it's good for science. My career will follow.

I hope that this change of attitude will provide some renewal of my motivation. But rather than renewing my fortitude to meet an arbitrary goal, I hope to renew my excitement about my research, and that’s all.

*I know some of you work in fields where this might be the case.
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A toast to women scientist bloggers

Has anyone else noticed how many new blogs authored by female scientists cropped up in the latter part of 2007? It probably partly reflects the growing general popularity of blogs, but may also indicate the necessity and appeal of a community like this.

I had been reading blogs for over a year before I started my own. The many blog conversations have helped me understand the expectations of and by scientists (who are women) in a way I don’t think I would have in any other forum because no other forum is quite so candid. Moreover, having a safe outlet for my thoughts and feelings has helped me to clarify what I think I want from my career at a time when I can still somewhat comfortably adjust my trajectory.

I hope that the addition of more women STEM bloggers in the coming year will contribute to our success in our careers. It’s uplifting and comforting to know that other women are out there dealing with the same issues. It also helps to know that they aren’t all of super human composition, i.e., that they aren’t so different from (or better than) me after all (note that in real life, people try to hide their weaknesses, while a blogger will write every damn problem she has).

Since I don’t regularly work at a university, I sometimes feel a little disconnected from other students and academic life. It has been really nice to expand my world a little and learn what this gig is like for others – those in other countries, fields, institutions, whatever. It has also helped put many issues in perspective. We all deal with the same problems. Moreover, it’s nice to open up to others in an unreserved way. It’s so difficult to do that in real life because it makes one feel too vulnerable.

So, as silly as it may be to salute one's e-social network, here’s to a fantastic 2008 for all my blog friends: to those who consider me a friend too, to those who don’t know they have me as a fan, and to those I’ve yet to meet!

Edited to add: I love all the non-scientist, non-female bloggers too! I didn't mean to be exclusive! It's just that I wrote this post with the Scientiae carnival in mind.

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Transcending the gender debate

Kate at A K8, A Cat, A Mission chose a very good topic, “transcending the debate”, for this month’s Scientiae Carnival, which I am contributing to for the first time. Here goes.

I believe that transcending gender issues in STEM fields involves setting the expectations ourselves. That is, behaving in a way that embodies what we want from our lives and our careers and demanding that others regard us how we wish. There are many confounding factors that make science jobs difficult for women. But it’s the jobs that are hard, not the science. We can do the science if someone would just take away the bullshit. So, I believe that rising above the debate comes from having the chops and not letting anyone think we don’t.

Doing the science in a way that improves the outlook for women entails shaking the guilt for being passionate. We don’t need to feel guilty for working at work, even if we want to work for a really long time. For wanting to run experiments more than we want to clean the bathroom or decorate the living room. By the same token, we should not feel guilty about wanting to live, either. For wanting to leave after just 8 hours because we have a dinner date or want to get home in time to watch Lost (and not hiding those plans from our colleagues or bosses). Or not wanting to go to a conference because we really don’t want to miss little Susie’s recital that is scheduled for the same day. We should do what we want, whether it’s working more than our mother-in-laws approve of or working less than the men act like they do.

This is not their system to dictate how we work. It’s our system too. We can do what we want with it. We can create part time jobs for each other. We can lower the requirements for tenure just a little bit. We can demand daycare on site. We can show some sympathy when one of our ranks has to stop an experiment short to go home to a sick kid, even finish the experiment for that mother. Or father, because part of our expectations should involve demanding more from men. Expecting that they know what size shoes the kids wear. That they notice when the bathroom is dirty, too. That we can rest assured that there will be no sexist comments towards us, no matter how subtle.

I know that women continue to be under represented at higher ranks in many STEM fields despite the larger numbers of female students for many years. I wish that the women who have made a career in science could feel empowered to make it easier for those young women to join them. And I know that many women are so overwhelmed that the pressure of being a role model/activist/leader might feel like too much. I’m sure many (most?!) women have it much tougher than I have it in my majority female lab, but we’re all in this together. Some collective effort can make science a friendlier place for women and parents. Then we will be able to not just transcend the debate, but make it obsolete.