Question: what is it like being a female scientist , if you don't mined me asking.

I agree with pretty much all of what Rebecca said. I don’t have children myself, but it is a known problem: because scientific research is a fast-moving field, if you take time out to have kids it can be very difficult to get back into it. Also, for a while early in your career, say between 21 and 30, you tend to move around a lot: I spent 5 years in Germany and two in the USA. This is very hard on relationships. Sometimes people manage to keep a relationship going long-distance: I have a colleague whose partner is also a physicist, and for several years he was in Cardiff and she was in Stockholm (now he’s in Sheffield and she’s in Nottingham, so they can actually live together!), but in other cases one partner has decided to give up on research and go for a more “portable” career – and in these cases it’s almost always the woman who gives way, partly because the decision can be combined with starting a family, partly because men still tend, on average, to be slightly older than their female partners, and so they are that little bit further advanced in their careers and earning that little bit more money when the decision is made.

It is also true that the percentage of female scientists declines as you go up the career ladder. Partly this is because more senior scientists tend to be older, and the gender balance was more skewed towards male when they started their careers, but studies have shown that in science as in other professional careers there is some unconscious pro-male bias in selection and promotion: women are systematically less likely to be successful in obtaining large research grants, are less likely to be promoted, and consequently on average earn less. This situation is not worse in science than in other professional careers, but it isn’t better either. These days, very little of this is conscious, intentional bias – but in 2012 an experiment was done in the US that asked professors in science departments to judge two applications for a job as laboratory manager. The qualifications of the candidates were identical, but one was named Jennifer and the other John. On average, the professors offered “Jennifer” a salary $3730/year less than “John”, and were more prepared to mentor “John” than “Jennifer”. Surprisingly, female professors showed the same bias as male. (Source: CA Moss-Racusin et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, volume 109 (2012) pp 16474-16479) So, although overt sexism is very rare in my experience (I haven’t been on the receiving end since I was in high school), there’s no doubt that cultural biases do still make a real difference.

Don’t let this put you off opting for a career in science, though! First, it’s getting better: more administrative bodies are keeping gender-segregated results, and worrying if they don’t look consistent, and there is more understanding about how to recognise and combat unconscious bias. Second, as I said earlier, this problem exists across all professional fields: it’s not confined to science by any means. So if you’re female and you want a career in science, go for it anyway (but put your initials, not your full name, on your applications!).

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