© Bill Parry 2003
Bill Parry is a freelance writer and works at the Institute of Biology

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.51.28

The Baroness Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution (RI) and professor of synaptic pharmacology at Oxford University, was the main author behind SET Fair: A Report on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, which was published in November 2002. Patricia Hewitt MP, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, commissioned the report to investigate why women are not appropriately represented in all aspects of the scientific career path, in both private and public sectors.

‘Increasing the number of women scientists and engineers is vital for future UK competitiveness and productivity’, said Ms Hewitt, adding: ‘Successful British companies increasingly depend on the strength of their scientific and technological expertise, and we are obviously missing out on a huge pool of talent.’

I spoke to Susan Greenfield at the RI in February to discuss aspects of the report. At the time of going to press, she was still waiting for a reply. She hopes that it will be imminent so that work on implementing the report’s recommendations could commence.

Bill Parry: The report identifies many factors which contribute to the high attrition rate of women in SET jobs, including: a career system that is not conducive to managing family and career responsibilities; institutional sexism and the glass ceiling. Which of its recommendations, in your opinion, are the most urgent?

Susan Greenfield: The first one that I really care about is the issue of providing ring fence funds to a woman – or anyone who’s had childcare – and whose career has therefore been jeopardised by having to have time off to look after children. I think this is really important, to have a level playing field.

I like very much the idea of a Working Science Centre (WSC). I see now the huge benefit of (the RI’s) Science Media Centre, which is kind of the same thing, in that it brings together constituencies that haven’t met each other before.

BP: Which factor do you feel is most responsible for just 9% of UK bioscience professors being women?

SG: I don’t know if one can talk about a single factor in this case because it’s the constellation of the vague and the cultural along with the biological, along with the socio­economic. I think you’re looking at the net result from a constellation of factors.

BP: Do you think this is a problem that pervades society generally or particularly women in science?

SG: I think science is a particularly special case. Most other professions have a very clear career structure, including medicine, and most of them have built into that career structure the issue of maternity leave, as far as I understand it. Neither of those facts applies to research science. (If you’re lucky enough to get tenure,) it’ll be when you’re nearing 35, which is edging in past the biological optimum in any event. To have people until they’re 35 on fixed-term contracts, with no security at all, is very different (from other careers).

BP: What advice would you give under- and post-graduate women who are considering a career in science?

SG: They should be under no illusion that it’s all plain sailing, that everything will be sorted out. I’ve often gone on record, and been misquoted, for saying that academic women, especially scientists, shouldn’t have children, and I’ve never ever said that. I’ve said it’s hard at the moment, you have to make some pretty horrible choices, you can’t have it all ways, and that the government ought to do something. That’s the real quote. I think at the moment it depends on the women and how much they really care. If it’s just an option for you and if you want to have children, then you might think very seriously about those other options. Research science is hard enough anyway: you have fixed, short-term contracts, long hours, and you have crummy money, let’s be honest.

BP: According to a Swedish report, women weren’t as assertive and confident as their male counterparts when it came to applying for grant funding and so are at a disadvantage in that regard. How can this be changed?

SG: This is the kind of thing that’s been very hard in the report to actually legislate for. You can’t change the male psyche or change the female psyche. I think the more women that do it, they more automatically that will help. And I think [our report] recommends lots of gender-friendly policies there. I’d like to see a much more extensive mentoring scheme for women.

BP: How do you see us best increasing the profile of women scientists, present and past? For instance, if I asked friends to name a handful of famous women scientists, most would be hard-pressed to do so.

SG: That’s because women are bad often at promoting themselves, which is what I feel the Science Centre could contribute towards. Head hunters and search committees would, I hope, come to us and their names would get on the radar like that. I think expressly targeting women and trying to showcase them is much better done just by example. I think the best thing is that you are there, you are seen as an expert or a high profile person, and you happen to be female but no one points that out or bothers about it; you are just there as a woman. I think it’s a much more subtle role model that’s important.

BP: You don’t have any children. Was that a decision made for career purposes?

SG: You don’t wake up and say: “Right, today I’ve decided I’ll never have children.” Obviously it doesn’t work like that. What happens, I suppose, is sometimes people actively want children, and I know some women get extremely broody. That never happened to me, partly because I have this horrible brother who’s 13 years younger than me… There are other factors in my case. My husband, who already had a daughter, was upfront with me when we were getting serious with each other, saying he never wanted children, so fine. Not being broody, not wanting kids, him not wanting kids, my career taking off and me really enjoying it, meant that somehow I never really thought of it or saw it as an option. I’ve always been rather hard-headed and realised that I can’t have everything. Perhaps had I met someone else, had I not had the career I had, had I not had a brother, I may well have had kids now. It wouldn’t have been a worse life or a better life, it would have been a different life.

The number of women undertaking both under- and postgraduate degrees in the biosciences is increasing, as is the proportion of women entering the SET workplace. In order to maximise the individual and collective potential of this “huge pool of talent”, we await Ms Hewitt’s response and hope that it will match this momentum. That the matter is in the hands of these two able and powerful women will hopefully mean that steady progress will be forthcoming.