motherhood & academia

I just read an article that confirms women's worst fears about trying to combine motherhood with academia.

Some numbers (you know I love numbers):
- Men who have a child within 5 years of receiving their PhDs are 38% more likely than their women counterparts to achieve tenure
- Only 1 in 3 women who takes a fast-track university job before having a child ever becomes a mother
- Women who achieve tenure are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to be single 12 years after earning the PhD
- Women who are married when they begin faculty careers are much more likely than men in the same position to divorce or separate from their spouses

Seemingly, men can "have it all", tenure and family, but it's much less likely for women.

I am much more likely to join the "second tier" of women PhDs - those who are not working or who are adjunct, part-time or "gypsy" scholars and teachers. These women have children and experience marital stability more like men who become professors. They are also the most likely to remain married (compared to tenure track men and especially compared to tenure track women).

My current academic life:

- Encouraging: had a good meeting with a professor at the CUNY (City University New York) Grad School; she's interested in my doing a postdoc with her. The thing is I'd have to find funding from an outside source.

- Discouraging: I e-mailed my advisor about the idea of doing this postdoc and she emphasized how difficult it is to secure funding and reminded me that she doesn't have the funds for me to stay on past May. I wasn't planning on staying, but it's not nice to feel unwanted (another student my year is staying on to do a one-year postdoc with her) and discouraged from pursuing further research.

Weekend update:

- Shame on the New York Public Library: Ezer and I bought tickets to hear Bill Clinton and John Hope Franklin speak. I went early and saved seats. They had too many ticketholders and not enough seats. They closed the room. Ezer wasn't allowed to join me, only offered overflow seating even though I had a seat for him. I wasn't that impressed by JHF's answers about race in America. Clinton is just like he is on tv.

- Savion Glover, tap dancer, is like a human musical instrument. I like Thelonius Monk music.

- We studied for several hours on Saturday for our Emmanuel Mercy Team theology exam. I haven't studied for a test like that since my last department seminar exam 3 years ago. I think it went pretty well on Sunday.

- We have a new default, order-in place for when we have people over for dinner, Dinosaur-BBQ. You get a full rack of ribs, whole roast chicken, three sides and cornbread for $39.95. We've had it two weekends in a row now. :) This weekend's recipients were our pastor and his wife. They, along with two of Ezer's co-workers, came with us to see a play about two black women who have HIV, In the Continuum. One neat thing we found out afterwards is that one of the playwrites/actresses, is a Christian and attends a sister church.

Daylights savings makes me tired. =O