“The view of my colleagues is that for a man, an engineer is able to do what he is supposed to do, but for a woman, she always has to demonstrate she is able”1.
Nowadays, in the XXI century, women have obtained rights that rank them at the same level as men, but they still experience discrimination in many sectors of the society. While women participation has increased in almost all the professions in the last 20 years, they are still underrepresented in science, engineering, and technology (SET) sectors.
Although the number of women graduating and with high level of education in SET is not decreasing, the number of women at senior positions has reached a deadlock. The reasons for this gender disparity are different (i.e. long working hours, necessity to travel) and perpetuate masculine tradition in these settings.
A recent article by Herman C. et al.1 analyzes women discrimination in the scientific world focusing not on gender disparity, but on motherhood discrimination. They interviewed women SET professionals working in multinational companies (MNCs) in three European Countries-Italy, France, and The Netherlands-where the proportion of women in SET is equivalent, but the norms for working parents and hour flexibility are different. They divide the women in three different categories: assimilation, cul de sac, breaking the mould, and lying low. Women who followed the assimilation strategy are those who accepted the existing structures and continued to work long hours and travel to fulfill their career aspiration. Another group of women who accepted the existing structure are those in the cul de sac category, who had stalled their career and had no more interest in advancing. A third group (breaking the mould), characterized by very ambitious and motivated women, didn’t conform to the existing structure and tried to change the norms to follow their career aspirations. At last the lying low women retained their ambition, but were pushed away from their career progression by the corporation. They found women in all categories in the three countries with some peculiarity. For instance, In Italy, the assimilation system prevails because there are no norms for hour flexibility, therefore women have to conform to the system or quit the corporation. On the other hand, the lying low strategy has been institutionalized in France and is common in The Netherlands, where the norms for hour flexibility and part-time made this possible.
Despite the environment, many women returned to work part time and this, together with their new status as “mothers”, undermined their career opportunities. The same companies expressed their concern about their female employees coming back after maternity leave and failing to achieve higher levels of management. Although some women were still able to progress and achieve their career goals, these situations were considered exceptional.
In this study, the authors present for the first time an analysis of motherhood discrimination over women discrimination. As pointed out by the study, the situation can be different based on the Country, company norms and managers. To have a broader spectrum of the actual situation, the analysis has to be extended to different Countries and companies.
Women SET professionals have to face first gender discrimination, and then later in their career also motherhood discrimination, thus making their progression and life very hard. Studies, discussions, blogs on this topic underscore the “exceptionality” of successful mothers in SET sectors, and, I believe, in many others. How many studies do we need before this situation is going to change?
As a new mom, I would like to quote an interviewed woman in the study described here.
“I take care of my children first, because they won’t wait for me to grow up…”
Source
1Herman C, Lewis S, and Humbert AL. Women Scientists and Engineers in European Compnies: Putting Motherhood under the Microscope. Gender, Work and Organization, Vol.20 No.5 Sept 2013