Even before the pandemic, many female scientists felt unsupported in their fields. Now, some are hitting a breaking point.
By Apoorva Mandavilli April 13, 2021, 2:30 a.m. ET
Like many women during the pandemic, Alisa Stephens found working from home to be a series of wearying challenges.
Dr. Stephens is a biostatistician at the University of Pennsylvania, and the technical and detail-oriented nature of her work requires long uninterrupted stretches of thought. Finding the time and mental space for that work with two young children at home proved to be an impossibility.
“That first month was really hard,” she recalled of the lockdown. Her infant daughter’s day care was closed, and her 5-year-old was at home instead of at school. With their nanny unable to come to the house, Dr. Stephens tended to her children all day and worked late into the evening. In the fall, when her daughter was set to begin kindergarten, the schools did not reopen.
Things eased once the family could safely bring in a nanny, but there was still little time for the deep thought Dr. Stephens had relied on each morning for her work. Over time, she has adjusted her expectations of herself.
“Maybe I’m at 80 percent as opposed to 100 percent, but I can get things done at 80 percent to some extent,” she said. “It’s not great, it’s not my best, but it’s enough for now.”
Dr. Stephens is in good company. Several studies have found that women have published fewer papers, led fewer clinical trials and received less recognition for their expertise during the pandemic.
Add to that the emotional upheaval and stress of the pandemic, the protests over structural racism, worry about children’s mental health and education, and the lack of time to think or work, and an already unsustainable situation becomes unbearable.