C&EN Washington

In September, C&EN published an adaptation of a speech that I delivered at the Women Chemists Committee luncheon in August at the ACS national meeting in Boston. In that speech, titled "The Challenges for Women Chemists in the New Millennium," I reviewed data for the past 30 years on women in chemistry, including degrees granted, employment status, and salaries (C&EN, Sept. 21, page 43).

The questions posed were these: How much has changed for women chemists in the past three decades? How much has the salary gap been narrowed? How much progress has been made in breaking through the glass ceiling at universities and in corporate boardrooms? Can women chemists, especially those with children, really balance a personal life with a professional life? Are things really better? And what are the prospects for the new millennium? Is it business as usual? What can each of us do to make a difference?

The speech and subsequent article emphasized that progress for women chemists has been painfully slow, but that each person must do his or her part to help overcome the barriers that hinder workplace success. I provided this list of nine action items that women could take:

1. Mentoring. Each of us must promise to be a true mentor to one young woman.

2. Visualize yourself with power, and then use it. If women want to earn respect and make progress, we need to negotiate from a position of strength.

3. Be open to change. In a recent book titled "Membership in the Club: The Coming of Age of Executive Women," Dawn-Marie Driscoll and Carol R. Greenberg describe the five R's--those qualities that are expected of successful people in business--but this could also apply to academia. These five R's that define a culture of success are as follows:

Respect (both earned and given).

Responsibility--the willingness to be responsible for your own actions.

Resourcefulness.

Revenue development--proposal writing or bringing in new business.

Risk taking--essential to innovation.

Women are a part of this culture of success only to the extent that they explicitly embrace and deal with the five R's.

4. Construct a personal agenda with a series of five-year plans focusing on your objectives, goals, and career aspirations. Revise these plans regularly so they are up to date. Ask yourself: Where do I want to be in five years, and what must I do to get there?

5. Pledge to work for change at the highest levels in your organization. The most successful companies in terms of hiring and promoting women are characterized by chief executive officers who were committed to making a change. These CEOs recognize that women are essential intellectual assets who will contribute to revenue generation and increasing shareholder value.

Band together with other women in your organization, gather data that document the facts, and take your well-reasoned concerns to the top of the organization--to your department chairmen, your provosts, your university presidents, your company presidents. Show that you're serious about action, and that you're willing to be part of the solution.

6. Information is power. Acquire it and share it. Plan seminars that help women--and men--get the information they need on how to move through their professional careers, how to handle problems that might arise, and how to mentor others.

7. Find powerful and successful women in other disciplines and seek their advice. Business schools are a good source of such women--but also look around your community. Look for women leaders in your state legislature and in small businesses. Invite these successful women to give talks at your organization.

8. Get a life! That is, a life in addition to your work life. Balancing a personal and professional career is difficult, but it can be done by carefully setting priorities and not getting distracted by things that don't fit on your list of priorities. Learn to say no. A woman who seems to be able to do it all is not a superwoman; she's just superorganized. She has learned to say no to those things that distract her from her goals.

9. Carpe diem! I'm a firm believer in seizing the day. Don't let a day slip by without doing something to solve this problem. As Dale Carnegie used to advise people taking his public speaking course, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Make the most of it.

I then asked readers to send me their "10th" action item. I promised to publish the 10 best ideas in C&EN. I was surprised and gratified by the outpouring of suggestions. They came from men and women, but mostly women. They were women on their first jobs and women who had been working for decades; women in small liberal arts colleges and large research universities; women in government agencies; women in small, medium, and large chemical companies. The ideas came from managers, professors, and researchers at the bench level in companies. They came from single women and mothers of several children. They came from new Ph.D.s and people just receiving their B.S. degrees. Their ideas were upbeat, but the suggestions often came accompanied by long descriptions that showed the obstacles they had overcome to achieve success.

I received more than 10 outstanding ideas--many people suggested the same ideas--so we are publishing a baker's dozen of suggestions to meet the challenges for women in the new millennium. Some of the contributors to the list are identified at the end of the article. Their ideas are reproduced in just slightly edited forms and, in some cases, in the "voice" of the contributor.

1. Don't try to do it alone. Seek collaborations both professionally and personally. "Enlist your partner; generate collaborative research projects; share kid responsibilities with other mothers and family members. And don't be so hard on yourself! You are the only one who knows you didn't publish as many papers this year as you had planned or that you didn't make every field trip of your son's first-grade class and that you occasionally pick up a pizza for dinner. Everyone around you is looking in awe, and you are providing an excellent example for your children (daughters and sons!) that women can be successful and happy, balancing professional and personal lives, even if we're still not very good at giving ourselves credit for doing so."

2. Never accept an answer of "no" (or any other answer that seems inappropriate) from a colleague or supervisor without appealing to the next level in the organization. "I have seen many great ideas squelched when an immediate supervisor said no, only to see the decision reversed when the first decision was appealed. However, many of us accept the first answer, fearing that taking the issue higher might result in reprisals. I would strongly encourage finding a diplomatic way to go higher; it can produce great results."

3. Never allow yourself to be victimized. "As individuals, we should never willingly accept the victim role; the real victim is society when intellectual capital is unavailable owing to behaviors and practices, cultural biases and prejudices, and so on. From a fortune cookie I was once given, here is a gem: 'You cannot be successful and continue to be a victim.' "

4. Learn to recognize and capitalize on opportunity.

5. Never allow yourself to stereotype other women, use derogatory or demeaning terms to describe them, or rush to judgment on their seriousness as scientists or engineers.

6. Never blame discrimination or bias for the difficulties you encounter. "If you adopt this attitude, you will avoid giving up by falling back on such statements as 'They don't like women.' Instead, try again. Rewrite that research proposal and make it better."

7. Try to get promising young women into the network early. Keep in touch with them and make sure they get whatever mentoring and assistance they need. Be subtle and nonintrusive.

8. Work the system. "Those who succeed in the workplace have the ability to effectively work the system. Key ingredients to accomplish this include developing an in-depth understanding of your organization including management practices, operating budgets and costs, and long-term strategies, and watching and learning from individuals in the organizations who have moved up the ladder quickly."

9. Do not be afraid to (tactfully) point out prejudices in the system. "Certain elements of the research infrastructure (both in academia and in industry) simply are not used to having women present, and it is therefore easy to ignore us. Most of these prejudices are subconscious, and my coworkers are surprised at the subtle ways in which they often discount my suggestions (despite my technical track record) unless they are echoed by a male coworker. If you wait for someone else to invite you into the club, you'll never get there--particularly if no one knows that the door isn't even open!"

10. Be yourself! This is harder than it seems, as several factors work against it. From one reader: "Many women have been brought up to 'please' and to measure themselves by the approbation they get. In the chemical world we now live in (and will for some time), we interact with a majority of men, especially in positions senior to our own. Styles of interaction are quite different in arenas that are predominantly male or predominantly female. If women feel that they must act in ways that are modeled after their male counterparts, they can lose sight of their own attributes and stylistic strengths. This trend is exacerbated if women feel that they must adopt the prevailing style to be approved of."

And from another reader: "Be a keen observer and analyzer of the behaviors and actions of the successful and unsuccessful. Learn from, adapt, interpret, and emulate their actions, but do it your own way."

11. Ask for a mentor. Look for strong female role models in the workplace and open communication with them.

12. Be flexible. Show a willingness to volunteer for new assignments, temporary or longer term, that will allow you to learn new skills, gain new experiences, adapt to change, and meet others in the orgnization. These assignments may not be what you really want to do today, but they may provide the pathway to your longer term goals. This contributor also noted that the ability to "be flexible is not possible for all, especially working mothers. Life as a working mom requires continual compromise between the family and the job.

"How do you keep a job manageable? Predictable working hours, no overnight travel, and no relocation. However, the ability to work long hours (especially on the spur of the moment), to travel frequently, and to relocate for good opportunities requires enormous flexibility in one's personal life. Those who can do this frequently increase the chance for more rapid upward progression. Those who can't do these things slow their careers or force them into a different, more manageable direction.

"In our more family-friendly work environments, successful employment and fulfilling careers can still be had. But the highest reaches of upper management will likely not be attainable. I suggest that the lack of high upward progression of women may sometimes, maybe often, be the result of conscious decision-making by individual women to stay in a job that is manageable. So, when we see a lack of women at the highest levels, although we shouldn't dismiss discrimination outright, I think we need to consider the long-term effects of conscious decisions women have made to keep life in sync with family."

13. Actively support and encourage self-awareness and self-discovery as important and indeed vital tools for career development. "As we become more comfortable with who we are individually, it becomes easier to integrate our talents and strengths in a seamless expression of ourselves as chemists, colleagues, and women. In achieving this self-acceptance, we become more confident in our abilities, even when we do not see many others pursuing the same career path. We need to challenge young women (and men) to think of themselves as developing their skills to do chemistry, rather than molding themselves to be chemists."

C&EN thanks all who wrote with suggestions and stories. Among those contributing their ideas and observations to this perspective were Laurel Clouston, Margaret Frey, Lila Gierasch, Maitland Jones Jr., Saundra McGuire, Mary Ryan-Hotchkiss, Amy Hauck Newman, Mildred Perry, Julie M. Rehm, Jan S. Rosenbaum, Debra Ann Ryan, and Robyn Trumbly.

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