Women in the EMS (WEMS)

SIG Leaders

Janice Pluth and Glenda Gentile

SIG Description

The Women in the EMS (WEMS) Special Interest Group focuses on women’s issues within the EMS as well as broader issues that face many women in scientific careers.

The mission of WEMS is to:

Create opportunities for networking and mentoring for women.
Encourage leadership and career development.
Encourage and support representation of women throughout the society and within the scientific community.

During the EMS meetings, WEMS provides a forum for discussions focusing on general issues that affect not only women but which are relevant to the general membership of the EMS. And, as an EMS Special Interest Group (SIG), we develop ideas for symposia and topics to be considered by the EMS program committee for upcoming EMS meetings.

If you are interested in becoming involved either as a committee member or would like to give your input into programming ideas for SIG discussions or EMS program ideas, we encourage any EMS member to join the WEMS special interest group. ALL are welcome to attend our SIG meetings and WEMS hosted EMS meetings sessions!

Current Year Initiatives

View SIG Activities in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

WEMS Session During 2010 EMS Meeting

The WEMS-sponsored luncheon at the 2010 EMS annual meeting featured a dynamic speaker, Dr. Carrie Wolinetz, who gave a talk entitled “The Leaky Pipeline of Women in Science: Patching the Pipe or Rebuilding the Infrastructure?” She began by describing how women actually start out on a “high note”, that is in the science and engineering fields women are now awarded as many bachelor’s degrees as men. Even as they begin to move up the educational ladder, women continue to represent more than half of the total biological and medical science graduate students obtaining a doctorate. In addition, women currently earn more doctoral degrees than men in the biological and medical sciences, so women are good at completing what they start. In fact, in 2010 women across all fields earned more doctorate degrees than men. Moving on to obtaining postdoctoral positions, again women represent nearly half, so there does not seem to be a problem in getting women to this point. Therefore the real problem seems to be a leaky pipeline, not a problem with the pipeline itself, as has sometimes been believed.

It is above the Postdoctoral and Assistant Professor level that fewer and fewer women are represented in higher level positions including at the levels of Associate professor, Full professor, Department Chair, and Dean. Some of the studies investigating this “leaky pipeline” phenomena have noted women don’t apply for basic science professor jobs (Perez, AWIS Magazine 37(3), 2008), that they submit fewer R01 applications than men (although when they do they rank higher) (Leboy AWIS), and more women than men do not come back for a 2nd R01; publications, however, are about equal between the sexes (Beyond Bias & Barriers, NAS). Dr. Wolinetz brought up the question of whether we should be alarmed by this phenomenon—does it matter? Obviously it is never good to loose the intellect and talent women represent as a whole, and having primarily one sex making key decisions in any area likely will lead to a bias in how things are thought of and the directions we take as a society. However, times are more difficult now than they were even 10 years ago, there are fewer research grants to apply for, and the success rate for funding is decreasing; it fell below 20% for a first time R01 in 2009.

In a recent survey of where biomedical sciences Ph.D.s have obtained employment, it appears that more than half are working in positions other than academia (Garrison and Ngo, FASEB). Traditional academic positions are not very female-friendly because they typically require long postdoctoral periods, have a publish or perish mentality, provide an income based on soft money, and assume that there is a stay-at-home spouse available for help with family matters. This type of structure is difficult especially given the biological realities that exist for a woman who wants to have a family. Dr. Wolinetz quoted a segment from Beyond Bias and Barriers which gave voice to the sad state of bias that exists “because of gender and racial/ethnic bias and outmoded “rules” governing academic success.” However Dr. Wolinetz also brought up the point that perhaps women are making a more intelligent choice in getting out of academia. There are programs that have recently been initiated to help retain women in academia, and help with mentoring and creating a more family-friendly environment. Unfortunately the federal funding outlook does not look good and universities will be under more pressure due to the lower rate of funding amidst a broader economic and global context that is also gloomy. Thus, all these issues currently make research careers difficult and will likely only get worse.

How should we counsel students and faculty regarding these issues? Should we be truthful about the prospects and run the risk of driving them off the pipeline earlier? There are many “highly successful leaks from the system” of which Dr. Wolinetz considers herself one. Women just may be taking a careful and objective look at what is required from them for a life in academia and deciding other options are desirable and a better fit for the more balanced life they would like to live. Thus, it may be that women who make these decisions to abandon an academic career should be considered successful rather than failures. So where does that leave us? Perhaps some previously held, narrow beliefs about what constitutes a successful woman in science need to be reassessed. In addition, the science field as a whole may benefit from reassessing and restructuring its out-moded policies to enable academic careers to become more attainable for women. Dr. Wolinetz certainly gave her audience a lot to think about and stimulated much discussion afterwards as well. Many of the audience members left the WEMS luncheon thinking that maybe a leaky pipe is not such a bad thing after all.

WEMS Session During 2009 EMS Meeting

WEMS will host a session in the 2009 EMS meetings entitled, “Women’s Health Issues: Diagnosis and Treatment in the 21st Century”. The sequencing of the human genome has opened the door to the era of personalized medicine: customizing treatment to the genetic profile of the individual patient resulting in the selection of the most beneficial treatments and avoidance of potentially harmful or ineffective treatments. The symposium will explore the current state of the art in the role of genetics and gender-related factors in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of diseases and conditions that affect women. In addition, prevention strategies related to specific genetic susceptibilities will be discussed by some of our speakers. Our Keynote Speaker will be Patricia Moorman, Ph.D., Duke University, Department of Community and Family Medicine, Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program. Dr. Moorman, an epidemiologist, has published a number of papers on the effects of NSAID medications on breast and ovarian cancer. She also has evaluated the effects of genetic variants as possible effect modifiers of the relationship between certain medications and cancer outcomes. Other speakers will include Olga Kovalchuk, Ph.D., Associate Professor CIHR Chair in Gender and Health, Board of Governors’ Research Chair University of Lethbridge and Nina Holland, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. WEMS would like to dedicate this session on Women’s Health Issues to the memory of one of our long standing members of the EMS, Jenness Majeska. May her dedicated service and leadership abilities serve as an inspirational example of the difference one woman can make.

WEMS 2009 SIG Meeting

Our WEMS special interest group meeting will focus on Work/Life balance issues. In the 21st century, one should not have to choose between a professional scientific career and a satisfying home/family life. A balance of work and life/family can lead to fulfillment, improve self-confidence, and even increase chances for advancement. Successful career growth depends on learning how to achieve this balance. Discussions and testimonials will focus on various strategies to help achieve this balance.

WEMS Session During 2008 EMS Meeting

During the 2008 annual EMS meeting in Rio Mar, Puerto Rico, WEMS hosted a lunchtime workshop. Dr. Katherine Squibb from University of Maryland School of Medicine provided a keynote address entitled "Are Science Based Regulations Putting Science at Risk?" She emphasized the challenges faced by scientists who are engaged in "high profile" research in areas of interest important to public health and of equal regulatory importance to industry. Of particular importance were the difficulties that ensued when the data from individual college or university laboratories were challenged by much larger laboratory coalitions supported by industrial dollars. Dr. Squibb provided some specific examples of such situations and also provided suggestions as to how individual laboratory groups, when under such challenges, could respond in a professional, ethical and appropriate manner. Special concerns were noted for early-career researchers (those individuals who had yet accrued a national reputation in science). Such researchers were noted as being particularly more at risk for strong challenges to research results than were data produced from laboratories of senior researchers with long histories of publications.

There were considerable questions from the audience, and the ensuing discussions were thoughtful and lively. An overwhelming theme from both the presentation and the conversations was that a professional group such as the Environmental Mutagen Society, which boasts a membership comprised equally of academic, industrial and federal researchers, as well as members of the regulatory agency communities, provides a remarkable environment for the presentation of potentially controversial findings as well as a forum for members of the broad scientific communities of the society to provide thoughtful insight and perspective to the researchers and all other interested parties.

Links

Famous Women Scientists

NIH Women Scientist Advisors

Women In Biomedical Careers

Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology

4000 Years of Women in Science