Numerous articles and studies have been released suggesting that having a family is a career-killer for women — in academia and in any field. For this reason, many women either put off starting a family until after they have attained tenure, drop out of the tenure race because they have children or shy away from it altogether since they don’t believe having a family and attaining tenure is feasible.
Female professors on the road to tenure and full professorship say they face tremendous pressure to not start a family, pressure that their male colleagues do not face.
“I have been strongly encouraged to [wait until after getting tenure before having children],” says Dr. Marjorie Shavers, assistant professor in the education department at Morehead State University, who is “definitely” waiting until after she has received tenure to try to have children. Shavers, who has done a lot of research on women in doctoral programs, says she has found it is “no big deal if a male [has a family], but it is stigmatized for women.”
Shavers has been on a tenure track two of her three years of marriage and says the demands of the position put a strain on her new marriage, even without children. She says she knew it would be difficult, but did not anticipate the magnitude of difficulties she would face.
“Feeling like I should always be working was an issue when I first got married,” Shavers says. “I typically teach at night … the time you would normally have to decompress with your spouse isn’t there, and if it is there, you are expected to do other things” to meet the requirements of the job, such as research.
There is also concern over how colleagues would view things like a need to be out for an extended period of time, shuttling an infant to frequent doctors’ appointments, needing accommodations to pump milk, if one were breast feeding — things that, if a male professor needed to take time to do, he would be able to do without hassle.
