CALLING executive leaders & administrators in academic medicine & stemm
Are you an executive leader at your organization all in on supporting scientist mothers? Or maybe you have the ear of an executive leader/administrator/ally/advocate looking for ways to retain women faculty and reduce gender disparities in academic medicine? I have two calls of action for you:
1. Raise awareness of the alarming stats on the leaky pipeline and motherhood penalty summarized below. Get these stats in the hands of your executive leaders.
2. Send them the 2 page MotherMind program brief below. This program WORKS and momentum is building. Every day I'm hearing executive leaders at my university with whom I have no prior relationship saying things like "This program is a perfect example of why it's so great to work here!" and "I've never seen a workplace openly support Mothers before!". And the impact of MotherMind on scientist mothers cannot be overstated. A PDF of the brief is available here: https://www.mastermindexecutiveleadership.com/mothermind
📢 Calling Executive Leaders & Administrators in Academic Medicine & STEMM 📢
❗Where are all the women?❗
The 💦 "leaky pipeline"💦 refers to the alarming rates of attrition and resulting underrepresentation of women in academic medicine & STEMM fields. The representation of women decreases as seniority increases, resulting in fewer women reaching the highest academic ranks and even fewer in executive leadership positions. In fact, women comprise ⛔ less than 25%⛔ of the top earners at elite US universities according to a 2021 study (Staniscuaski et al.).
While gender bias is frequently discussed and cannot be underestimated, I want to talk about what we’re socialized NOT to talk about at work:
🤰Motherhood 👩👧👦
First, it is estimated that nearly 75% of female faculty members over the age of 40 are mothers (Morgan et al., 2021). The 🚫“Motherhood penalty”🚫refers to research showing that women in academic medicine face career setbacks, wage disparities, and stigma after becoming mothers, whereas men are often *rewarded* for fatherhood 🤔 😒 😡 (Rodríguez et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2014). A 2022 study showed that the impact of the Motherhood penalty on women’s wages has disturbingly been increasing ⬆ over time (Shen, 2022). The Motherhood penalty persists after controlling for productivity-related factors, indicating underlying ✴systemic✴ issues (Kahn et al., 2014).
So how do the 💦leaky pipeline💦 and the 🚫Motherhood penalty🚫interact?
More than ✴one third✴ of mothers globally leave full-time STEMM employment after having children (Powell, 2021) and this is ⛔as high as 43%⛔ in the United States (Cech & Blair-Loy, 2019).
🚨🚨We are hemorrhaging brilliant & talented women from academic medicine & STEMM. The time is now for organizations to create systemic change, supportive policies, and to invest in mothers so that they can 🔷choose🔷 to stay and 🌟thrive🌟 when they do.🚨🚨
MotherMind is a transformative leadership development and group coaching program that improves the 👏 engagement, performance, mobility, and retention👏 of scientist mothers within your organization. We develop future institutional leaders, seal the leaky pipeline, and improve representation of mother-identifying scientists among the higher ranks and in leadership positions.
See our program brief below to learn more about how MotherMind can support and elevate the scientist mothers within your organization. A PDF of the brief is available here: https://www.mastermindexecutiveleadership.com/mothermind