Wow, what an offensive statement to make. I can tell you that performance has little to do with it in my case. I have a stellar GPA and am constantly being told that I need to pursue a PhD and a research career due to the scientific acumen and performance I have shown so far. Why won't I be going into a career in science after I graduate? Because I have three children and the field of science is set up for men who do not have primary caring responsibilities for children. As a woman who is a primary carer of children, the very structure of the scientific workplace locks me out. I have had to make a choice between science or my children. My children won. If I were a man, with the same mind, the same academic record and demonstrated commitment and drive, I would have people banging my door down wanting to have me on their team. As a mother, things look a lot bleaker. I suggest you check your condescending attitude Mr. Minns for you clearly have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to the challenges primary carers of children face in trying to balance work and family priorities. The lack of women in science and engineering has a lot to do with the inflexible male-centric work culture that has not adapted to the fact that mothers want to make a contribution too, but that we need some flexibility to meet all the demands we face in our lives.

The sense of entitlement oozes from the screen, Jac. You chose your field of study, you chose to have children. Perhaps you should have chosen a less demanding field, rather than expecting others to reduce their expectations of what constitutes good performance? That would have had the additional benefit of freeing up a place for a student who is committed to the field.

I recommend a read of Olivia Carter's column here on TC for an example of someone who is a genuine high achiever in science and is confronting the consequences of her choice to have a child.

No excuses from her.

Science is not bereft of women.

More women are taking life science degrees than men, more women are completing PhDs.

They are doing remarkable research. But we lose many of them in the transition to independent scientist.

The system forces them to choose between family and career. It's just too hard to stay competitive with the constraints of the current system.

For example Carola Vineusa at ANU had three Nature papers and two children in five years. She has said in public that the only thing that kept her in science through this period was the $50,000 she received from her Prime Minister's Prize for Science and spent on child care.

To quote an old West Wing episode, "I get that it should be hard, but it shouldn't be this hard."

We spend a lot of money developing terrific young scientists then, for want of a few tens of thousands of dollars we lose them mid career.
This is an economic waste.

No Niall, biology forces the choice.

The simple fact is that it makes more sense to fund males in the fields where individual commitment is important, both economically and from the POV of a utilitarian division of labour.

Women have to be "special" to compete and few women are "special" enough to justify the added cost burden or the loss of potential males to the field through lost opportunity to study it in the first place because females have taken some of the available places.

Instead of spending money developing scientists who are likely to leave the field, like Jac, we would be better served developing those who are committed.

FYI Mr. Minns. I am "special" enough to justify my place. I have outperformed the males in my area of study so far. Your opinion comes from a very antiquated world view. Most families don't and can't live and work like in the "old days". To imply I am not "committed" is insulting - I'd like to see you achieve what I have under my circumstances thus far. Come back to me when you have full time care of 3 children under 5 years old and a 6.75 GPA, 1 scholarship prize, another academic prize and multiple years awarded a place on the Deans List. No? Didn't think so, so please don't dare to presume to make assumptions about what it means to be "committed".

Jac, what some people fail to understand is the simple but profound truth that professional women who choose to have babies are serving the nation in immeasurable ways. It is nation building! What the heck shall we do with all the fabulous research, or education or all the money in the world if we, as a nation, cease to propagate and nature children? Children are the product of mums and dads. If only women could conceive via the 'holy sprit' can we attribute to women as ‘having their choice' to have children. Society has to evolve to accommodate and accept the professional sacrifice women make in order to 'nation build'. We make all kinds of accommodating changes when our service men return from active service. We don't whine about this accommodation yet we continue to begrudge women for making the choice. I know of an older female (spinster) Head of Faculty who openly claims that she'd rather hire men over young female staff simply because "they go on maternity leave". Disgusting! Utterly unenlightened view! Jac, women like you need to be applauded and accommodated professionally because of the immense service rendered to the nation.

Hi Craig, the 1950s called, they want their opinions back!

Thanks for the schooling though, who knew that my Oxford Education and multiple prizes and considerable research funding over the years was just an added cost burden. I shall write to the appropriate authorities to let them know their dreadful mistake!

Ooh, Aren't you a clever little thing? Shame all that education doesn't seem to have equipped ypu to produce a comment that's either original,witty or relevant.

Well, I can tell that you aren't actually here to contribute something of substance to the conversation.

I just wonder what has made you this bitter about women being in the sciences. Do you not like the idea that a female is able to attend higher education? Do you not like the idea that females may progress in their careers? Perhaps you don't like the fact that the world is changing to allow all sectors of the community access to education and career opportunities.

I find it really sad that there are still people like you out there. Luckily, that is changing and I hope by the time my daughter gets to the stage where she will be entering the workforce opinions like yours will be just something people laugh about while they carry on with their lives.

One final thing - what is it you are hoping to achieve by calling me a 'clever little thing'? Do you think that reducing me to a child will in some way validate your opinion or does it just make you feel better? It strikes me as rather odd that someone with your obvious disdain for education would bother looking at The Conversation. If seeing opinions made by educated women upsets you so much why don't you just not open ones that are written by women or focussed on gender issues?

Oh dear, here we go again: I must be "bitter" or somehow defective for offering a critique of a claim of special pleading by women.

Doesn't it embarrass you to present such shallow, rationally empty responses? With such an expensive education, I'd have expected a genunely intelligent argument, not a predictable and tedious excuse for failing to think.

OK Craig, whatever you think. But, while you are here do you think you can point me to which one of your comments offered a well reasoned critique?

My poor female brain is unable to identify where you have offered a cogent argument about why there should not be processes in place to allow skilled, talented individuals of either gender the opportunity to pusue both career and family.

I have no problem at all with processes that are designed to assist everyone,but this srticle is about assisting women and ends with a claim for special treatment of women.

You can't have it both ways: either women are capable of holding their own, or they need special treatment.

Which is it?

Do try to respond to what is said this time, your imagination isn't very intetesting.

OK, so let me get this straight in my head.

You think that any process to help people enjoy both a career and family needs to include ALL people?

So your argument is, that because this is only open to women, it's not actually valid as it's just helping some poor performing women carry on in a career that they are basically doomed in anyway because they are not men?

I think I understand, and really Craig, I am trying to actually argue your point here rather than resorting to name calling and insults as you have done, honestly dude this is The Conversation, not a schoolyard!

I disagree with your reasoning because, at this point in time, women take on the majority of responsibility for parenting. In fact we HAVE to take responsibility in the early years because the government has not allowed BOTH parents to take leave to look after children and we still have sexist workplaces that, while allowing women flexible working arrangements men have a harder time getting this. (my husband included)

However, you are confusing two issues. The L'Oreal fellowships are to help women achieve what many men and women in science find very hard to do - make the jump from early career researcher to running a lab. This is the cliff the majority of scientists fall off. In fact, of all the people I did my PhD with (men and women) only one has made that transition, and actually SHE did it while having a family.

I also have a family and it wasn't having kids that made me leave science, once my kids were born I jumped back in for 2 years, I just got sick of living on year long grants.

So Craig, the situation in science is vastly more complicated than a bunch of moaning women who can't hold a pipette straight trying to get special treatment!

Hi Olivia

leave it alone...we've all been there.

Its the highway to hell.

It's like when you have a bad ulcer in your mouth, you can't help but rub your tongue over it!

What's the internet equivalent of dousing an ulcer in savacol?

so after all that expensive education paid for by the public, you left the field, just like Jac plans to and most other female graduates.

Now you're saying that you want even more money thrown at you, having demonstrated a lack of commitment already.

Princess syndrome.

I am not sure what you mean when you say that "(she) wants even more money thrown at (her)"?

Or even why throwing money at people has to be a bad thing?

If you do some research (aka Goolging) you will discover that the best way for an academic to make a bucket of money, is to quit academia. This website (http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~palsberg/azuma.html) has a graph showing one comparison of academic salaries vs. industry salaries; this in particular is for computer science, but it is well known that academics make far less money than they would if they moved to industry.

When I started my PhD, we were welcomed with "So, I presume nobody is doing this for the money" (or something to that effect) - the whole room laughed.

What do you think is the reason for that, Stephen? For example, do people in industry enjoy the same entitlements to things like holidays, flexibility of working hours, travel to conferences, freedom of research choice, even opportunity to do research at all? In my own experience in industry (in engineering labs, not science) the time demands are very high and output is the principle measure. the demands of the job come well ahead of personal considerations.

It's because we always want to learn more, and as such enjoy an academic job. Most academics put in more hours than they would in any industry job that I've come across, but it's not too bad because we enjoy it. But that's not the point here - the only point I'm making is that people seem to think scientists are researching for the money, instead of simply because that's what they love. I'll grant you that there are a small group on unscrupulous scientists out there looking to make an easy buck, but they are few and far between.

Also the demands on your personal life are far higher for somebody trying to make it in academia than in industry; this is discussed in the article above.

it's more than just the learning, Stephen, isn't it? Academics get to enjoy the benefits of having a large group of like-minded people around them and the conditions are excellent. The work is interesting, where in industry it's often repetitive drudgery.Those at the top generally aren't too concerned if you don't show up before lunchtime as long as they get to put their name on the paper that you eventually produce. The need to constantly, on a daily basis, work to strict deadlines is generally absent and interactions with commercial clients are rare. There is also greater prestige, generally, in being associated with an academic institution than an industrial lab, especially here in Australia.

The only comparison to industry that I was making, is that of income; I was responding to the comment "Its good training for the basic rule of academia - never stand between an academic and a bucket of money".

I'd much rather be in academia than industry, but it certainly has nothing to do with a bucket of money. If that's what motivated me, I'd have been out the door a long time ago.

Hi daniel

I do agree with many points in your comment.

Can I suggest another example that may have correlations (but may not too i guess) to the L'Oreal argument.

If we assume that men like cars, - to a greater or lesser degree than women I don't know - but why is there the need to buy a new car when the car already owned is more than adequate.

Is the need to trade up a sign of a deflated ego, or keeping up with the joneses, or something else.

And why if a holden will get you from A-B in the same time (given the speed limit), do people want to buy a mercedes benz. Is it because it looks better - is the COSMETIC value an inherent incentive to buy.

I'm sure there are other examples too - mobile phones, tvs, etc.