“
Alice’s report, written with three other women, was published in Science in February 1974. Women were about a quarter of the society’s membership. They reported that they worked as many hours as the men did, published as many papers, stayed at their jobs the same length of time, and shared the same motivations—men and women alike worked because they needed the money and because they loved the work and the sense of professional accomplishment. Yet on measure after measure the women had lower status. They earned less than men with the same qualifications, with the most educated women suffering the widest wage gap. Women had more trouble finding jobs, it took them longer to become professors, and they were absent among department heads and other jobs in top administration (which paid more). Administrators sometimes argued that they paid men higher salaries because men were expected to support families, but the study found that men were paid more than women whether they had children or not. Women were less likely to be asked to speak or consult outside their institutions, to write a review or a chapter or serve on an editorial board—all signs of professional respect. The study belied the bold promises a decade earlier to women who had hoped to combine family and career. The married women with doctorates reported the most dissatisfaction of anyone in the survey. They were more likely than their married male peers to have been discouraged from pursuing advanced degrees, less likely to have role models, and more likely to mention “bias.” While most men in microbiology were married, less than half the women were. Most of the women had no children, but the opposite was true for men. Most women said they could move only if their husbands found good jobs; most of the men said they would move regardless of whether their wives found a job they liked. Not surprisingly, women were twice as likely as men to say that their life and career had not lived up to what they envisioned when they finished their training.
”
”