Saturday, April 15, 2006

Paying Our Dues

I finally filed my income tax returns and coughed up an additional $75 to the IRS, having learned that a single person living alone with a cat does not qualify as "head of household." At least my humble income still allows me to take advantage of the free tax preparation software linked to the IRS website - I tried H&R Block this year and found it very user-friendly.

In honor of the looming deadline, I highly recommend the following book: David Cay Johnston's Perfectly Legal, subtitled "The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everyone Else." In fact, Amazon currently offers it at a bargain price of under $5, so there's no excuse, even if you're not getting a refund.

It's been a year since I read it, but I still get hot under the collar when recalling this book. Johnston describes in shocking detail exactly how the legal loopholes built into our supposedly progressive tax system allow the wealthiest Americans to shift their tax burden onto the middle and lower classes. Even worse, he explains how underfunding and political pressure force the IRS to expend their limited energy checking up on honest (if sometimes financially challenged) citizens while letting the big tax cheats go scot free. In fact, you have a far greater risk of being audited if you request the earned income tax credit (for low income families) than if you're a multi-millionaire.

So as you burn the midnight oil trying to determine whether you exceed the standard deduction, and whether the AMT is going to bite you in the ass, pat yourself on the back for paying your dues to your country. You're a patriot where it counts - your wallet.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science

A few months ago, this article in PLoS by Dr. Peter Lawrence caught my eye. Its thesis, essentially, is that we should not expect equal numbers of men and women to pursue successful scientific careers because the two genders are in fact, contrary to idealistic belief, different. But before we rise up in indignation to give old Dr. Lawrence the Summers treatment, let's look a little more closely at what he has to say.

The "ghosts" to which the title alludes are "wayward beliefs and delusions" such as "the dogma that all groups of people, such as men and women, are on average the same, and any genetic distinctions must not be countenanced." Dr. Lawrence dares to argue that "boys and girls are different and remain so," and he cites Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen's recent article interpreting autism as an excessively "male" brain - good at systematizing and focusing narrowly, poor at empathy and communication - as well as a number of earlier studies. Although the qualities Dr. Lawrence discusses apply to male and female populations on average, not to every individual within those populations, he is very clear in his views that women are generally less ruthless, competitive, and self-aggrandizing, and thus tend to fare worse in the struggle to survive in science today.

But far from asserting that these differences make women poorer scientists, Dr. Lawrence attacks the scientific establishment for selecting for "male" qualities that have nothing to do with good science and in fact are likely to hinder it. Gone are the days when a socially inept male commanding a subfield of arcane natural history knowledge could function as an ideal researcher. We are now in an age of "big science" in which leadership and teamwork have become critical for productivity, and it is high time that we gave greater appreciation in the selection process to "feminine" virtues like understanding others and helping them to develop their diverse abilities. According to Dr. Lawrence, this sea change in the current discriminatory scientific selection process would lead to more women in science and to better science.

While applauding the spirit of this rallying cry, I would like to point out a couple of concerns. First, I have no doubt that male and female brains, on average, are different at birth due to genetic differences and/or hormonal millieu. However, I do think that we need to be very cautious about predicting the extent to which those initial differences might determine gender-biased behaviors later in life. For example, even if, on average, little boys begin with better spatial skills and little girls with greater empathy and verbal skills, these initial differences could reinforced and amplified for any of a number of reasons: 1) they are more motivated to practice skills they are good at, 2) their primary playmates will probably be of the same gender and thus prefer to practice those same skills in play, and/or 3) even if their parents are vigilant about discouraging gender stereotypes in the home, they will be bombarded by media and societal messages informing them that boys are supposed to like computers and cars while girls like to play house and hairdresser.

Second, in my opinion, the main omission in Dr. Lawrence's analysis is that he fails to take seriously the socioeconomic biases against women pursuing any highly demanding career, particularly one involving the long hours and relatively poor pay of academic science. The fact is that many women, even highly intelligent and ambitious ones, would like to have families, and no matter how starry-eyed they are on beginning graduate school, they soon realize from observing the few senior women in their departments that very little support exists for that. They certainly can't afford to pay for childcare in their graduate or postdoctoral years unless they are independently wealthy or married to someone who can shoulder the large majority of the financial burden. They will be struggling to land an assistant professorship and/or achieve tenure - hardly the preferred time in their careers for sleepless nights and frequent illness - during their best child-bearing years. And although Dr. Lawrence blithely states that "after about six months or so, there is no reason, in principle, why the main carer of the children should not be the father," in practice this is extremely rare among even the most enlightened couples.

So if we want to increase the retention of women in science in order to take advantage of more feminine leadership skills, create more supportive working environments, and provide role models for future Frances Cricks, it will not be enough to select for originality and insight over aggression and self-promotion. We need to recognize that the same feminine qualities that would make particular women (and men) nurturing mentors are also likely to make them good parents - and that we can and should take concrete steps to support their desires to be both. More affordable childcare options (preferably on-site at universities and research institutions) and more flexible working hours and tenure clocks would be a huge step in the right direction.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Postdoctoral Affairs

Although I had planned to keep my personal life out of this blog for the most part, this morning I received the second of two unpleasant surprises fit for a post on the problem of postdocs.

I'll start at the beginning. When I began postdoctoral research at Pseudonymous Northwest University, my advisor's grant was paying my salary (at the NIH recommended minimum) and benefits. These included a pretty good healthcare plan as well as a nice employer-matched retirement program, both standard for faculty at PNU. However, like any good postdoc, I began applying for outside fellowships as soon as possible. Getting one would not only bring prestige to myself, my advisor, and PNU, it would also free up funds from my advisor's grant so that he could hire additional hands in the lab.

I was lucky enough to be awarded a coveted fellowship by a cancer research foundation, a feat apparently deserving of a brief congratulatory announcement in the PNU Weekly. This fellowship not only provided for a substantial raise in salary from the standard pittance received by starting postdocs, it also came with a $2000 annual allowance for educational expenses. Things were really looking up. I was hopeful that I might even be able to recoup my relocation expenses by the end of my first year.

A couple of months after beginning support on my new fellowship, I went to a conference on the East Coast to present my research in progress. My advisor encouraged me to go, saying that I could use my educational allowance to pay for my trip. Unfortunately, when I returned and sought reimbursement, the payroll office informed me that the money in question had already been put towards my benefits. To his dubious credit, my administratively challenged advisor was as surprised to be reminded of this as I was to learn of it. He instructed me to ask the department for travel funds, but on finding that none had been allocated for postdoctoral (as opposed to grad student or faculty) travel, he eventually agreed to cough up the funds himself.

That was Unpleasant Postdoc Surprise #1.

This morning I was talking to our lab manager about IRAs, having stayed up far too late the night before struggling with my income tax returns. At one point, she suggested that I check exactly what kind of employer-matched retirement fund I had so that we could compare. Imagine how I felt when I logged into my employee account and discovered that I NO LONGER HAD ONE.

It took an irate call to the PNU Benefits Office to ascertain that I had been reclassified from "research associate" to "research associate trainee" when my fellowship support commenced in August of last year. That made me immediately INELIGIBLE for my faculty retirement plan. Some great reward for my success in securing outside funding! Same person, same skills, same job, that blurb, and yet... less love. And no one had even bothered to inform me!

That was Unpleasant Postdoc Surprise #2.

Am I alone in my experiences? Hardly. At noon today I complained to a room of 15 postdocs from departments scattered throughout PNU and was informed that at least three others had suffered similar incidents. The fact is, it's all too easy for postdocs to fall between the cracks. Although we form a huge fraction of the experimental enterprise, especially at top tier research institutions like PNU, university administrators don't seem to know what to make of us. We're not exactly students, or staff, or faculty, or well-organized or represented. That results in extreme heterogeneity of title, salary, benefits, and access to resources. Until very recently, PNU didn't even know how many of us there were, much less how to contact us or assist us. We were left entirely to the mercy of our research mentors (and the extremely generous interpretation of Howard Hughes "graduate" training program funds by a sympathetic faculty member) for training and support.

Hopefully this situation will improve as recognition of postdocs' plight spreads. According to the National Postdoctoral Association, over 100 US universities and research institutions have established their own Postdoctoral Associations and/or Offices of Postdoctoral Affairs. Major areas of advocacy include equitable pay and benefits, funded opportunities for professional development, and tracking of training experiences and outcomes.

One major NPA recommendation, as it happens, is to "increase the percentage of postdoctoral researchers funded by independent fellowships compared with grants initiated by Principal Investigators."

Hmm. Thanks to diligent advocacy by a band of determined postdocs, PNU just established its own OPA on an 18-month trial basis. I wonder if they can get my retirement plan back.