ComputerWorld Magazine had an article about this phenomenon several years ago. There was the usual argle-bargle about women being afraid of technology and, like Barbie, finding math hard which I found difficult to believe to be truer in 2006 than in 1981. One respondent summed up the problem more accurately when he described women in technology as the canaries in the coal mine: the ones who were leaving the field first because it’s such a crappy way to make a living.

Between the expectation that you will be available 24 by 7 by forever at a moment’s notice, the implied threat of losing your job to outsourcing and the constant pressure to get something (anything) out in the quickest possible time at the lowest possible price, who needs it? You work horrendous hours to produce junk so you don’t even get the personal satisfaction of creating good work. Entire mission-critical systems are held together with spit, baling wire and unpaid overtime.

I have dealt with blatant sexism in my career only a few times. The real difficulty is being a (single!) mom and having jobs expect me to work 16 hour days. For a long time I dealt with it by refusing to work as an employee and declaring my own hours and work space. For three years I left tech completely. At my current job, pre-employment negotiations involved a grueling process of settling exactly what my hours were and laying out that if they wanted over time out of me it was going to be at my house, not in their office.

If programming wasn’t the only skill I have that makes a living wage in this country (Israel) I would probably be doing something else.

or the past year or so, after I finally realized how having kids had impacted my chosen career path (I am a toxicologist) I began asking for essays about family and career written by other science moms – eventually gathering essays from 33 women, whose careers span the 1970s-through current graduate students – which fill the pages of Motherhood the Elephant in the Laboratory: women science speak out, released this month by Cornell University Press.

This is a topic that lurks in the background but which isn’t always discussed – at least not by those in the trenches, except to those they consider “safe” (friends acquaintances) – for fear of looking unprofessional or loosing credibility.

I’d asked contributors how they keep their science alive while tending to family needs. Many wrote about alternative yet very satisfying career paths through the sciences, including part-time and full-time jobs, while others wrote about sharing academic positions, or raising kids while attaining tenure.

If you’d like to learn more about the project and the book, please visit http://sciencemoms.wordpress.com/ The more women who speak out, the more likely things are to change (I hope.)

This all led to a book, recently published by Cornell University Press, Motherhood the Elephant in the Laboratory: women scientists speak out.

I think focusing on the work/life balance as a basic HUMAN RIGHT (it affects health so deeply — physical and psychological), as opposed to a gender-specific issue, will help it gain more traction with the broader public.

Treating causes like this in a more ‘universal’ manner is the key to change, really. It’s much like what’s happened to affirmative action (AA) in colleges. After various Court rulings declaring it unconstitutional, the colleges have simply changed it from a race issue, to a class issue — which after all is much more fair, and also satisfies the original intent of AA, since there is a strong correlation (though not an exclusive one by any means) between race and class. By giving special considerations based on class, as opposed to race, the colleges have actually given MORE people the opportunities they need/deserve. And they’ve done so in a way that is supported by a much broader base (politically and economically).

Helping to broaden the work/life balance from mainly an issue of mothers who want to spend time with their children, to a basic human right will also help. 100+ hours a week spent at any job is simply a 21st Century form of indentured servitude — and yes, while one can say ‘If you don’t like it, just find another job’ however, that’s not always possible, especially in times of economic slowdowns and mortgages that can’t be met… This takes an enormous toll on families, as well as the nation as a whole:

 * from added strain upon the healthcare system
 * to lower birth-rates -- the movie Idiocracy may not be so far-fetched -- but even beyond that, there are many financial & social strains placed upon countries with declining birth rates among wage-earners, coupled with aging populations (just check out the budget and healthcare issues in Japan, much of Europe, etc. which are just entering such an era)
 * to added strains on the justice system -- so many kids growing up with absentee parents certainly can't remain trouble-free for long
 * and much more...

This is a much larger issue than many seem to realize…