Every Other Thursday: Stories and Strategies from Successful Women Scientists
ISBN: 9780300133790
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Yale University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Women in science; Women scientists; Science -- Vocational guidance;

Molecular biologist Daniell and fellow women scientists created a support network to commiserate and strategize about the difficulties of being female in the still male-dominated world of science. Founded on the precepts of radical psychiatry, the group (called simply Group) gathers every other week with a format that will be familiar to anyone who's sat through a women's group session: time is set aside for each member to discuss issues in her life, and others encourage her to verbalize all of her emotions while offering support. The lesson that a feminine support system is important to a modern career-driven woman is not new, nor is it limited to science. But the book's real failing is that instead of addressing Group members' journeys through science as women, it focuses on the same career roadblocks, personal disasters and need for self-empowerment that one finds in any self-help book ("I am entitled to be myself. I'm entitled to be successful"). Rather than hard-nosed help for aspiring young women scientists, this book, while it includes interesting passages on the machinations of university politics, essentially offers material that should best have remained within the Group. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Ellen Daniell is a writer and consultant. She was assistant professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and has held management positions in human resources and patent licensing in the biotechnology industry.


hidden image for function call