The gender inequality gap existed prior to the pandemic, but some have found that the global health crisis has only worsened things for women. According to a 2020 report, from McKinsey and Company, a consulting firm based in the United States, “women’s jobs and livelihoods are more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Charlatan sat down with four female scholars at Carleton University to learn about their research and what barriers they have faced to get to where they are now. The scholars also shared their thoughts on the age-old debate of whether women can “have it all” when striving towards gender parity in their respective careers and work-life balance.
Kim Hellemans: STEM, imposter syndrome and mental health
Before joining Carleton’s faculty in 2008, Kim Hellemans, neuroscience professor and associate dean of science, conducted biological research on drug addiction. Hellemans is now a neuroscience professional with a speciality in the subfield of behavioral neuroscience.
Before she found her passion for behavioral neuroscience, however, Hellemans aspired to be a clinical psychologist. She switched her focus to neuroscience after working in a pharmacology psychiatry lab at McGill University, where she performed brain surgeries and researched rats
Over the last decade, her research has changed its focus to understanding student mental health, cannabis use and social media. Her findings demonstrated clear gender differences in how students use cannabis and social media.
“[Males] tend to use [cannabis] more in the evenings and males often have more problematic use indicators of cannabis use,” Hellemans said. “We are still extending that to demonstrate that there are clear markers of problematic cannabis use in the undergraduate student population.”
In addition to this study, Hellemans has also been researching the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and well-being, looking for differences in how females and males have handled the pandemic in relation to their mental health and education.
Hellemans has also made time to co-host Minding the Brain, an educational podcast, with Jim Davies, a cognitive science professor at Carleton. The podcast tries to make neuroscience concepts understandable for the average listener.
“Davies and I are lifelong lovers of talking about science and making science accessible to the public,” Hellemans said. “We come from similar yet distinct backgrounds. Jim is a cognitive scientist and I’m a neuroscientist. So, we can explore topics like sleep, dreaming, eating and addiction from each of our respective lenses. It makes for a unique space.”
Hellemans was fortunate to have positive experiences working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). But like many women in this male-dominated field, she has faced barriers such as sexism while establishing herself as a scientist and scholar.
“I’m very lucky in the sense that I’ve always had mostly female mentors, all throughout my research career,” Hellemans said. “I’ve had really exceptional experiences.”
“However, there is certainly imposter syndrome … I always felt like I was having to go above and beyond to prove to people that I was actually intelligent and smart. So, that’s why I’ve worked very hard to ensure that I do feel like [students] belong in my classroom, in my labs and on campus because I’m very conscious of that feeling in myself,” she said.
Through her efforts to foster inclusivity, she moderated a panel discussion held in early March called #BreakTheBias. The panel was comprised of a diverse group of Carleton scientists, who discussed their experiences working in STEM.
For women pursuing careers in male-dominated fields, such as STEM and academia, it may be challenging to obtain a work-life balance. This also brings up the age-old debate of whether women can “have it all.” Hellemans said she firmly believes that “having it all” is impossible.
“Having it all is one of those big fat lies,” she said. “You can have some of it some of the time, but you definitely can’t have all of it all of the time. It is a constant balance. Having it all is a myth and it comes down to privilege.”
But work-life balance is still important in relation to mental health, Hellemans said. People should follow the four pillars of good mental health, she explained: working out, eating well, sleeping and having strong social connections.
“I’m just not willing to sacrifice myself, my health or my family for my career,” Hellemans said.
For female students interested in pursuing a career in neuroscience or academia, she said they should find a mentor.
“When young female students identify a mentor, it really does benefit them and there’s greater uptake and retention in research,” Hellemans said.
“If you feel like you don’t belong, you’re wrong. There’s a space for everybody and it’s not a matter of being smart enough and getting the grades. It’s a matter of showing up,” she said. “I’m excited for the future. I think we’ve got a really awesome young generation of future scientists.”
Manjeet Birk: Diversity, women’s rights and social justice
Manjeet Birk joined Carleton in 2019 and is primarily interested in social justice. She is a women’s and gender studies professor with The Pauline Jewett Institute.
“I found that women in gender studies tend to be the best and most open vehicle to access social justice,” Birk said. “It attracts folks who tend to be interested in social justice work.”
She said one of the driving forces that sparked her interest in social justice was her exposure to discrimination and racism in her childhood as a person of colour who is South Asian. She said her own experience piqued her curiosity to understand the structures of social justice and reckoning, especially since people experience the world differently based on their lived experiences and the groups they affiliate with.
Birk’s interest in social justice led her to work in various women’s organizations, where she had the opportunity to observe and learn about challenging structured systems of oppression such as racism, colonization, white supremacy and the patriarchy.
“Seeing the incredible work that activists do on a day-to-day basis, in a variety of different avenues, made me really passionate and made me want to continue to fight for that cause, both personally and within my career,” Birk said.
Recently, Birk returned to Canada after a year abroad in Aotearoa, New Zealand, where she completed a social sciences and humanities post-doctoral fellowship. Her work focused on the voice of racism, anti-racist education programs and how educational programs are reinforcing stereotypes they seek to dismantle.
Through this work, she also learned about Maori communities, scholars and activists, which furthered her knowledge about relationship with land and language revitalization.
In terms of work-life balance and if women can “have it all,” Birk, like Hellemans, stressed that privilege is a major defining factor. “Having it all” differs based on people’s individual perspectives and life experiences, she said.
“I think certain women have never been allowed to have it all. Again, that brings me back to this concept of intersectionality in the way that multiple forms of oppression are operating in the lives of particular kinds of women,” Birk said.
“As a result, what they’ve been able to access and how they’ve been able to do it all has always been fundamentally different than the larger, broader feminist conversation of women ‘having it all,’” she said.
For women interested in pursuing a career in social justice or scholarly work, Birk suggests students and aspiring activists remember that social justice and systemic reform can happen in varying ways.
“The social justice spirit is what you need to acquire. I encourage folks to take that social justice consciousness and apply it to whatever they do,” Birk said. “There’s not only one way to reform systems. It happens in lots of ways.”
Amina Mire: Intersections between the beauty industry and BIPOC women
Amina Mire, a scholar who began studying philosophy and chemistry, switched her focus to sociology after wanting to study the beauty industry, women and racialization. Mire is a sociology and anthropology professor, as well as the undergraduate coordinator of sociology.
Mire’s current research centres around women’s health, anti-aging and the biomedicalization of women’s bodies, where non-medical conditions are met with medical solutions. The findings from her research are indicative of how Eurocentric beauty standards are still pervasive in the international beauty industry, creating unattainable aspirations for women of colour.
She acknowledged that white women are also affected.
“It was not only people of colour that were lightening their skin … the same marketers were targeting white women—encouraging them to remove their age spots and hyperpigmentation” Mire said.
Over the course of her career, Mire has observed beauty industry standards changing for the worse. Practices have become more focused on shifting the goalpost of what constitutes wellness and using scientific jargon to entice women.
“[The beauty industry] has become more insidious,” Mire said. “It has expanded in ways that you wouldn’t expect that seem to be progressive and promoting wellness.”
“It has become biomedicalized [with] all kinds of sophisticated scientific-sounding language such as cosmeceuticals, brighteners and all kinds of restorative wellness,” Mire said.
Mire said women can have it all but not at the same time.
To support women in academia, Mire said institutions need to be mindful of how they can dissolve barriers that women face. For example, she said they could provide daycares for working mothers, as well as general leniency when it comes to child care and eldercare, things that directly impact the trajectory of scholarly careers.
Mire said women looking to pursue careers related to her research or other academic fields should find a strong support system
“Don’t be discouraged if you are a woman and [care for a child]. Don’t ever listen to anybody who will [say] you cannot do this,” Mire said. “On the other hand, you need a network of support, you need friends, you need mentors. Women can do anything, they are so strong.”
Linda Duxbury: Work-life balance, child care and well-being
Linda Duxbury is a scholar, professor and researcher in the world of business. But she didn’t originally start out in the field.
She was first drawn to biochemistry and chemical engineering, obtaining her master of biochemical engineering from the University of Waterloo.
As a self-proclaimed ‘people person,’ Duxbury sought out a social career that incorporated her interests in data, numbers and logic. She eventually completed her PhD in management sciences and is now a management professor with the Sprott School of Business.
“I really like people. I like people issues. I like people problems,” Duxbury said. “Your first degree should be for love. Your second degree is for a job. If you experiment and take courses and you get experiences, you see where your heart is and then go where your heart takes you.”
Throughout her career, Duxbury has studied work-life balance, digital and electronic work communications, supportive manager characters, and child and eldercare.
“When I first started doing my research, I was a mother with a young kid. So, I was really focused on child care and women in the workplace,” Duxbury said. “As I evolved, so did the population. So now it’s not just about child care, it’s about eldercare.”
Duxbury is now studying the impact of COVID-19 on employee well-being, a study which will have around 30,000 participants.
Duxbury said that throughout her career she observed a trend of pushing women to be more like men in the workforce, since many careers are still male-dominated. In recent years, this trend has dissolved and there is now a trend encouraging men to be more empathetic, sympathetic and better listeners, traits that are traditionally labelled as feminine in Western societies.
Reflecting on her changing career interests, Duxbury said she encourages students to keep open minds and be curious.
“I try to tell my classes, ‘You’re in a good position, you’re in university, but don’t leave university thinking your education is done,’” Duxbury said. “You have to be in charge of your own career.”
Although it’s one thing to study work-life balance, it’s another to actually put it into practice.
“I love my job. I could work too much and I do work too much. But my husband and I have rules that we’ve agreed on. On Friday at 4:30 p.m. we don’t work and we don’t answer work-related emails and we do not work until Sunday evening,” Duxbury said.
In addition to this, she said she is very mindful of not using phones at the dinner table and making an effort to go on daily walks with her husband as a way to reset after getting caught up in a lot of intense work.
When asked what advice she has for female students who are interested in pursuing a career in business or scholarly work, Duxbury said it comes down to managing competing priorities.
“Pursue your career, but pursue life just as vigorously as your career. An academic career is a wonderful career, but if you’re not really careful, it’s a very demanding job to do,” she said. “Be a generalist and be willing to learn.”
Featured graphic by Maryam Teima.
Portraits by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
