What to remember when supervising female PhD students?

Question

I have been supervising a female PhD student for a couple of months. She is the first female PhD student I am supervising and got the position on merit.

My view is that her gender does not/should not change anything in how I supervise her or what I expect from her, the rationale being that doing so might ultimately hurt her in her post-PhD career. For this reason, I have not brought up her gender in any of our discussions. I briefly contemplated telling her that I will treat her the same way as her male peers, but did not do so because it seemed wrong (as in "of course, why is he telling me this?").

Lately I have been wondering, however, whether there are things I should do that I might not even be thinking of. Perhaps my own experience and the male-dominated environment blind me so that I do not perceive my own sexist/reverse-sexist attitudes and ultimately do not do things that I should be doing (and vice versa)? So I am interested in reading advice/views on supervising female PhD students (in male-dominated academic environments).

A few notes to address anticipated follow-up questions: Yes, I am male. I did not specify where my institution is located because I am interested in a range of opinions/comments. The agency that finances her project offers a special stipend to attend workshops/meetings for female students; I have encouraged her to attend.

Answer 1

My view is that her gender does not/should not change anything in how I supervise her or what I expect from her, the rationale being that doing so might ultimately hurt her in her post-PhD career. For this reason, I have not brought up her gender in any of our discussions. I briefly contemplated telling her that I will treat her the same way as her male peers, but did not do so because it seemed wrong (as in "of course, why is he telling me this?").

That is exactly the advice I would give in this situation, so congrats, you've already figured it out.

The agency that finances her project offers a special stipend to attend workshops/meetings for female students; I have encouraged her to attend.

Try not to overdo the encouragement. I get so much spam inviting me to assorted "women in engineering" events.

On a related note, you might want to watch out for the possibility that you (or your department) might have a tendency to overuse the students who are "visible" minorities (race, gender) in publicity materials and outreach events. Some people don't mind (some even appreciate this), but some dislike being used as "poster children" to show how diverse the department is. (There's a joke in this TV episode, where the African-American doctor calls out his college for overusing him in their brochure by photoshopping him into the same picture twice.)

I'm sure people must have published studies about how female PhD students are statistically more likely to have families and be concerned about work-life balance issues, and how you have to be more supportive, etc. But all that really just comes down to being communicative and supportive of your students, whatever their individual needs might be. For large numbers I'm sure there's a gender dimension there, but at the individual level it's just about being a good supervisor to an individual student.

Answer 2

Although the question has arisen with increasing frequency "how do I handle said female in x (male dominated) environment?", your approach to it is not common - and it fills me with hope for the future to read how you've handled it. You're doing what so few can figure out how to do - you're not treating her differently. You're holding your concerns about what that may or may not mean at bay.

Most people do one of two things: over or under compensate, and it's my experience that in this time of growing awareness about gender imbalances in certain fields, that most people lean towards overcompensating. As a woman, I find that almost worse. When people bend over backwards to tell me how impressed they are that I'm breaking the status quo and enthusiastically express that we need to fix the gender imbalance, then do everything in their power to support me with so much emphasis on this issue, I start to wonder if I was ever really qualified in the first place. I start to question if I succeed because of my hard work and determination or because of my anatomy. It takes the joy out of all the wins, and I frequently feel like a fraud.

One of the best examples I can provide is that I'm often approached at conferences by recruiters, and one of the first words out of their mouths are "we're looking to hire more women". Quite frankly, it's offensive. They're not looking to hire "more qualified professionals", or "persons with my particular skill set". They're looking to meet a quota, and not knowing anything about me, they still want to hire me because they can tell from a glance what my gender is.

Now I understand there are good intentions there - they want to give me the opportunity to interview. An opportunity that women haven't been given as often in the past. But at this point, I know the opportunity is out there. I know many companies will hire you even if you're less qualified BECAUSE you're a woman and they're trying to prove just how progressive and PC they are to the world to improve their image, while others are simply motivated to fix the problem, but unaware of the best way to help.

Ranting aside, this is what I would hope for, and what has always made me happy when encountered in past interactions:

Be just as tough on her as you would be with your male students. She'll come out better for it. If she's good at her job because she truly earned her education, she'll blaze a path in the field that will change the minds of those dwindling number of sexist individuals she'll encounter in the workplace by the quality of her work. She'll inspire other women to pursue their passions because her intelligence and work ethic will speak for itself.

If you cut her slack because she's a woman, you're simply raising false idols. Other men will dislike her because she's not as competent or qualified when she graduates and you'll reinforce existing sexist views, and women who wind up working with her that did climb over obstacles to get there won't respect her, and will consider her an embarrassment to the movement.

Do your part by doing nothing.

But if you see her stress, trip or begin to falter, do what you would for any other male student - check in. Mention your office hours, suggest peer study groups, and "catch up" alternate class times if you have other open spots.

If she's worthy of her degree, she'll do what it takes to succeed.

We'll catch up eventually both in numbers in the STEM community, and in raising our glass ceiling. All we ask is to have the same opportunities. Not a leg up to reach them.

Answer 3

In addition to @ff524's excellent answer, I would recommend one other important step to take: start following the blogs and/or other social media writings of some outspoken female academics.

Despite best intentions, your perspective is likely to be limited in many ways simply because you are male and not female, and our media tends to provide us with a lot more male perspectives on science than female ones (Quick: name 10 people who write about science. How many of the people who popped into your head were male?)

Explicitly adding more female voices to your media consumption is a good way to broaden your perspective and to decrease the likelihood that you will unintentionally do something problematic in advising your student. For a starting point, let me recommend a few semi-arbitrarily selected blogs that I find interesting:

• Scicurious
• Christie Wilcox
• SoapboxScience
• Zuska

Happy reading---and note that you can apply a similar method to broadening your perspective on other sorts of under-represented perspectives as well.

Answer 4

One thing to watch is meeting dynamics. A level of assertiveness that would be seen as a good thing in a man may be regarded shrill or angry coming from a woman. Some of us don't care, but younger, less experienced women may try to get along by softening and suppressing their opinions. That may risk getting their opinions and ideas ignored.

Famous quotes, the way a woman would have to say them during a meeting illustrates what women do when trying to express opinions safely.

All I can suggest is to watch the dynamics of e.g. group research meetings, and make sure that all of your students, including the woman, get a proper hearing when they try to say something.

Answer 5

Keep an eye out for signs of impostor syndrome and be prepared to counter it*. Given that you're supervising PhD students, I'll note that this really applies to all of your advisees. However, it's more prevalent among members of underrepresented groups in any given field or community.

*I'll let others provide further advice on that latter part - I don't have any special knowledge or experience there. I'm happy to accept edits on that point, upvote comments, etc.

Answer 6

I agree that you should not treat her any differently than your male students, nor should you point this out to her. However, remember that her gender may affect how she is treated by others in your field (students or colleagues). If she raises concerns about sexism or harassment, above all, listen to her. Then find out how you can support her. As you probably know, Title IX applies to grad students and faculty, as well as undergrads.

You may also want to pay a little extra attention to how others interact with her in seminars, research group meetings, and other professional settings. If you see things that concern you, be an active bystander, and let her know you've got her back.

Answer 7

For me as a female grad student in a male-dominated field it was and is very important to meet female role models. And I started to be that for younger students. So my 5 cents are to introduce her to successful (and nice ;-)) women in your field if you happen to know some and if you can do so in a natural way. I also tend to have very empathetic (male) collaborators, while this seems to be less of a criterion for my male colleagues when choosing their collaborators.

My experience is also that female students in such a field tend to need more encouragement (given the same potential/talent). For example I myself would never have started a PhD without the direct encouragement of my now supervisor (and now I LOVE research). The solution to this does not have to be gender-specific, I totally agree with "But all that really just comes down to being communicative and supportive of your students, whatever their individual needs might be."

Answer 8

In addition to all of the excellent advice given in the other answers, you need to take extra care to not allow any hints of a non-professional relationship with her.

For example, as a male, if I had a female student visiting my office, I would never close my door, even if she asked. We never speak about our romantic lives, even though we can certainly chat about hobbies or the news. If I'm accompanying her to a conference, I never go to meals with her alone, even though I would do so with a single male student.

It doesn't even matter if I'm even heterosexual or not. But I'm in the position of power, and there needs to be no opportunities for even accusations of improper conduct. The stories of vulnerable women being taken advantage of by their professors, or flirtatious women winning favour the wrong way - society simply doesn't expect men to behave the same way.

Being over-cautious now can head off career-ending complaints later.

Answer 9

There are lots of good points made in the other answers. I have read them all, but didn't see this idea. I did see "don't tell her", but I would suggest you do tell her.

The reason is that you want to learn and being male having worked exclusively with male students, you don't know what mistakes you may be making. That is your point, and your female student could help.

If you tell your first female student she is your first, your intentions center on fairness and merit, and that she would be helping you improve by gently pointing out gender bias, she might be glad to help. Otherwise, if she does see bias (which you missed), she could easily assume that's just how it is, as though you already know.

Answer 10

In anti-racism thinking, white folks have "white privilege." In this (by now somewhat dated) piece scholar Peggy McIntosh reflected on that privilege and what it means. http://nationalseedproject.org/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack

There are similar reflections on what it means to enjoy male privilege. For example: http://amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

Setting aside racism and sexism can be quite difficult, especially for white guys. What's easier: becoming more aware of how race and sex can affect your own outlook.

I've asked people, alone or in groups, to read this kind of stuff. It helps get people ready for the kind of "first woman student" or "first black boss" change you are experiencing.

Answer 11

I understand I might have lost people wit the following answer. In short: the dream supervisor has many skills, a specific role, yet one goal: elevate the skills of a PhD student to the level where she/he can fly away by herself/himself, despite three types of stereotypes: his/hers, yours, those from your (her/his+you) environment.

Warning: the following answer contains strong allegorical content. One can replace the two bird species by other animals, male/female, as well as other broad categories like majority/minority. This was partly inspired by:

• a Gary Larson's Far Side cartoon (see below),
• the French anime Wattoo Waatto super bird, whose music has been in m head during the whole vacations, and which depicts two fictional bird species (one being goose-like) to describe/critize human traits.

It helped me to step aside the question, as done in some science-fiction or utopian texts.

First, to limit the standard gender biases and stereotypes, try to view the situation from an other perspective: you are a duck, the field is 95% duckish, and you are supervising your first seagull student. Both are quite similar: they are birds, they fly and dive, they are webbed-toed. But one common trait, though less visible at first glance, is more important to scholars: they can travel thousands of miles (out of merit). The allegory is about focusing on the most important traits in academia, not the obvious ones that matter most in society.

Yet, in this allegory, some birds are more familiar than others in everyday life. And the others are more prone to songs or poems.

So I am a duck, supervising a seagull student. The work place is 99% duckish. Ducks shake wings to other ducks, but they like to cheek kiss seagulls. There are other such "habits", that distinguish seagulls and ducks in workplaces.

So I told my seagull student: "I do not really like to shake wings with birds, cause wings get dirty (and you can get bird flu), but this is a habit. So I now ask people if they want to shake wings or else. With those who dislike that, we can agree on a different sign. What do you prefer?".

My intent is to show that seagulls can make their own rules in a duck world, slowly but firmly.

When I have changed some of my unconscious duck manners, I can observe other ducks behavior: do they behaved duckish? do I feel this may affect the seagull's feelings?

Then, observing a specific behavior (daily comments in public about the seagull's feathers), I can tell the seagull (face to face, afterward): "I have seen this behavior, it seems duckish and misplaced to me. If you feel like this too as a bird (or a seagull in first place), may I suggest you to talk to the duck face to face, and tell it what happened, how you feel, and what you would like in the future (tools from emotional intelligence). If you do not want that here, or cannot handle it right now, here is some help you can use: myself, or another trusty person (if possible, a senior seagull you know in HR department. Just tell it. You should also know that even 'talking about how duckish ducks can be' can help".

On my own, I did tell a follow duck how duckish it was with the seagull, from my point of view, not involving the seagull, and told the duck to think about it. I even had to make public comments about its feathers on a regular basis to ring the bell. It worked.

Finally, I confess a little tern bias when I present scholar birds to the seagull (at meeting, conferences). Showing how other senior seagulls perform in the field can be important for identification and future positions. But warning: you can learn that maybe your seagull student self-identifies as an eagle. You should adapt.

That is your duty as a bird advisor: help the bird students find their way. And for yourself: do the same with any other bird students, even ducks.

Answer 12

I worked and studied at a predominately male institution, both staff and students, and was involved in student services.

Every year student services (counseling and representation) would get complaints from singleton female students, that they were being treated the same as other students, without regard to gender identity.

And matching complaints from other singleton female students, that they were being treated differently from other students, on the basis of gender identity.

The complaints were with regard to the behaviour of either staff or fellow students.

These female students were always the only ones in their group, and generally the only ones in the larger department/year group. There was no socially defined common behaviour that could be referenced.

All students (both genders) were generally unaware that men and women expect different language and rights. Staff were often aware, but unequipped to handle the situation -- both from lack of experience, and because the situation was inherently unsolvable.

In an ideal world, minority students would be treated equally, not identically. That requires agreement on what "equal" treatment is.

When you have a singleton minority student that is not experienced with that situation, in a society that is not experienced with that situation, you, the staff, the majority students, and the singleton student, have no common or fixed reference framework for determining "equal treatment".

We never "solved" this problem. All we could do was offer counselling, representation, and support groups.

Because they were paid to do so, staff were always willing to adjust their behavior ("OK, this one wants to go first and be addressed differently than male students/ this one wants to be addressed the same way as other students"). Female students were sometimes able to adjust their expectations ("that's inclusiveness, not rudeness") or behavior ("if you don't tell them, they won't know"), trade student classes of 10-20 members were sometimes able to adjust their behavior when given clear and simple instructions.

But the problem would be repeated next year: singleton students didn't agree about what behavior to expect, and held opposite positions.