Wendy Ingram
March 26, 2007
One of my cousins, a few years my senior who is married and has four children, recently asked me why I wanted to go into research. Why didn’t I just become an MD? I turned to her and asked her why she thought I should want to be an MD rather than a researcher? Her response surprised me but not as much as you might think because, to be honest, I’d heard it before. She said that only old men are scientists that work in labs all day and enjoy research. Being a Physician is much more nurturing and she imagined that it would suit me better. While mildly upsetting, I shrugged it off because after working in a cutting edge Biochemistry research lab for the last four years, I know that research is the career for me, regardless of what anyone’s stereotypes are today.
The experience actually reminded me of a story my mom told me about when she decided in only elementary school that she wanted to be a Veterinarian. Her parents were sorely concerned about her career choice and were ready to put an end to this nonsense of wanting to be a Vet. They were adamant about advising her to stick to a more seemly career for a young woman, as a Nurse. Fortunately my mother’s 6th grade teacher intervened and convinced her parents to let her alone for now because the desire to be a Vet would surely pass. Eight years later, my mom was one of only 16 female Vet students at the prestigious University of California, Davis.
Today, women seem to far out number men in the field of Veterinary Medicine. The 2004 freshman class at Colorado State University, College of Veterinary Medicine had only 14 men in it. Yet, when my mother expressed her desire to be a Vet in the 1960’s it was considered preposterous. In the course of 30 years, a stereotype about whether being a Vet is a ‘woman-ish’ job or not has been completely reversed. So when people raise their eyebrows at me because women in research isn’t considered ‘normal,’ I just shrug it off and follow my interests. You have no idea what the social norm will be in the next 10, 20, or 50 years, so why let stereotypes stop you now?
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