Gendered COVID-19 Faculty Experiences

Gendered COVID-19 Faculty Experiences

The Stanford Faculty Women’s Forum Steering Committee is particularly concerned about issues faculty are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how the resulting changed circumstances for academic work and lives differentially impacts individuals based on gender. Tenure clock delays, caregiving responsibilities, online teaching, and challenges for wellness all have been known to impact gender disparities, particularly adversely for women. On June 11, 2020, the Faculty Women’s Forum’s hosted an online forum for faculty to come together for discussion of these topics amidst their own experiences, later queried more than 1,500 Stanford faculty members, with nearly 600 responses, and on December 10, 2020, held a second online forum for interested faculty to hear about and discuss preliminary findings. The presentation slides are here: FWF COVID19 Survey Results & Discussion.12.10.20 (corrected)

"We are all in the same storm, but not in the same boat... The scientific workforce has moved en masse into the home, where male faculty are four times more likely to have a partner engaged in full domestic care than their female colleagues.” -- Monitoring women's scholarly production during the COVID-19 pandemic, by Philippe Vincent-Lamarre, Cassidy R. Sugimoto and Vincent Larivière

For some academic and popular treatments of related issues, see:

• Utah Women & Leadership Project Research and Policy Briefs include a series of reports on the impact of COVID-19 on women and work.
• Covid-19 affected female and early-career scientists more, study shows, by Lesley Michalegko, Eric Welch, Mary K. Feeney and Timothy P. Johnson, The Washington Post, January 16, 2022
• Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the productivity of academics who mother, Kasymova, S., Place, J.M.S., Billings, D.L. and Aldape, J.D. (2021), in Gender, Work & Organization, Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12699
• Academic Caregivers on Organizational and Community Resilience in Academia (F**k Individual Resilience), by Sun Joo (Grace) Ahn, Emily T Cripe, Brooke Foucault Welles, Shannon C McGregor, Katy E Pearce, Nikki Usher, Jessica Vitak, Communication, Culture and Critique, 2021; tcab027, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab027
• The Disproportionate Impact of the Pandemic on Women and Caregivers in Academia, by Makala Skinner, Nicole Betancourt, and Christine Wolff-Eisenberg. Ithaka S+R. Last Modified 31 March 2021. https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.315147.
• Supporting faculty during & after COVID-19 Don’t let go of equity, a report by Leslie D. Gonzalez and Kimberly A. Griffin, ASPIRE Alliance, 2020.
• Challenges for the female academic during the COVID-19 pandemic The Lancet, June 18, 2020
• Tenure and promotion after the pandemic Science, 05 Jun 2020
• Preventing a Secondary Epidemic of Lost Early Career Scientists: Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Women with Children Cardel MI, Dean N, Montoya-Williams D. [published online ahead of print, 2020 Jul 15]. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2020;10.1513/AnnalsATS.202006-589IP. doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.202006-589IP
• Unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists COVID-19 has not affected all scientists equally. A survey of principal investigators indicates that female scientists, those in the ‘bench sciences’ and, especially, scientists with young children experienced a substantial decline in time devoted to research. This could have important short- and longer-term effects on their careers, which institution leaders and funders need to address carefully. Myers, K.R., Tham, W.Y., Yin, Y. et al. Nat Hum Behav (2020)
• Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Manuscript Submissions by Women Kibbe MR. JAMA Surg. Published online August 04, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2020.3917
• Letters: Impact of COVID-19 on academic mothers published in Science,15 May 2020
• Meta-Research: COVID-19 medical papers have fewer women first authors than expected. Andersen JP, Nielsen MW, Simone NL, Lewiss RE, Jagsi R.  Elife. 2020;9:e58807. Published 2020 Jun 15. doi:10.7554/eLife.58807
• How Support of Early Career Researchers Can Reset Science in the Post-COVID19 World Erin M. Gibson, et al. Cell, 25 June 2020
• Coronavirus is harming the mental health of tens of millions of people in U.S., new poll finds by Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post, April 2, 2020
• STEM Equity and Inclusion (Un)Interrupted? The pandemic will negatively impact the careers of women in STEM, particularly those of color, and failure to respond could jeopardize years of progress toward faculty equity, argue Stephanie A. Goodwin and Beth Mitchneck, in InsideHigherEd, May 15, 2020
• No Room of One's Own: Early journal submission data suggest COVID-19 is tanking women's research productivity by Colleen Flaherty, InsideHigherEd, April 21, 2020
• The coronavirus pandemic is creating a ‘double double shift’ for women. Employers must help, by Sheryl Sandberg and Rachel Thomas, Fortune, May 7, 2020
• Nearly Half of Men Say They Do Most of the Home Schooling. 3 Percent of Women Agree: A survey suggests that pandemic-era domestic work isn’t being divided more equitably than before the lockdown by Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, May 8, 2020
• Women's research plummets during lockdown - but articles from men increase Many female academics say juggling their career with coronavirus childcare is overwhelming, writes Anna Fazackerley in The Guardian, May 12, 2020
• Women in science are battling both Covid-19 and the patriarchy The pandemic has worsened longstanding sexist and racist inequalities in science pushing many of us to say ‘I’m done’, write 35 female scientists, in The Times Higher Education, May 15, 2020
• ARC Network Town Hall: Ensuring Equity in Institutional COVID-19 Responses a recording of a webinar concerning the need to integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into higher education administrators’ decision-making, organized by the ARC Network, sponsored by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) through an ADVANCE grant from the National Science Foundation. June 4, 2020
• Opinion: In the wake of COVID-19, academia needs new solutions to ensure gender equity Jessica L. Malisch et al, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jul 2020, 117 (27) 15378-15381; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2010636117
• The Life of a Black Academic: Tired and Terrorized What has not been acknowledged is the world of terror enveloping many black academics that has changed feeling tired to absolute exhaustion, by Henrika McCoy, InsideHigherEd,June 12, 2020
• Gender and the Pandemic, a collection of essays by affiliates of Stanford's Clayman Institute on Gender Research 
• "New PI COVID19 memo" suggestions from "junior faculty at a university" to help catalyze the discussion of potential solutions to the challenges currently faced and foreseen for early career faculty members to the changed circumstances of their work resulting from the pandemic
• Identifying Barriers to Career Progression for Women in Science: Is COVID-19 Creating New Challenges? Summarizes discussions at a Gender Equity Workshop within the Molecular Approaches to Malaria Conference in February 2020. Barriers to career progression in science for women and minority groups, along with suggestions to overcome ongoing roadblocks, are discussed. PMID:32819829 | DOI:10.1016/j.pt.2020.07.016
• Coronovirus Coverage and the Silencing of Female Expertise by Teresa Carr, Undark, 06.22.2020, and also here in The Wire, July 9, 2020
• Opinion: The Isolated Scientist Among the disruptions and pain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are dealing with a sudden halt in in-person interactions, by Steven Wiley, TheScientist, May 19, 2020
• In the COVID-19 economy, you can have a kid or a job. You can't have both by Deb Perelman, The New York Times,July 2, 2020
• Will COVID-19 push women out of the labor force? Barbara Risman, Psychology Today, July 2, 2020
• Coronavirus is Killing the Working Mother It was hard enough to “have it all” before — but the pandemic could force out a generation of moms out of the workforce, by Ej Dickson, RollingStone,July 3, 2020
• This Isn’t Sustainable for Working Parents The pandemic has already taken a toll on the careers of those with young children—particularly mothers, by Joe Pinsker, Atlantic Monthly, July 9, 2020
• Yes, balancing work and parenting is impossible. Here's the data by Suzanne M. Edwards and Larry Snyder, The Washington Post,July 10, 2020
• ‘They Go to Mommy First’ How the pandemic is disproportionately disrupting mothers’ careers, by Jessica Grose, The New York Times,July 15, 2020
• Steps universities and others could take a Twitter thread by Michelle Cardel, July 15, 2020
• Pandemic childcare is way more stressful for moms than dads Fathers take on more childcare during work-at-home, but moms simultaneously work and parent more often, by Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience, August 10, 2020
• COVID's Surprising Toll on Careers of Women Scientists Women scientists and those with young children are paying a steep career price in the pandemic, according to new research, an article by Rebecca Layne, Harvard Business Review, August 10, 2020
• Childcare for Faculty: The Babar in the Room, a blog post by Kiernan Mathews, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Collaborative on Careers in Higher Education, August 10, 2020
• 'Babar in the Room' Faculty parents are once again being asked to perform a miracle: Get their students and their own kids through the semester in one piece. Does it have to be this way? by Colleen Flaherty, InsideHigherEd, August 11, 2020
• Women in Science May Suffer Lasting Career Damage from COVID-19 They bear a greater proportion of childcare and household responsibilities, making it much harder for them to publish their work and get ahead, by Jillian Kramer, Scientific American, August 12, 2020
• Documenting Pandemic Impacts: Best Practices UMass ADVANCE COVID-19 Tool, August 17, 2020
• Something's Got to Give Women's journal submission rates fell as their caring responsibilities jumped due to COVID-19. Without meaningful interventions, the trend is likely to continue, by Colleen Flaherty, Inside HigherEd, August 20, 2020
• Covid-19 Is Intensifying The Disparities Between Men And Women In Science, by Nicole Fisher, Forbes, August 21, 2020
• Measures to Support Faculty During COVID-19 The pandemic has amplified pre-existing inequities among faculty members, creating distinct challenges for differently situated ones, write Ethel L. Mickey, Dessie Clark and Joya Misra, Inside HigherEd, September 4, 2020
• Burning Out Professors say faculty burnout is always a real threat, but especially now, and that institutions should act before it’s too late, by Colleen Flaherty, Inside HigherEd, September 14, 2020 
• Pandemic Imperils Promotion for Women in Academia Even as faculty members are given more time to meet a deadline for tenure, many say they are getting less work done because of child care needs, by Noam Schieber, The New York Times, September 29, 2020 (plus related links below to documents from Northwestern University cited in the article)
• Factoring in the Pandemic Experience to Protect Gender Equity, Memorializing the Summer of 2020, a document distributed by the Northwestern [University] Organization of Faculty Women 
• Organization of Women Faculty COVID Response Faculty Survey, distributed July 20-August 7, 2020 by the Northwestern [University] Organization of Faculty Women 
• Call for Immediate Action, by the Northwestern [University] Organization of Faculty Women, September 2020
• European Women in Mathematics Open Letter on the COVID-19 Pandemic (EWM is an international association of women working in the field of mathematics in Europe), published online September 22, 2020
• The Virus Moved Female Faculty to the Brink. Will Universities Help? The pandemic is a new setback for women in academia who already faced obstacles on the path to advancing their research and careers, by Jillian Kramer, The New York Times, October 6, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/science/covid-universities-women.html
• Women Are Falling Behind Large-scale study backs up other research showing relative declines in women's research productivity during COVID-19, by Colleen Flaherty, Inside HigherEd,October 20, 2020
• Exit Interview Study of Tenured/Track-Track Faculty: Exploring Factors Related Job Satisfaction and Departure, ADVANCE Program, University of Michigan, October 2020
• Faculty equity and COVID-19: The problem, the evidence, and recommendations, ADVANCE Program, University of Michigan, October 2020
• Stuck-At-Home Moms: The Pandemic's Devastating Toll On Women by Pallavi Gogoi, National Public Radio (NPR), October 28, 2020
• Covid-19 Has Robbed Faculty Parents of Time for Research. Especially Mothers. Women with children have lost, on average, about an hour of research time per day on top of what childless scholars have lost, by Emma Pettit, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 25, 2021
• Keeping COVID-19 From Sidelining Equity Without engaged interventions, higher education will most likely become less diverse and inclusive, given the pressure the pandemic is placing on women and faculty of color, by Joya Misra, Dessie Clark and Ethel L. Mickey, Inside HigherEd, February 10, 2021
• What Explains Differences in Finance Research Productivity During the Pandemic? Barber et al,National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working paper 28493, DOI 10.3386/w28493, February 2021
• Supporting women in academia during and after a global pandemic, Reese et al, Science Advances  24 Feb 2021, Vol. 7, no. 9, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg9310
• Survey reveals COVID-19’s significant stress on faculty Stanford Report, February 26, 2021
• Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2021. https://doi.org/10.17226/26061
• The Gendered Impacts of COVID-19: Lessons and Reflections, editorial by Irma Mooi-Reci, Barbara J. Risman, Gender & Society, March 5, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432211001305
• Emerging Evidence Indicates COVID-19 Pandemic Has Negatively Impacted Women in Academic STEMM Fields, Endangering Progress Made in Recent Years, The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine news release, March 9, 2021
• Many Female Academics Face Big Challenges — and Covid-19 Raises the Stakes, Report Says, by Lindsay Ellis, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, 2021 
• ‘We are at the breaking point’: Survey shows faculty, especially women, facing COVID-related stress by Anna Milstein, The Stanford Daily, March 17, 2021
• Where Caregiving and Gender Intersect It's not just about gender or caregiving, it's both: new analyses suggest colleges need COVID-19 faculty relief policies that target female caregivers in particular, by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed,March 31, 2021
• Female professors have less time to research in the pandemic. It could force them out of academia, experts say, by Caroline Kitchener, The Lily, April 5, 2021
• Could the Pandemic Prompt an ‘Epidemic of Loss’ of Women in the Sciences? by Apoorva Mandavilli, The New York Times, April 13, 2021
• Mothers are being left behind in the economic recovery from COVID-19 by Lauren Bauer, Brookings, May 6, 2021
• The Quiet Crisis of Parents on the Tenure Track by Maggie Doherty, The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 2021

Please send comments about any broken links, or suggested additions to facultywomensforum@stanford.edu

The Office of Faculty Development, Diversity & Engagement has collected many relevant resources, including articles on a number of the topics listed above and links to various university programs that can be helpful to faculty here.