There are many areas of science, and for each area, the demands would differ. One simple example would be the stark difference between a bioinformatician and a microbiologist. Aside from the difference in core knowledge needed to perform the job, it could be argued that the former would allow greater flexibility in terms of place of work, as well as time of work. This is because a bioinformatician’s experiments would mainly be computational and this could potentially be done from anywhere with Internet access and a computer, as compared to a microbiologist whose work would often require special containment equipment like a biological safety cabinet which would be found only in laboratories. From this comparison, it is clear when discussing the type of support we could provide to women in science, it would vary depending on the type and nature of work required in their area of science. For this opinion piece, I will draw on my personal experience, so this article will focus only on suggestions on how to support women in science who are involved in conducting research that can only be done with equipment in laboratories.
Over the years, we have seen many programmes geared at raising awareness and interest in science. These have focused mainly on students across a wide age range, starting from as early as kindergarten. These programmes tend to come in the form of supplementary short-term programmes to spark interest in the area. In terms of long-term sustained exposure to science, it would come in the form of the syllabus in schools. From my personal experience, one area that the Malay/Muslim community could consider improving would be to support the science infrastructure in the local full-time madrasahs, especially those not under the Joint Madrasah System (JMS). This is related to Malay/Muslim women in science because there are more girls than boys enrolled in local full-time madrasahs. At the primary school level, we have 2 all-girls madrasahs while the other 2 are co-ed madrasahs that enroll girls too. The first item on my wish list is the creation of a fund that the madrasahs are able to tap on or apply to so that they would be able to easily keep their facilities and equipment up-to-date, thus contributing to maintaining the quality of science education that they can make available to their students in the long run.
While there are numerous programmes to spark the interest of students at the schooling level even up till their first degree, I believe that to sustain the impact of these programmes especially for women after they finish tertiary education, more needs to be done. One issue would be the age-old question of whether a woman should focus on her career or on starting a family once done with basic tertiary education. I believe that if we could have more initiatives to support women at this crossroads, more might be keen to follow their interests and attempt the third path – to try and have both a career as well as start a family at the same time.
In the area of science research, one form of training would be to continue with graduate studies, especially a PhD. Here, the idea of spending at least another 4 years studying intensively might seem incompatible with the idea of starting a family and motherhood. And rightly so, because both are very demanding things that require long-term commitment from a woman. For a PhD, there would be modules to attend in school, research to be conducted in the lab with the expectation that one must find something to meaningfully add to the body of knowledge of that field, seminars and
conferences to attend, and papers to write and publish. And of course, papers to read. Lots and lots of papers to pore through to understand what is already done and known, to identify the gaps, to form the basis of new ideas to test, and then to troubleshoot when the experiments (as they too often do) fail. A career as a research assistant, or a research fellow after a PhD would follow a similar pattern of experiments and lots of paper reading and writing. For motherhood, it is a totally new experience and one that tends to be unique to each individual. It begins with pregnancy and giving birth, where for some, it is easy, while for others, it is one of the biggest tests on their body and health. The same too for recovery from childbirth and the first few months of many polyclinic appointments, feedings throughout the night and day which come together with a lack of sleep, and the changing of many diapers. Then, comes the long-term challenge of figuring out how to nurture, develop, and educate the child with the necessary life skills like reading, as well as imbibing Islamic values and modelling for them an Islamic lifestyle.
From the brief descriptions above, it is clear that both are not easy things to do. I would even argue that motherhood and raising children full-time is definitely the more challenging task. However, some women might still be interested in attempting both simultaneously. Knowing the challenges they might face as they try to balance both, this brings me to the second item on my wish list: for the Malay/Muslim community to set up more childcare or childminding options located nearby or even within the academic centres of research. One barrier to women attempting to have a lab research career while also navigating motherhood is the lack of childcare options that would teach Islamic values and the Islamic creed. This is because, in my opinion, many Malay/Muslim families still highly value an Islamic environment for their children and a place that models an Islamic lifestyle, especially when the children are still very young and impressionable. While there are some Islamic childcare centres, the waitlist tends to be long, and they are located far away from the usual lab research areas like NUS, Biopolis, and NTU. Another barrier is the perceived rigidness of lab research, where it is thought that working from home is impossible and that if one is not in the lab, then it is a sign of a lack of devotion and passion for one’s research. In reality, the lab research environment has the potential to be flexible, depending on the supervisor as well as the nature of the research being done. If the Malay/Muslim community could invest in setting up good quality Islamic childcare centres within or very near to the academic research institutions, this could support the balance for Malay/Muslim women lab researchers who may need full-day childcare services, or perhaps some who are lucky enough to need only flexible (whether half-day or perhaps just a few hours a few times a week) childcare services.
The concept of embracing or exploring flexibility in lab research brings me to the third item on my wish list: for a mindset change among employers and supervisors of lab research groups to allow more flexibility for pregnant women and women with young children. There are some tasks, for example, paper reading, paper and grant writing, that do not need to be done in the lab, and this opens up some space for women researchers to do it from home too. This allows women researchers to still be around their young children more than in the past, and this could attract more women to stay in the field too. In my opinion, it isn’t just about having children, but as a mother, I value being able to be around my children more often to witness their milestones and spend quality time raising them simply by being there.
Another way to support this flexibility brings me to the fourth item on my wish list: to have special grants that early-career women researchers are able to apply for when they are pregnant or have very young children. These grants would allow them to hire a research assistant for a short-term period of 1 to 3 years. This would allow them to continue their research work through supervising the work done, and at the same time, they are able to be at home more with their young children as they adjust to motherhood.
Now, aside from doing both lab research and motherhood simultaneously, another option for women would be to attempt both, but in a staggered-start fashion. So this means, they start one first, and after a period of time, they start the next. There are many different variations for this. A woman could perhaps complete her PhD first before taking a ‘motherhood starter gap’ where she would take maybe 3 to 5 years away from lab research to focus on having kids and being around for them while they are very young. After that period, she could then rejoin the lab research career track. Another variation would be to start on motherhood first, and then after that, ease back into a lab research career either by going for further studies or by applying for a position as a research assistant. For this to work, once again, there would need to be a change in mindset by employers and supervisors of lab research groups, in terms of expectations of continuous related work experience from a woman science researcher. To promote that change, the fifth and last item on my wish list is: to have small 1- to 2-year grants that women returning from their ‘motherhood starter gap’ can apply for to kickstart their research projects, as well as to make them more attractive hiring options to lab research groups.
When I share these ideas with people, most times, the immediate response is that it is not economically sustainable. However, motherhood and having children are not, and will never be, about the short-term economic benefits they could bring. I believe that these ideas are workable if the community decides that it is worth investing in our Malay/Muslim women researchers. Oftentimes, people say it takes a village to raise a child. While in the past, that village would have consisted mainly of grandparents helping with caring for grandchildren, in today’s context, many grandparents are still working and unable to play that role anymore. Our Malay/Muslim women researchers, just like the women before them, need a village too in their motherhood journey. And perhaps, one way in the current Singapore context would be for their village to come in the form of the greater Muslim community in general, through the investment in the ideas outlined above.
Dr Dinah Aziz is a Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She holds a PhD from NUS. Her area of research is on bacterial and viral lung infections.
