Abstract
STEM is traditionally viewed as a male-dominated academic field that is less open and accessible to women scientists. In order to gain entry and pursue a career in this field, women can choose to adopt a specific gendered professional identity as a career strategy. When it comes to the adoption of gendered professional identities and perceptions of career success, how do Russia and Germany compare? What career strategies are being pursued by women scientists in these two countries? On the basis of semi-structured interviews with women in STEM disciplines at the NRU Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia) and the University of Tübingen (Germany), we analyse differences and similarities between these two groups of scientists. Further, we show how work environments and academic cultures can explain differences with regard to career strategies and perceptions of success. In Russia, women scientists tend to adopt more collective or group-oriented identities, while in Germany, professional identities are based more on the model of the individualistic, entrepreneurial scientist. We identify two main career strategies: blending in (Russia and Germany) and challenging (Germany). Russian women scientists’ perceptions of career success suggest the need to investigate alternative views of academic careers that are not limited to the model of the entrepreneurial scientist.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The Russian interviewees did not spontaneously refer to gender during their interviews; they only addressed the issue when a specific question was asked about it. By contrast, interviewees in Germany referred to gender from the beginning, bringing up the gender dimension of STEM on their own.
- 2.
As we discuss later, the need to maintain a life–work balance renders networking more difficult for women scientists.
References
Abele A, Spurk D (2011) The dual impact of gender and the influence of timing of parenthood on men’s and women’s career development: longitudinal findings. Int J Behav Dev 35(3):225–232
Acker J (1990) Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: a theory of gendered organizations. Gend & Soc 4(2):139–158
Bayer A, Rouse CE (2016) Diversity in the economics profession: a new attack on an old problem. J Econ Perspect 30(4):221–242
Brescoll VL (2012) Who takes the floor and why: gender, power and volubility in organizations. Adm Sci Q 56(4):622–641
Butler J (1990) Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge, London
Dryburgh H (1999) Work hard, play hard: women and professionalization in engineering—adapting to the culture. Gend & Soc 13(5):664–682
Ely RJ (1995) The power in demography: women’s social constructions of gender identity at work. Acad Manag J 38(3):589–634
Giroux HA (2009) Neoliberalism, youth, and the leasing of higher education. In: Hill D, Kumar R (eds) Global neoliberalism and education and its consequences. Routledge, New York, pp 30–53
Gordon LA, Klopov EV (1975) Man after work: social problems of daily life and leisure time, based on the surveys of workers’ time budgets in major cities of the European part of the USSR. Progress Publishers, Moscow
Haraway D (1997) Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.Female Man_Meets_Oncomouse. Routledge, New York
Hirshfield LE (2017) I don’t know everything, but Ethan would know: language, expertise, and the cultural mismatch for women scientists. NASPA J Women High Educ 10(1):118–137
Jorgenson J (2002) Engineering selves: negotiating gender and identity in technical work. Manag Commun Q 15(3):350–380
McNeil M (2007) Feminist cultural studies of science and technology. Routledge, London
Mountz A et al (2015) For slow scholarship: a feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: Int J Crit Geogr 14(4):1235–1259
Nussbaum MC (2010) Not for profit: why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford
Ong M (2005) Body projects of young women of color in physics: intersections of gender, race, and science. Soc Probl 52(4):593–617
Raddon A (2002) Mothers in the academy: positioned and positioning within discourses of the ‘successful academic’ and the ‘good mother’. Stud High Educ 27(4):387–403
Rhoton LA (2011) Distancing as a gendered barrier: understanding women scientists’ gender practices. Gend & Soc 25(6):696–716
Ridgeway LC (2011) Framed by gender: how gender inequality persists in the modern world. Oxford University Press, New York
Settles IH (2004) When multiple identities interfere: the role of identity centrality. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 30:487–500
Settles IH, O’Connor RC, Yap SCY (2016) Climate perceptions and identity interference among undergraduate women in STEM: the protective role of gender identity. Psychol Women Q 40(4):488–503
Stets JE, Philip SB, Burke PJ, Serpe RT (2016) The science identity and entering a science occupation. Soc Sci Res 64:1–14. Elsevier
Williams J (2010) Reshaping the work-family debate: why men and class matter. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Baden-Württemberg-STIPENDIUM foundation for providing support during the data collection for this paper at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Germany.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Khanukaeva, A., Di Puppo, L. (2021). Entrepreneur or Group Member? Women in Science and Career Strategies in Russia and Germany. In: Karabchuk, T., Kumo, K., Gatskova, K., Skoglund, E. (eds) Gendering Post-Soviet Space. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9358-1_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9358-1_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-9357-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-9358-1
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)