The Old Boys Club is a long-standing institution that has dominated every industry for decades and while much progress has been made to diversify the workplace, many of the leadership roles are still primarily and stereotypically male. For too long, women have gone underrepresented, under paid, and undervalued due to social stigmas that enforce incredibly limiting gender roles and expectations. Unfortunately, this proves to be true even in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field. According to a 2019 study by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), while women make up roughly half of the college-educated workforce, less than 28% are involved in STEM to some degree. The study goes further to reported that among scientist and engineers, roughly 12.8 million men were employed full time as opposed to the 10.1 million women in the same line of work. Staggering still were the number of women given part-time roles due to reasons such as family responsibilities.
I had the opportunity to discuss this further with a very close friend, Dr. Kristen Breit, a neuroscientist and an assistant professor at West Chester University.
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Archetype Collective: Thanks for sitting down with me! To kick things off, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Kristen Breit: Of course! So, I just got hired as an assistant professor in biopsychology at West Chester University where I will have the opportunity to start my own lab while teaching classes on drug research and neuroscience.
AC: Wow, congratulations!
KB: Thanks! I’m super excited to start on this new journey.
AC: Tell us a little more about your research and what you hope it will lead to.
KB: We’ll be looking at the effects of prenatal drug exposure on behavioral development throughout the lifespan, starting with cannabis in combination with other drugs such as alcohol and nicotine. Honestly, I hope my research just gets us some answers—whether they be good or bad—because we know a lot about the effects of prenatal alcohol and nicotine exposure but with cannabis, we essential have no idea if there are any consequences to a developing fetus.
AC: That’s so incredibly interesting. As someone who teaches health at a high school level, my students have so many questions regarding the effects of certain drugs—especially cannabis, since it is so much more common now—and though I do my best to give them the most up to date information, much of the school mandated curriculum regarding the topic is so outdated.
AC: What was school like for you growing up and did you have any role models that inspired to get you into line of work?
KB: So my early school years were pretty easy for me. I went to a small private school and everyone got along for the most part. In general, I liked school—didn’t really have a passion for any particular field, I just wanted to get good grades. Then in high school, I started to realize that I truly loved science…but ironically, I was really bad at it—I actually got a one on my AP exam, which basically means I put my name on it [laughs].
AC: Same! I completely bombed my AP anatomy exam. After weeks of studying, I was so burnt out by the time I got to the exam that I couldn’t focus and ended up doodling in my exam booklet for an hour before leaving early to go watch a movie with my friends.
KB: Oh yeah! I was like, “was I even in this class?” To be honest, it really pissed me off because I was always such a good student and then when it came to any of my high school science classes, I completely sucked…and that’s what pushed me to work harder at it. Then in college, I totally fell into psychology. I wish I had some good story about me getting motivated to pursue psychology but in reality, I wanted to audition for the dance team which required me picking a major.
AC: And how’d your audition go?
KB: I never auditioned! [laughs] Turns out I really enjoyed the classes I was taking because it was still science, but it wasn’t something traditional like biology or chemistry. The coursework made me think more abstractly and it was in those laboratory research classes where I met my mentor who truly became my role model—she took me in as someone who had no clue what psychology research research was but knew that I wanted research experience . I didn’t learn this till later, but it turns out that she wasn’t given tenure due to alleged sexist reasons. Apparently, she applied for it at the same time as a male colleague and even though she arguably had more achievements and better ratings, she lost out on the tenure opportunity. However, she decided to stay through the end of the year because I and a few other female classmates needed research experience to get into grad school. All that to say, I think she became my role model because despite all that, she didn’t deter us from continuing in the field. Rather, she told me that wherever I decide to go to school that it should be an environment that will support me. As an aside, she also gave me my only “B” in Psychology because she does not believe in rounding up grades, and I think that taught me to work harder if I wanted to do better.
AC: That’s so important. I know many people who have stopped pursuing their career of choice simply because they talked to someone who had a bad experience, so that’s awesome that she did that for you!
KB: Yeah! She never once told me to not get into academia because it can be sexist and that I wouldn’t get tenure because of that. Instead, she pushed me to go to grad school, which eventually led me to behavioral neuroscience.
AC: Now, do you think your experience would’ve been different if you had a male mentor?
KB: I think so. The example she set for me became so crucial in all the decisions I made during and after my time with her. She made me truly understand that it isn’t about the school name but more so about the school environment that will support me and help me grow. Even now, when I was applying for this position at Westchester, my biggest concern was being able to go to school first in order to see if the people within the department were actually happy and genuinely liked their job. I wouldn’t even have thought about that if I had a male mentor who more than likely would not have gone through that level of discrimination.
AC: You bring up an excellent point that brings me to my next question. So, I was doing some research and according to a 2019 study by the National Science Foundation, even though more female students are pursuing degrees in STEM, only 28% of science and engineering workforce consists of women. Thoughts?
KB: I’m unfortunately not that surprised. I think there’s a lot of aspects to it, aside from the fact that sexism is real. One of those aspects is that it’s insinuated for women in science that it would be impossible to run a lab effectively while having a family because it’s a engrained in us that once we have a lab, we will not have time to think of anything else. I think that because of this societal stigma, many women shy away from careers in science. Obviously, that’s true at all and I actually know many successful female scientists who do have families.
AC: Excellent point. It’s unfortunate that even in 2020, gender stereotypes and expectations still impact what roles we play in society. With that, what do you think accounts for this disparity and has that affected your role as a research scientist?
KB: When I was in school, it wasn’t even a field that crossed my mind and that’s primarily because I didn’t see any women in science, I didn’t know any women in science. There was such a huge lack of representation in the field and even thinking about it now, I didn’t have any female science teachers in high school. With regards to my own research, luckily many institutes such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, I believe do a good job of funding equally but there’s still such an imbalance of what’s being awarded because not as many women are applying for grants, and so you end up with this Old Boys Club mentality.
AC: Have you experienced any bias or discrimination on a personal level with regards to your work?
KB: The main thing I’ve experienced is people not taking me seriously. These days, it’s not so much about getting the job, the funding, or school admissions but it’s more so the social aspect. I mean I’ve had many students walk into my class the first day of school and asked me when the professor was coming [laughs], which I guess common mistake since I am younger. But I do remember one night, recently, when I was at a comedy show with my husband and the comedian was heckling the crowd. Eventually, he got to me and asked what I did, so I told him I was a neuroscientist. Now most people don’t know how to react to that since it isn’t a common profession, but I played along and answered his questions—that was that. However, afterwards I was in line for the bathroom and I heard this group of women talking about me. One of them said, “Oh, isn’t that the neuroscientist?” to which the girl next to her responded, “No. She’s definitely lying about her job. There’s no way she could be a neuroscientist.” Needless to say I was so upset about it, not because I cared about what they thought about me but because these were other young women tearing me down. So, I did what any good millennial would do and took to Twitter…the amount of support was incredible from both men and women.
AC: How do you see us bridging the gender gap in STEM and inspiring the future generation of girls who want to become scientists?
KB: We’re doing a much better job of doing that now! There are so many organizations that promote young girls and women in STEM which is awesome. Unfortunately, we’re not going to see much of a change until these girls grow up and hopefully stay in the field, if they want to of course., if they want to of course. And I think it really comes down to messaging and telling them “hey, you can do science too!” Personally, I’m a member of a few organization that are specifically geared towards young girls such as the Association of Women in Science and FabFems, which is an amazing resource that features women scientists and allows for the public to contact us. Recently, I received an email from had a seventh-grade girl who just wanted to interview a woman scientist and it was so rewarding to have such a meaningful interaction with her and chat about why she loved science. There’s also “Skype a Scientist” which more women are participating in, so young students will hopefully get to see more women there even if not in their direct classroom. In short, it’s really just about increasing representation and becoming more present and accessible to all generations of women. I encourage women of all ages who are interested in science to find someone, anyone, to talk about this career field with! We are out there.
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About Kristen.
Kristen received her B.A. in Psychology from Chapman University in 2010, her M.A. in Behavioral Neuroscience from San Diego State University in 2012, and her Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Purdue University in 2015. Since then, she has been a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jennifer Thomas’s lab at SDSU and an adjunct lecturer at SDSU and the University of California, San Diego, and will be starting as an Assistant Professor of Biopsychology at West Chester University in Fall 2020. Kristen researches the effects of prenatal cannabis, nicotine, and alcohol exposure on brain and behavioral development, and teaches courses related to drugs, behavior, and all things neuroscience. In her spare time, she loves trying new foods and craft cocktails with her husband, playing board games with her family, watching true crime documentaries, and painting. Kristen has always been a performer, and she tries to keep that same energy in the lab and classroom to keep science relatable and fun. In fact, she first met Daryl while working in the entertainment department at Disneyland!
“Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering.” NSF, The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2019, ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19304/.
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