Serious Science vs. Baked Goods

One of the many reasons why my experiences in the lab are rather unique has to do with the gender makeup of my coworkers. Unlike the majority of labs around here, we are almost all female. While the PIs are male, all the post-docs, all the grad students, and all the technicians, save one who will be leaving at the end of the month, are female. This is extraordinarily rare, and I am quite positive that I will never again encounter this situation in the rest of my biochemistry career. There are many labs in the biochemistry department here that are all female, most have a one or two women… but as far as the people in the lab, doing the actual research… to be all female? It’s unheard of in science.

A very common topic of discussion among women scientists is, of course, gender discrimination in the workplace. Working in a female-driven laboratory, this is, of course, something that I do not experience. There is no “old boy’s club”, the male post-docs are not favored over the females, and obviously, our PIs believe that female scientists are every bit as competent in the laboratory as males, or they would not have hired them (clearly, it is not a charity case of “I better hire a female to round out the laboratory). While this obviously is a great thing for the time being, sometimes I wonder if it is going to wind up being an ugly slap in the face when I leave my cozy little gender-neutral laboratory and enter the big male-dominated world of biochemistry.

Case in point, last week Candid Engineer posted an amazing cake she baked. Amongst all the praise and drool, Arlenna left a comment that caught my attention:

“I wish I could bring things like that to work, but as the youngest of only three female faculty members in my department, I don't know how constant offerings of baked goods might affect their pre-tenure unconscious impressions? Maybe good overall but possibly bad 'good woman in an apron'-type feelings...”

I was blown away. As I’ve stated before, I bake for the lab all the time… it’s like my own personal taste group. This is what we, as a lab full of women, do. One of the other post-docs also bakes on a regular basis – between the two of us, there is almost always some sort of baked good for our morning lab meetings. Another post-doc contributes brownies when she is feeling particularly stressed. And it’s not just a female thing – one of the male PIs also brings in homemade baked goods and leaves them sitting in the lab for anyone to munch on. To me, this was just… normal. Not having to contend with thoughts of gender discrimination in my own lab, it never ever crossed my mind that perhaps, outside of my own lab, bringing in baked goods on a regular basis would lower one’s opinion of me as a scientist, because in science, one must be All Science, All the Time, and Susie Homemaker and Susie Scientist cannot coexist.

This week, I have a thesis committee meeting. Back when I was scheduling my first committee meeting, my PI informed me that serving on committees is something that one does not because they have to, but generally because they want to help a student and provide educational insight. It can take up a significant amount of time to serve on multiple committees, and he always appreciates it when food is involved with the meetings. This makes sense – after all, just like graduate students, I’ve seen faculty members elbow their way to the front of the line for free food at seminars. So, for previous committee meetings, I’ve come armed with homemade baked goods. But now this has me wondering… am I giving off the woman-in-apron vibes that Arlenna described? If my presentation sucks, are my committee members going to be thinking that I should have spent more time preparing, and less time baking? Or worse yet, if my presentation is fine, but my science sucks and my homemade baked goods are tasty, will they be thinking that I should get the hell out of the lab, and back into the kitchen where I belong?? Is the best way to a Committee Member’s Good Side through his stomach, as suggested by my PI, and they’ll be too busy noshing to even think about any of this? Should I forgo the homemade baked goods, and pick something up premade, as to appear like I didn’t put too much effort into it? Or would that seem absurd, as both of the PIs from my lab are on my committee and they both know that I bake already?

I’ve already wasted my morning putting enough thought into the Serious Science versus Baked Goods Debate of 2008, so now I turn it over to you while I finish my presentation. Discuss.