Editor's note: Following is excerpted from Lu Zhi's speech at the award ceremony for the Chinese Young Women in Science Fellowship:
It's a fact that we have more men than women in science. Why? Sometimes I think about this question. Once I talked about it with a woman professor at Yale.
She said, "Because men have no burden of household chores. If we also had good housewives at home so that we did not need to take care of the family and handle the household, we could do as well as men or even better."
Some 20 years ago when I decided to start wild-field research, nobody around me thought it was a good idea. Even now, many people still often ask, "Why did you chose to do it?" "Did you wonder whether you could overcome lots of difficulties against heavy adds in your work?"
The fact is, however, I myself never thought I could not do it in all those years.
On the contrary, I should say women have some advantages in field research.
First of all, male colleagues take very good care of me when we do field work in the wild, carrying my heavy bags, things like that. Then women are born with many features that fit field research. For example, we have great patience, shrewd observation, and we are sensitive and attentive to the subtle changes of animals.
In my eyes, if you are healthy, fieldwork is not a bad choice. But you must enjoy what you do. You can overcome the difficulties and stick it out only if you love the job.
Finally, to achieve a successful career not only means that your work has been recognized by society, but that you feel self-satisfaction and that satisfaction and happiness motivate you to go on.
I don't think women are inferior in talent, creativity or imagination. I hope people and society could be more open-minded to women's career choices and encourage them to work in varied professions. Science might sound "tough" for women, but a number of my counterparts have proved that we can do it well.
Now most of my PhD students are women and all my colleagues in my CI office in Peking University are women.
(China Daily November 11, 2005)
