Sylvia Ann Hewlett

In “The Athena Factor,” a ground-breaking report published in June 2008 by Harvard Business Review, economist and Center for Work-Life Policy founder Sylvia Ann Hewlett and her team show why a rich pipeline of talented female scientists, engineers and technicians runs dry just as these professionals should be hitting their stride.

The study found that the conventional wisdom—that these women are choosing to leave to raise families—gets it mostly wrong. In fact, many are driven out of careers they love by a combination of work culture “antigens.” Hewlett has written many articles and best-selling books on the integration of work and life, including The War Against Parents. Here we talk about her conclusions.

PwC: Where did you come up with that wonderful name for your report?

SH: There’s a very famous book from about 20 years ago called Athena Unbound. It was about the excellence and commitment that women can bring to scientific fields. More than anything, it was about how women go into these fields spurred on by the possibility of healing the planet and saving lives.

PwC: One of the most surprising things about your study is just how many young women are going into science and technology, something that doesn’t gibe with the so-called gender gap in these fields.

SH: Yes, when we looked at the results of our surveys and focus groups, the number of young scientific and engineering female professionals was quite a bit higher than we thought it would be. Forty-one percent of highly credentialed scientists, engineers and technicians coming into companies are female, which is an amazing figure, given the numbers most experts cite.

PwC: Does that mean that our educational system is actually a far more positive experience for women in terms of science and math than we think?

SH: I think what’s happening is that in a kind of piecemeal, fragmentary fashion, we have now given a green light to girls and young women that it’s OK to choose this field. But there are still big problems in our schools, in our universities, in terms of fully tapping into female talent. I would say that women are succeeding in these subjects despite an educational system that’s still tilted against them.

PwC: In your paper you talk about a “perfect storm” of events for women, starting in their mid to late 30s, that starts driving them out.

SH: I call it the fight-or-flight moment, and you can absolutely see it in the data. Between the ages of 35 and 40, there is a huge exodus of women out of the science and tech sectors, and when we probed and prodded to find out why, it was fascinating. Certainly there are family pressures, but the survey numbers show that at the top of the list are a number of, as we call them, cultural antigens.

PwC: What kind of cultural antigens?

SH: They range from a lack of sponsors who can tap women for a promotion, to a culture where long hours of face time in a lab are expected, to a diving-catch mentality, to outright sexual harassment. For instance, many of these engineering cultures seem to be laden with various kinds of underlying predatory behavior. Our survey results show that 63% of woman engineers have experienced sexual harassment, which is three times the rate in any other field.

PwC: All that flies in the face of the impression many have that a meritocracy exists in the sciences. I haven’t heard that term diving catch before. Can you describe it?

SH: Many of the women we surveyed felt that what was constantly rewarded was the Superman save. A system crashes in, say, Romania, and a manager gets a team ready in the middle of the night, flies out, and within hours is saving the day by fixing the system on-site.

PwC: Something that many working mothers would find impossible to do.

SH: Exactly, but it goes much further than that. Many diving catches fail, right? It turns out that men have a built-in buddy system that closes ranks around them. Since there are not as many women in these professions, they don’t have the same buddy network. So if a woman dives to make the catch and fails, she’s out of there the next day.

There’s also new research coming out that shows that women are often tabbed as the fall guy in various risky situations. The upshot is that women avoid these risky situations and focus on preventing disasters, which isn’t nearly so rewarded.

PwC: And if companies could find better ways to reward women so that they didn’t leave, it would go a long way to solving some major talent gaps in the science and technology industries.

SH: Just think back to last autumn, when Craig Barrett of Intel and Bill Gates went to Capitol Hill to persuade lawmakers to increase the visa limit and bring more highly trained foreign workers into the country. But even if they had been successful, which they weren’t, it would not have solved their problems. If companies look in their own backyards and address the women already in the talent pipeline, they can reduce female attrition by half right away.

PwC: According to your paper, companies need to step in with targeted support for women.

SH: One of my favorites is the Johnson & Johnson program called Crossing the Finish Line, which is actually about helping women get over that fight-or-flight moment. They take women in their early 30s who have shown considerable commitment and capability, and essentially say: “Hey guys, we’re really going to help you get through the next five years. The data shows that this is a really dangerous part of the career path, and we want to help you get through it.”

The specific pieces include workshops with supervisors, a sponsor arrangement with a key senior person and very clear objectives for career development. What they create with this program is a very tailored path to promotion for talented women, people who are really going to be valuable in the years ahead.