2023-05-19 15:32:35
Career
ETH professor has had enough – “The daycare constantly advised me to work less”
Rachael Garrett, former professor at ETH, says mothers who have a career in Switzerland are constantly criticized. She now works in England.
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“At the after-school care center, they kept telling me that I shouldn’t work 100 percent,” says Rachael Garrett. From 2019 to 2023 she was a professor of environmental policy at the ETH and lived in Zurich during this time.
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She has now moved to England with her family, where she received a professorship at Harvard. Here, the climate for working mothers is not nearly as strenuous as in Switzerland, says Garrett.
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A lot depends on the partner, says Sonia Seneviratne, Professor of Land-Climate-Dynamics at ETH and mother of two. Her husband can work more flexibly and supported the children more when they were younger.
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Katrin Beyer is a civil engineering professor at ETH Lausanne and also the mother of two small children. There’s a lot going on at the moment, she says. In 2010 she was the first civil engineering professor at ETH, now they are four women.
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The political efforts for more actual – not just “nominal” – equality must therefore be continued. Especially in the area of child care.
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Professor Rachel Garrett says it’s difficult for a mother who works full-time in Switzerland.
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The criticism of full-time mothers was an important factor in the decision to leave Switzerland. In England it is “totally different”.
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ETH professor Sonia Seneviratne says: “It depends on the partner.”
Why are there so few female professors, even though the majority are female students? Because women don’t want a career, they want children and a rich man. So that briefly summarized result a study by the University of Zurich in the last few days caused a sensation.
Now a prominent scientist says about 20 minutes: “I left Switzerland because of this garbage.” Rachael Garrett (40) was a professor of environmental policy at ETH Zurich from 2019 to now. She now has a professorship at Cambridge University and has moved to England with her family.
“Of course a woman can have a career in Switzerland,” she says. “But it doesn’t help women when the media conveys the opposite.” Instead of reporting on the many successful female professors who are top international and enjoy their job, one reads about women who do not want to become professors.
Criticism for full-time workload
As a mother of two small children who works full-time, she also received critical feedback very directly: “Some of the after-school care workers for my then five-year-old daughter told me several times that I shouldn’t work 100 percent because the children need my presence.”
Although Garrett’s husband worked from home, the after-school care worker called her, the mother, every other week and said that the daughter wanted to go home and that she should please pick her up after lunch. She also knows from friends who gave birth to their children in Switzerland that some new mothers are told in the hospital that they should now reduce their workload.
“It’s distressing to hear that women shouldn’t work full-time because it’s not good for their children,” says Garrett. These stereotypes and assessments were an important factor in her decision to leave Switzerland. “In England, society isn’t nearly as taxing for working mothers. It’s totally different here.”
“It depends on the partner”
Whether a mother has a career in Switzerland depends primarily on her partner, says Sonia Seneviratne, Professor for Land-Climate-Dynamics at the ETH and mother of two children (9 and 13). “My husband and I both work 100 percent, but my husband is a bit more flexible and took care of the children more when they were younger.”
Seneviratne is currently on a four-month sabbatical at Stanford University. Her husband took unpaid leave to look after the children. “Of course it helps a lot that he supports me so much,” says the 49-year-old. And: Many of her male colleagues have partners who work part-time. Of course that makes it easier.
“There’s a lot going on right now”
Katrin Beyer is a civil engineering professor at ETH Lausanne and also the mother of two small children. She says: “There’s a lot going on at the moment, a lot has happened with the professors in recent years.” In 2010 she was the first female professor in her subject at the ETH, now there are four women. “We female civil engineering professors already make up almost a fifth – up until 13 years ago our share was zero.”
The political and social efforts to achieve not just nominal equality, as Beyer says, but real equality, must therefore be continued. Childcare places are needed for families. Parents often get fewer daycare days than they actually need for their workload. In western Switzerland, full-time working mothers are relatively well accepted in the immediate environment. “But efforts are still needed in the world of work so that everyone can participate and help shape things equally.”
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