Single Mother PhD's?

I went to a college event recently where I was surrounded by other PhDs. I watched the women, wondering: were they mothers? were any of them single mothers?

The book Mama PhD. explores the complex role of mothers within the academy. I love the book, but I'm now wondering about the role of single mothers as well. What are the numbers on single mother professors? Are single mothers, like those marginalized by race and sexual orientation, also under represented at our colleges and universities?

I think people are starting to finally address the problems that mothers face in the academy. Mama PhD has been successful in creating discussion in the community. However, I think we also need to address the problems single mothers face as a separate but connected category. I have been both a partnered mother and a single mother -- and I can tell you, they are significantly different experiences. So, what is that difference when a woman is a single mother professor?

When I started the column Mothering in the Ivory Tower, I was a newly divorced single mother, trying to find a place for myself. I was raising both a young child and caring for a mother with cancer while holding a temporary visiting assistant professor position and looking to reenter a tenure-track job after two years of full-time motherhood. My finances were stretched. I couldn't travel to conferences. I taught over 100 students per semester. I got in trouble for needing to take too many days off for chemo treatments for my mother and for my daughter's sick days. I had a hard time making blocks of concentrated time available for research. I got no childcare help from my ex-husband and saw a sharp reduction in financial support. Being a professor and a single mother was not easy.

The job search was even harder. I often made the first cut for interviews, and in my two year job search, I had some great interviews. No one ever asked the illegal questions about my marriage/caretaking status, but I am sure they did a google search on me (I would) and found my publications on being a single mother (all too obvious). So, I didn't get a job despite having an excellent CV -- with publications -- and having great interviews. At the time, I wouldn't have believed it. But looking back on it now, I can see that my job search was disadvantaged by my status as a single mother.

Single mothers, like other minority groups, may not be heavily represented in the academy for reasons that have nothing to do with ability, but more to do with others' perception of them. People sometimes believe single mothers are unreliable employees (all that taking off time to care for sick children). People sometimes believe single mothers are single because of a character flaw in them (divorced, shunning the importance of fathers, not able to be on a team, or man-haters). People sometimes believe single mothers can't serve as positive role models for students (sorta like getting pregnant teenagers out of the high school so they don't influence others). Sometimes people believe single mothers are helpless victims (and therefore not powerful like professors need to be). Regardless of the particular stereotype they apply, people tend to judge single mothers not by what they can do, but by who they are.

So, we could see single mothers as a group that needs to be considered when we discuss diversity on college campuses, and if so, couldn't the same arguments that are made for increasing diversity also include single mothers? I think so.