Women may face discrimination in science and engineering fields, but a new study suggests that there may be a bigger reason women fail to succeed in STEM: motherhood. Science and engineering departments do not know how to deal with female professors or postdoc students who also want to start families.

Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci in American Scientist March-April 2012 issue, write, “It is when academic scientists choose to be mothers that their real problems start.” Prospective scientists finish grad school and can apply for tenure, which usually does not happen until they’re 35 or older. Until then, they have to put in many long hours with research and publishing papers, which “isn’t so compatible with being a mom.”

Fortunately, there are solutions. Click here to read the rest of the article.