Sometimes we need to start over. For me it happened after I had completed all the work necessary to earn my PhD. Instead of defending my dissertation, I emigrated to Canada for reasons that were both personal and political.
I’m confident that I made the best choice I could at the time, but I was also frustrated that I had come so close to getting my PhD when I had no choice but to walk away. So I made a decision. I would start over again, knowing that would mean working full-time while caring for my family and earning my PhD part-time. I also knew that I would receive no credit for the work I had already completed in Cuba.
I wasn’t alone. While I was redoing my PhD at the University of Alberta, I met a woman who had been a professor in Iran. She had worked in Mexico and Italy. She spoke multiple languages. She was an excellent scientist. But when she arrived in Canada, she was told that her PhD wouldn’t be accepted to start a postdoc and it was proposed she start over at the master’s level before she would be considered for the PhD program.
Around that same time, I met a woman from Pakistan who had the same strong credentials and experience as the Iranian professor, and yet she too was asked to start over again at the master’s level. Ultimately, she decided spending her life collecting degrees was not what she had in mind.
I wonder sometimes what would have happened if these accomplished, experienced women had been men from United States or Europe or even their own countries. Would their PhDs have been set aside? Would they have been asked to complete a second master’s they were clearly overqualified for?
These stories cause me to reflect on how differently credibility, authority, and expertise are perceived depending on gender and origin. They also cause me to wonder about how much talent we lose along the way because women are forced to prove themselves again and again.
My Iranian friend and I both completed our PhDs, and we both went on to earn MBAs. We like to joke about how much we must really love collecting advanced degrees since we have done it so many times.
This journey has shown me just how resilient women can be. We carry a lot, and we achieve a lot. More, I sometimes think, than many people realize.
