Very interesting post. The only thing I would add is that the big decision point problem you observe is worse, I think, for PhDs than for other folks since the job market means movement. In most other occupations, you can choose a place and then find a job (perhaps not quite as true as it used to be ....) But PhDs almost always have to move and have very little control over where they live--that is where the problems of having a partner with a more advanced (or even equally or less advanced) career kick in.

Your own (incredible) decision to include a joke about women being better at laundry is proof positive of the problem you're describing.

Actually, I think the fact that you assume that careers are straightforward and linear is problematic. Mary Katherine Bateman wrote a book several years ago called "composing a life" in which she argued that men's careers tend to be linear, whereas women's careers are often much less so. (In other words, you're assuming that careers are linear because you're male and because yours was.)

I ended up with a decent academic career in foreign policy after detouring once to join the Foreign Service, and then again for several years to be the primary parent while my military husband was deployed -- a lot. In the interim, I did some adjuncting at various military colleges, wrote about foreign policy for a newspaper abroad, worked for a nonprofit and the like, and now in my mid-forties have a good, tenure track job and the credibility that comes from having real world experience, including knowing a lot more about the military and the government than someone who has only worked in universities might. In the long run, the detours have actually made me better at my job, not worse. Now I'm watching my grad students make similar types of tradeoffs and I'm encouraging them to think about the fact that life is long, detours happen, and that the best way to bridge the policymaker-academic divide that plagues the IR community is to have a foot in both worlds.

The comments above but the non-linearity of life ring true for me, and are something all bright young things, male or female, should remember. They are the key, I think to the different outcomes for men and women - as the commenter above noted, women's lives are often, by definition, less linear, and that doesn't really have more to do with the PhD choice nodes than it has to do with with larger 'life' choice nodes about family - these choices will have a similar impact whatever field you are in.

I found one thing absent from your piece: what about publishing? As a non-US student, my perspective is that it is publishing in top journals which gets people jobs, particularly on the academic track. Surely if you are good enough you can get things published wherever you are? Maybe less so in the policy wonk track, but that delicious mix of academia and wonkishness is more of a US phenomenon, so I can't really comment there. Am I just naive? Obviously teaching loads make a difference, but I think all junior PhDs would have a similar problem regarding finding time to publish.

On publishing, I think the only thing which makes a difference gender wise is confidence and mentoring, and then only if we go down the somewhat tired path of suggesting that women have a harder time accessing mentors and gaining confidence. As a female PhD student this hasn't really been my experience. We might as well say that men have a harder time multitasking.

So being a 27 year old married woman with a BA and MA in International Security working for the Federal Government, I thought I might chime in with my experiences.

I chose to go forward with a BA in International Security in August 2001, finished in 3 years, during which time I started long distance dating the man who would become my husband. Next, I went straight to a MA in International Security at an institution that focused more on practical applications as opposed to theory - it also did not have an option for a PhD program. I chose this school because the curriculum allowed me to focus on topics I was interested in; terrorism and CBW, and it moved me closer to my soon to be husband. Before I graduated I managed to snag a job to pay back my student loans in a local Emergency Management office. That eventually turned to me taking a federal postion in the same field, moving to another state with my boyfriend and getting married a year later.

Am I were I thought I would be back in 2001? Well, I'm working for the government and I'm happily married but I'm certainly not working on the issues I thought I would be, at least not directly. Sometimes I wonder if I should go back for a PhD and every so often I look at the websites of various instituions. But then I wonder, is the experience I'm gaining in actually working for the government more valuable to my career in the long term than a PhD would be? While I love teaching, I'm not sure I'd love the academic lifestyle of limiting my options on where I could live, find a job, disruption to my home life, and the pressure to publish.

1. Choice of title: Unless the author actually wants his audience to consider the benefits of a field dominated by men, this title is not useful. The question is not “should,” but rather, “how does being female change one’s experience?

2. Outdated: The author’s reference to his own life experience is not useful. He cannot count himself in the 27-32 demographic (apologies, but he is much older). He seems to see the world through an outdated lens. Please update (better yet, do a little “field research”).

3. Who are the senseless? You “urge” us to have “good sense” of what we will study before we are shaped by someone else. Overlooking the patronizing tone of this sentence, this same advice should be offered to men as well. In my own grad cohort, I’ve seen just as many men (or more) submit to a very different intellectual or career path than they had once envisioned. But then again, isn’t this the point of a PhD program? Change—or life—happens during a PhD program.
Give us (women) a little agency in that process (spouses, babies, or not).

Laundry issues ain't exactly as Mr Drezner suggests them. It was doughty harry S Truman, former artillery captain in WWI, who washed his underwear while president of the United States, and that in an era when drip-dry fabrics were unknown.

I'm really torn on my reaction to this. On the one hand, most of what you say is true, and we shouldn't be disparaging or chastising someone for speaking an uncomfortable truth. And while I do think the current generation of students/graduates do have a slightly different mind frame from that which is discussed here, I think many of the prevailing attitudes remain the same. What bugs me about this, though, is that there seems to be an underlying implication that because a successful career in IR for a woman will be more difficult than a man, we should reconsider, or at least consider harder, than men. But being successful in a career isn't easy for anyone, and simply, life's not fair. And I don't think women attaining that level of education have any delusion about the challenges they are going to face by being female in a predominately male workforce. If a women decides that that is what she wants to do with her life, there should be structures in place that will assist her - or, at least, no institutional systems or norms that discourage or hinder her. That is what we need to focus on, not whether or not women should be in the field (as mentioned above, I think a different title choice would be more appropriate, because I would be floored if Prof Drezner actually believed IR was not an appropriate field of study for women, and the article doesn't imply this). What we don't really need to be told - AGAIN - is that our career choices are made more difficult because we're biologically "predisposed" to having children. We can make our own decisions on that, thank you. And if we want to take on the challenge, I don't think we should be being told to "think it through" some more.

I am a graduate student, female, minority and wants to study intl. security. I have always argued that women are are underrepresented in research. I don't think I ever came across a female researcher in international security who was on a reading list of syllabus. I have written a blog post about your thoughts on this issue. http://intlpopcultralaffairs.blogspot.com/2012/03/quick-post.html

I liked your post Dan. The main thing that's missing is something that every female PhD student has to think about, yet few talk about openly: timing children, if you want to have them. I realise men think about this too, though I don't think they need to worry about the physical time off and breast-feeding the way that women do.
With many PhDs taking up to 5 years, and more individuals entering PhD programs after some professional experience, the timing of a PhD is generally creeping towards the twighlight of women's fertile years. Biological facts can't be ignored here- women's fertility basically starts to crash after 35. So if women want children, for those who are choosing whether a PhD adds value to their careers, this has to be a part of the decision-making process.
I'm sure most women, and men, know of fellow PhD students or early career academics who either try to time their children strategically (i.e. during the write up phase of the PhD or during the academic summer break) or panic when the planning goes awry and they face changing defence dates for due dates.
I hardly hear anyone talking about this publicly, but almost all my female friends in academia who choose children face these issues. Equality is a great idea, but not all of us have a uterus.

My answer to Dr. Drezner's question in the headline of this post: Absolutely. I am a graduate student in international security, a lawyer (with two law degrees), a wife, and a mother of two boys -- one of whom I had 2 weeks before starting my Ph.D. program and the other one I had 2 years in. And you know what? I'm doing just fine. I have a supportive husband (who would never even think of asking the question Dr. Drezner does here), and a "good sense" of what I'm researching and what I want to do with my degree(s) when I'm done. Perhaps most importantly, I have chosen advisors who, apparently unlike Dr. Drezner, believe that women are no different than men in their abilities - professional, personal, and intellectual - to succeed in this field.

Her "expert" health care almost cost her husband his re-election to the presidency. She fumbled her health care bill big time. Her foreign policy experience must have been getting drunk and imagining that she was under sniper fire. She believes she is smarter than economists who are, as she says "elite", but with a track record like this it isn't hard to see why she has fooled herself into believing all of this..

"Is rio orange war always forfait blackberry inevitable ?"
MaximB

Really interesting article. Thanks!

I'd add that encouraging women in academia and security studies promotes normalising the perception of confident and intelligent women. Having attended an all girl school in the UK, I saw how many girls buried the outspoken intelligent parts of their personalities, in order to create a version of themselves considered more 'feminine' and 'attractive'. It was, and is, so saddening to see these girls shy away from aspects of themselves that men are encouraged to embrace. Examples of successful, educated, and intelligent women could help to shift this perception, especially if the notion of 'femininity' is expanded.