Opinion: Why you shouldn't call the women in your lab (or anyone, really) "lab mom"

I've been talking to grad students and one mentioned this in passing - group members referring to her as "lab mom" - and this happened to me as well, and many other women, but I thought we'd kind of, moved forward as a community. Guess not.

The term "lab mom" is misoginystic and reductive. Women are scientists, technicians, group members. Your female colleagues are not there to be nurturing and caretaking, they're there to do science - the same as any male chemist. Anyone who uses the term is touting their lack of regard for the continued inequality of and unequitable attitudes towards women.

Women get asked to do a disproportionate amount of group culture and administrative tasks even without this label. We get asked to plan social events (because we're just so good at it) and maintain calendars for the group and in some cases even specifically for our PI (because we're just so good at multitasking and planning!), we get invited to be on EDI and women in science panels, to take speakers out to lunches (you're just better at socializing), the list goes on. The scientific expectations do not change with these increasing asks - we still have to spend the same amount of hours at the bench, but are expected to do all the "extras" too.Using this term is inherently the same as showing a lack of respect for your female colleagues. Instead of relying on the women in your groups to do all of the planning, social activities, organizational tasks, use the opportunities to gain some soft skills that you will ABSOLUTELY need in industry/as a professor.

Toxic lab culture is such a huge barrier to women going into PhD programs, and I've talked a lot with different groups of people about potential reasons for the "leaky pipeline effect". It's really hard convince women to enter a field where attitudes and language like this still exist, and we're often 1/X or 2/X in chemistry graduate groups, where in my graduate lab, the X=11.  Same in post-doc. This can be intimidating at the best of times, and at the worst of times - you get called "lab mom" as a result of trying to make the lab a better place for everyone, and asked to plan a birthday party instead of doing the science you came to graduate school for.Thank you to Srujana Lam for assistance in articulating the issue.