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I just read your article on women in academia spending more time on being ¡°good citizens¡±, undertaking administrative tasks and so forth, than on gunning for their own research as men do, and hence women fail to match these men in getting promotion (¡°Female professors ¡®pay price for academic citizenship¡¯¡±, News, 14 December).

I wanted to add the viewpoint of a shamelessly ambitious and brilliant (and child-free) female academic. I¡¯ve been asked if I would like to dutifully chair the faculty and so on, and I have declined. I¡¯ve pursued my research and changed my field ¨C and I still haven¡¯t been promoted.

The point about these stories ¨C which can summed up as ¡°women aren¡¯t doing the right things¡± ¨C is that they let the hierarchies off the basic fact, which is that they look at someone like me and think ¡°that doesn¡¯t look like a professor¡±.

I realise you were trying to make the point that we ought to value good citizenship, which would be great; but whether that happens or not, we need to acknowledge that not all women have feminine career patterns ¨C and they are held back nonetheless.

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