While The New York Times ponders “Did liberal feminism ruin the workplace?” during a podcast published on Nov. 6, New Mexico State University’s female-led research lab shows the power of feminization in the workplace.
During the NYT podcast “Interesting Times”, the host, Ross Douthat, asked various questions to two female authors, Helen Andrews, who wrote an essay titled “The Great Feminization,” and Leah Libresco Sargeant, who wrote a book titled “The Dignity of Dependence.”
There seemed to be a common theme during the interview where both women appeared to suggest that liberal feminism is detrimental to women because the workspace is typically catered toward men.
The two women suggested that women do not thrive in those spaces and harm themselves and men by forcing themselves to fit and neglecting their traditional and biological roles as child bearers.
So, what happens when the roles change and women are in power of creating their own space and social systems in the workplace?
In NMSU’s own landscape, we can find the answers tucked in a hallway of Foster Hall, where a colorful door decorated with mushrooms and words of inclusion leads to Professor Adriana Romero-Olivares.
Romero-Olivares and her students show how the feminization of the workplace allows students to flourish.
Romero-Olivares is an assistant professor of Biology at New Mexico State University. In her lab, she and her students explore how microbes, specifically fungi, respond and adapt to environmental stress and how that may affect global and human life.
There’s something else unique about this research lab, it’s currently made up of all women researchers.
Romero-Olivares said that having all female students is not intentional, and has not always been the case, but she looks for a certain criterion in students when they apply to her lab.
“Motivation is most important for me,” Romero-Olivares said.
Aside from motivation, she said she looks for her students to be interested, open to learning, and can make time to be present and active in the lab.
Unexpectedly so, women have seemingly been the majority outcome of those personality and work ethic traits she looks for.
Romero-Olivares reflected how many of her own mentors, like those during her Ph.D. and post-doctorate advisors, were women.
“I was not like, ‘I want a woman,’ it was not like that, but maybe it was subconscious,” she said. “I’ve had community members and colleagues who are men, and they’ve been wonderful, but I just feel safer working with women.”
Having women mentors helped show Romero-Olivares that she can have it all. She said many of her mentors had children and families, which showed her she too can have a full career and family; she does not need to limit herself.
One of Romero-Olivares’s students, Maya Clausen, said working with Romero-Olivares has been a huge contributor in shaping her and her academic career.
“As a young woman in science, I have always felt that Dr. Romero was very approachable and created a space where the primary goal of my employment was for furthering my research and analytical tool kits,” Clausen said.
While Clausen has never had a close male mentor, she said that while applying to graduate schools, she remained more drawn to female principal investigators (PIs) because of the impact Romero-Olivares has had on her.
Clausen also recalled a conversation she had with another young female scientist at the Ecological Society of America conference that influenced her to shift away from male PIs.
“She explicitly attributed many of the issues she had to the fact that he [the PI] was a 35-year-old male,” Clausen said. “Many of these issues related to crude comments based on her gender.”
Clausen said her colleague revealed that her PI said he chose women for his lab because it boosted his lab’s DEI fundability. The colleague also expressed that the power dynamic made her uncomfortable in one-on-one and group settings.
Clausen said she’s thrived in the women-dominated environment she’s currently a part of.
“I am surrounded by inspirational and extraordinary women who helped to pave the way for young scientists like myself to not be scared to be passionate,” Clausen said.
Romero-Olivares has continued the cycle of mentorship from being inspired by her mentors to inspiring her mentees.
“She [Romero-Olivares] is also a woman who can truly do it all: a distinguished, respected, and influential teacher, an active member of her community, and a mother. I hope to achieve some of these titles, and I know that it’s possible because of her,” Clausen said.
Romero-Olivares has not only been positively influential to her female mentees but also to her male mentees.
Karim Rojo, who graduated from NMSU in spring 2025, was one of two men who worked in the previous lab alongside the women.
Rojo said the environment of the lab was continually supportive, and he never felt treated any differently for being a man.
“I always felt comfortable in every situation, and seeing how knowledgeable these women were was amazing to experience,” Rojo said.
Both Clausen and Rojo said that Romero-Olivares was organized and great at communication, which helped them stay on top of deadlines and focus on their lab work. They said her attention to detail and ability to explain procedures helped them grow and learn effortlessly.
“I also felt like I could talk to Dr. Romero about anything, which is something that usually cannot happen with a man,” Rojo said.
In leading her students and pursuing her own career and life, Romero-Olivares proves that women do not need to bend to fit in the structures men have created. Instead, women can break down the walls, helping not only women but everyone.
