Successful women are not liked. I think the biggest danger for women in science is colleagues who are not as good as you are.

In systemic searches for embryonic lethal mutants of Drosophila melanogaster we have identified 15 loci which when mutated alter the segmental patterns of the larva. These loci probably represent the majority of such genes in Drosophila. The phenotypes of the mutant embryos indicate that the process of segmentation involves at least three levels of spatial organization: the entire egg as developmental unit, a repeat unit with the length of two segments, and the individual segment.

I think there is too much attention on mentoring. If people want to be scientists, they will figure out how to do it. They need to figure it out by themselves.

Not everybody is talented for doing research. I think many women prefer to look for an easier job after their dissertations because it is very demanding. You have to be mobile. You have to move to different places for your post-doc training. And if you aren't successful, it isn't a very pleasant job, either.

I was always trying to look modest and natural. I don't like women who come into the lab and you see immediately that it took them two hours to dress in the morning.

The drive to want to know is innate in people. You cannot influence this. I think in contrast it is harmful if you push kids too far in a particular direction.

I think women who are pretty certainly have an advantage in any field, in any profession. When a girl is born people still say: Oh, I'm glad that she is pretty. They don't look at whether she is intelligent.