Is the recession upping the ante on birth control and/or abortion? Two writers in my authors group ask the question this week. Check out Lauren Sandler over at The Big Money: No Way Baby – Are Market Forces the Ultimate Contraception? And Annie Murphy Paul over at Double X: Is the Recession Causing More Abortions?
And then, there are those, like (ahem) me, going entirely the other direction…
This month Science Grrl looks at the mother-daughter bond in science & engineering.
First, the only mother – daughter duo to ever win the Nobel Prize was the Curies. Marie Curie won twice: first in 1903 for her discovery of radiation and second in 1911 in chemistry for her work on radium and polonium. Marie’s daughter Irène Joliot-Curie won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935. Irène had built upon the work that Marie and her father, Pierre, had started. While we can stand in awe of the mother-daughter science-duo and the amazing knowledge they brought to our world, their relationship wasn’t ideal. Marie “was so obsessed with her science and the discovery of radioactivity that she pretty much ignored her two daughters and after her husband’s tragic death retreated into her mind even more.”
I try to temper this view of Marie with the knowledge that she lived in a vastly different time than we do. It was a time when she almost HAD to marry a scientist to gain access to good lab space and equipment. Her partnership with Pierre was born not just from love, but also from need of resources. She was often not chosen for faculty positions because she was a woman or because Pierre already had one. Today universities have spousal hire rules to allow them to hire one “lead” partner for a tenure track position and then hire the “trailing” partner for maybe a tenure track position or adjunct faculty position. A generation ago there were rules at universities that outlawed nepotism or the hiring of both husband and wife into academic faculty positions. While yes, it is nepotism it’s not the same nepotism that we warn against when we think our cousin might be the best person for a job.
Luckily things are far better for moms in science today. It’s far from perfect, but I can only imagine the amazing work the Curie women could have done today!
We also shouldn’t forget to mention that moms are often the #1 advocate for daughters who want to get into science and engineering. My late mom didn’t totally get my aspirations for marine biology, but she supported my decision and that meant the world to me. I found a curriculum online for creating a mother-daughter Science Club. They do recommend you buy their biography books, but I’m sure you can switch out biographies you find online or in your local library. As someone who works with college students, I find that one of the many issues young women have is getting their parents to understand why they want to major in physics rather than biology and go to medical school. The education goes both ways in this issue!
So girls, get your mom involved in your decisions and moms push your daughter to reach for the stars.
Why do some men support gender diversity in leadership while others REALLY DON’T? Catalyst asks this question through a new body of research evaluating men’s involvement with gender diversity in a report released today titled, Engaging Men In Gender Initiatives: What Change Agents Need To Know. The study tells us a lot about men’s advocacy for gender equality at work.
Straight from the release:
Bringing men into the conversation of diversity is in a company’s best interest and is paramount to creating equality in business leadership. “The preponderance of men in leadership means their efforts are necessary to advance change in the workplace,†said Ilene H. Lang, President & CEO of Catalyst. “Research continues to show that diversity well-managed yields more innovation and is tied to enhanced financial performance − factors good for all employees.â€
When asked about what keeps men from supporting gender initiatives, some men who were interviewed for the study pointed to a “zero-sum†mentality – a belief that gains for women necessarily mean losses for men. Companies may inadvertently encourage this line of thinking by instituting practices that increase competition between employees and put the focus on the individual first above the organization as a whole. A shift away from this “win or lose†mentality to a recognition that everybody benefits from gender equality can lead men to become greater advocates of change.
What are some characteristics that make men advocates for gender equality? The report finds that men who are seen as champions of diversity have a strong sense of fairness. Men who were committed to the ideal of fairness were found to have more personal concerns about issues of equality in general and were more aware of gender bias in the workplace and likely to take action.
Men identified as taking action on gender diversity indicated factors that may work as roadblocks to becoming champions of equality. These obstacles included two barriers to men’s engagement: fear of losing status or of being seen as part of the problem, and apathy – a sense that issues of gender do not concern men. Organizations can take steps to help remove these barriers and engage men in initiatives to promote gender equality by appealing to men’s sense of fairness, providing men with women mentors, exposing men to male leaders who champion inclusion, and inviting men into the discussion through male-only and male/female groups. In addition, research shows that men gain significant personal benefits such as better health, freedom to be themselves, and the ability to share financial responsibilities with a spouse or partner when working in a place free of gender bias.
Amen to all that, I say. You can download a pdf version of study here.
Slate’s new online magazine “written mostly by women, but not just for them,” Double X, is launched! Do check it out:
An article in the Business section of today’s NYTimes notes that “Although the editors describe the site as a savvy, intellectual, feminist antidote to glossy, celebrity-obsessed women’s magazines, it will not turn away male readers, which they say have made up 40 percent of the blog’s readership.”
Um, maybe that’s because men can be feminists too? For more on THAT topic, run, don’t walk, to go get your copy of our very own Shira Tarrant’s Men and Feminism
Happy reading, all around 🙂
You heard it here first! Or rather, folks have heard it on Publisher’s Lunch last week, and I’m uberexcited to share the news with the GWP community. Here’s the listing announcing my next project (title, of course, subject to change!):
NON-FICTION: HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS
Young feminist commentator and author of SISTERHOOD, INTERRUPTED: FROM RADICAL WOMEN TO GRRLS GONE WILD Deborah Siegel’s MAN ENOUGH: HOW THE NEW MANHOOD IS CHANGING WOMEN’S LIVES, exploring how young men today may express very different attitudes about gender equality than previous generations but at the same time our cultural ideals of masculinity have not changed very much, to Amy Caldwell at Beacon Press, in a nice deal, by Tracy Brown at Tracy Brown Literary Agency (NA).
I launched the weekend by reading my first official parenting book: Amy Tiemann’s mojo-y book, Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family
Chapter 1 begins: “It is tempting to romanticize miraculous transformations.” The chapter’s epigraph reads: “Sometimes you just have to take a leap and build your wings on the way down.” Still barfing at 13 weeks, I’m having a wee bit of a hard time when well-intentioned friends and loved ones say to me “this is such a special time! enjoy each moment!” Because it’s hard to enjoy it all when you’re on the verge of 24/7 puke. Believe me, I am overjoyed beyond belief that I am at this particular juncture; but overjoy and “enjoy” are not the same thing.
But I digress. I really wanted to use this post to send a HUGE shout out to Amy for writing this book, and for writing a second edition of it, one which addresses more of the cultural conversation around motherhood. I’d been feeling intimidated by all those books with light pink covers written about pregnancy and mothering and couldn’t bring myself to read anything other than The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, which Marco picked out for me early on. Mojo Mom is helping me build confidence that I will find my own way into this whole pregnancy and motherhood gambit, that there are motherhood books written for women like me, and that there are fellow travelers out there–Amy did a PhD in neuroscience and is on the executive team of MomsRising.org (and a longtime supporter of Women for Women International)–to guide the way.
For some more hardcore political reading, definitely check out the opeds in today’s NYTimes on what to give mothers in the developing world, and the stats and links Kyla rounded up over at The REAL Deal (“Motherhood by the Numbers”).
And to all the moms out there, the moms-in-the-making, and the moms-in-waiting (I have a number of friends in this latter camp), and to my own extremely amazing mother, who I am becoming more and more grateful for every day, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
I’m excited to help honor and celebrate 21 amazing women tonight at the Women’s eNews Benefit. And I love the way they are describing this group: Seven Who Seven Who Break the Barriers of Bias, Seven Who Stretch the Possible, and Seven Who Redraw the Boundaries. And each honoree has a superhero name too.
My dear friend and colleague Jacki Zehner is among the honorees. She’s categorized as a Redrawer of Boundaries and identified as Investor in Female Futures. Also honored tonight are Guider of Girl Techies (Kathy Rodgveller), Flag-Bearer for Equal Pay (Lily Ledbetter), and Grower of Latina Power (Dusti Gurule).
What would your superhero name be?!
I just hung up the phone with a new author who has a book project that I’m very excited about. I can’t tell you much about her project just yet—I’m trying to keep it on the down low for as long as possible—but I’ll say this: it kicks some serious bottom, and I can’t wait to work with her on it in the next handful of months.
I was telling her exactly this when she asked me The Question. “So,” she asked, “are you my editor?”
I don’t like this question. It makes me feel stuck somewhere between Kierkegaard’s Who am I?! and that PD Eastman book where the bird falls out of the tree and thinks the bulldozer is his mother.
I also don’t like the question because I tend not to handle the answering of it very well. I usually say something like, “Well, yes and no … ” Sometimes I say, “Well, no and yes …” Because that can be true, too.
Being a writer and all, I know my author can handle irony. But she didn’t seem too happy with me. So I did what I often do when I get asked The Question: I launched into an excessively detailed exegesis of the variations on Editor, and I’ll share it with you now so you never have to suffer the way my poor author did today.
As an author, you will likely have many editors. Some of them will edit your manuscript—that is, they will actually read what you have written and make suggestions for improvements to the language, pace, tone, and scope of your writing. Other editors will not edit your manuscript, but they will still be your editors.
The first editor an author meets is almost always the acquisitions editor. This is the person who is responsible for making a contractual offer for your project and negotiating the terms of the contract until it’s agreed upon by the publisher and the author. Some acquisitions editors only acquire, while others do other kinds of editing as well. Therefore, your acquisitions editor may or may not also be your …
Developmental editor. The developmental editor is the person who works with you to shape your project into a final and complete manuscript. A DE might make comments such as, “Have you ever thought about adding directions for a knitting project to the end of each chapter? Knitting is very in” or, “Chapter 12: more sex.” This is the most intensive/creative edit your book will get, though not all books even require a developmental edit. If yours does, your DE may or may not also be your …
Project editor. The project editor—also called your “in house” editor, or your shepherding editor, or your championing editor, or more often than anything else, generically “your editor”—may or may not actually do any editing of your book. She will, however, be the publisher’s point person for your project and, hopefully, an advocate for you and your book. She’ll discuss with you such things as cover design, deadlines, and your pub date, and she’ll convey any feedback the other staffers may have about your book (i.e., “Marketing says that Eat, Pray, Schlep isn’t really working for them as a title.”) Your project editor will likely oversee the descriptive copy that’s written about your book for publicity and catalog purposes to ensure it’s in line with what your manuscript will be delivering. Your project editor is most likely not also your …
Copyeditor. The copyeditor reads your manuscript and makes edits in accordance with such wonkiness as house style, grammar, and consistency. She may also ask you questions such as, “Re Charlotte Sometimes reference on page 233: Is this a reference to the time-travel YA novel by Penelope Farmer or the B side of The Cure’s Splintered in Her Head? Please clarify.” The copyeditors are actually the most underappreciated of the bunch—they are the unsung heroes of the editorial team, often a freelancer who polishes your manuscript until it shines and then disappears into the night. A tip: Ask your project editor if you can write a brief memo to the copyeditor before she begins her pass. That way you can flag any special words (“please stet spelling of golldangit”) or styles (“I prefer to refer to characters by a single capitalized letter and a long dash, as in ‘M—’, even though critics will likely find me affected for doing so. Please stet.”)
One more editor who will get her hands dirty on your book is the proofreader, who will review your book for accuracy after it’s been laid out. (Another tip: Ask your editor—you’ll know which one to ask when the time comes—if you can see the pages after the proofreader has taken her pass. Your editor may hate you for it, but it’s the only way you’ll see the absolutely final pages before they’re printed. She may say no—there often isn’t time for this extra step—but if you ask very, very nicely and promise to return with edits within, say, 24 hours, you might just get a yes.)
And now you know why The Question is so stressful. Why yes and no is accurate, as is no and yes. My recommendation: offer each so-called editor at your publisher a checklist and ask them to check all that apply.
Well, here we go. I’ve decided today is the day to officially “come out”: I’m pregnant! I’m 12-and-a-half weeks along, and here’s the kicker: it’s twins. OMG OMG Marco and I are still getting used to saying that out loud. “It’s twins.”
That fertility stuff can really work. I bow, with tremendous humility and gratitude, to the miracles of modern medicine.
It’s been strange sitting on this piece of rather all-encompassing information for the past three months and not sharing it with the world–or at least, I mean, with the GWP community. So it’s a relief to say it. I’m pregnant. I really am.  We went for the first round of testing yesterday, and so far, all clear. Two heartbeats, two fetuses of relatively same size, both swishing around and doing their thing.
I’ve been confused about whether to pregnancy blog or not, but, well, I just broke my own taboo. So there you have it. I’m preggers. Overjoyed to the point of tears, feeling a little clueless, and nauseous as all hell.
Marco has been wonderful. It’s been serendipitous, really, having him home while I’ve been feeling so physically bleh. Today he went back to his freelance job for a few days, however, which is also quite nice, of course. My Love in the Time of Layoff column is about to become Pregnant in the Time of Layoff. I suppose my next column over there will have to be something about momentarily breadwinning wife expecting twins?! (My Recessionwire contribution has gone from weekly to monthly, by the way, due to, shall we say, other demands…)
