Archive: Jun 2009

My dear friend (and fellow member of my writers’ group) Rachel Lehmann-Haupt appeared on Good Morning America this week discussing women’s fertility options without that note of sensational panic with which this topic is usually covered.  Remember the one about how a woman over 35 has a better chance of being in a terrorist attack that getting married and having kids?  No more.

I heart Rachel for writing In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment, and Motherhood, for celebrating choice in an age of mixed messages about the “proper” timing of women’s lives, and for honoring the myriad configurations of the modern family these days.  Watch her, right here!

(“Love the purple.  It’s working for you.”)

We’ve heard of the cock block, right? Well, here’s a new one (I just made it up — maybe): the Dad block.

According to a Wall Street Journal article today, “Helping Moms to Let Dads Be Dads,” research shows how kids benefit from having a positive, involved father, but negative “gatekeeping” by mothers can be an obstacle.  Hmm…Must go investigate this.

For another look at modern fatherhood, check out Sharon Jayson’s article in USA Today, “New Daditude”.

Look for more from me on dads at Slate’s The Big Money on Friday! And, of course, ahem, at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday at 2pm, where I’ll be whooping it up with my fellow WomenGirlsLadies.

(Thanks to CCF and to Rebekah at the WMC–always–for the heads ups)

I believe in equal marriage rights for all – I am absolutely infuriated with the Obama Administration’s recent stunt defending the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court, and I cried like a baby when watching the Courage Campaign’s ‘Don’t Divorce Us’ video (come on, everyone did!). But something about the current same sex marriage debates is leaving me uneasy, particularly now that it is starting to hit close to home.

No sooner did New York Governor Patterson hold his press conference announcing a same sex marriage bill than did people start asking, ‘so when are you going to get married, then?’ Having been outside of the heterosexual societal expectation to get married for some time, it was shocking to have that pressure thrust back on me again.

The assumption that now that same sex couples could get married that we automatically should – or even want to – is presumptuous on many levels. And this is not to mention the language of “love” that’s been attached to the whole thing (an argument made by even the most well-intentioned hetero allies goes something like this: “Come on, how can we deny two people in love the right to get married?”) – as if two people can only express how much they love each other if they have a state-sanctioned document to prove it, a line of thinking which, in effect, invalidates many long-term, committed partnerships by both hetero and same-sex couples who chose not to marry.

The debates around same sex marriage are for me akin to some of the long-standing debates on feminist goals: should we be looking for equality with men (i.e. to be “just like everybody else”) or should we be trying to change the entire system? While I (and most feminist scholars) would probably argue that it’s the former “liberal” or “equality” feminist perspective that has been widely adopted in terms of fighting for policy and legal rights for women in the U.S., I’ve always been rather fond of the latter approach, even if the results might be a bit more difficult (and take much longer) to achieve. In any event, I think that it provides a useful lens though which to look at the current debates on same sex marriage. And I am not alone.

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A simply-must-read over at American Prospect, “When Opting Out Isn’t an Option”, offers a four-part look at the under-explored side of the current recession:  How is recession affecting women who have to balance caregiving with wage-earning, and who make up an immense but largely invisible workforce, including nannies, maids and retail clerks?

Contributors include Heather Boushey, Ann Friedman, Dana Goldstein, Janet C. Gornick, Harriet B. Presser, Caroline Batzdorf and Elissa Strauss. Need I say more?

(Thanks to CCF for the heads up)

I’ve been busy working up my comments for this Saturday’s 2pm panel at the Brooklyn Museum, billed as “a fresh conversation among feminists in honor of Father’s Day.” We’re an editor’s pick over at the Daily News and Time Out is supposed to be featuring us too!

We’ve been launching a multimedia publicity attack, so if you receive email from me and another from Facebook, please bear with us.  As always, it’s one great experiment in getting the word out in the age of social media.  (Learning lots along the way!)

For a taste of WomenGirlsLadies, you can check out this YouTube video from one of our past events:

My fellow WGLs Courtney Martin, Gloria Feldt, Kristal Brent Zook, and I REALLY like to make these talks interactive, so it’d be so great to have YOUR voices there! And if anyone’s game for liveblogging it here on GWP, the door is open!  Just email me and let me know.  K?

I will look for some of ya’ll there! Where you can find me:

Everything You Need to Know about Blogging and Why
10:45 am – 12:15 pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9206
NYC

Last week National Academies Press released findings from a new research study on the status of women in science and engineering that signals some great progress. It was commissioned to look at how the numbers change when women apply for tenure-track positions as well as their advancement on campus from assistant professor to fully tenured professor.

The key thing to remember is that the report is a snapshot report for the years 2004-2005. But the snapshot taken is one of change:

If women applied for positions at RI institutions, they had a better chance of being interviewed and receiving offers than male job candidates had. Many departments at Research I institutions, both public and private, have made an effort to increase the numbers and proportions of female faculty in the sciences, engineering and mathematics. Having women play a visible role in the hiring process, for example, has clearly made a difference. [PDF]

Since 2001, the National Science Foundation through its ADVANCE program has invested over $130 million towards finding solutions to the problem of underrepresentation of women faculty members in science and engineering and that includes the hiring and promotion process. Very simply put, ADVANCE teams around the country have come to the conclusion that unconscious bias towards women from men and women has hindered the hiring and promotion of women faculty in STEM fields. This means that gendered expectations come into play. Is there evidence of children in a candidate’s life? Bonus points for the man, negative for the woman. Look at the support letters: Are women described with weak words and men with strong ones?

One very simple trick to increasing women in an applicant pool (any applicant pool, I tell conference and panel organizers this too) is when you are speaking with a contact about potential job candidates to ask specifically, especially if none are named, for women and people of color. I continue to be amazed at stories from members of search committees who have been on the phone with a friend who still names only white men, but then remembers that there are women and people of color in the larger department.

Interesting though is the finding that the mere presence of a woman chairing the search committee will mean that women will apply for that position. We don’t have enough women to chair each search committee out there, so we need to do a better job asking women to apply.

An increase in women in the pool, getting interviews and offers, and doing just as well as men in terms of promotion should be a reason to celebrate. A lot of hard work has gone into getting to this point (which is not an end point, by the way), so why are some grumbling about discrimination?

The Chronicle noted the findings and a polite discussion about meritocracy and advantages that women receive, to the detriment of men, is happening. Seriously? Let’s look at the numbers from the study:
• Women account for about 17 percent of applications for both tenure-track and tenured positions in the departments surveyed;
• …there were no female applicants (only men applied) for 32 (6 percent) of the available tenure-track positions and 16 (16.5 percent) of the tenured positions.

Women applying for academic positions are in a very small pool, thus the higher proportion of them being hired is a sign of progress. In biology, where 60-65% of undergraduates are women and 45% of PhDs go to women, men still receive 66% of the academic position offers at Research I institutions.
I know that it can seem threatening that the shift is happening, but the shift is happening towards balance, towards equity. And even with these shifts happening, I still hear people describe the Latina hired in Chemistry as “Outstanding!” meaning she didn’t get this because she’s Latina, we just took the time and rolled up our sleeves to find that outstanding Latina with an amazing research plan. When we can get to the day when we report that of the last 10 hires at Your University we had 5 women, 4 people of color and leave it at that, then we’ll really be getting somewhere.

My latest, up at Recessionwire.com today!  Today’s post questions whether laid off men’s (ok, Marco’s) values are changing, now that they’re spending more time at home.  Hint: It’s all about the eggs. I’d love your comments!

According to a recent report from National Center for Health Statistics, nearly 40 percent of all babies born in the United States in 2007, up from 34 percent in 2002 and 18 percent in 1980, were born to “unmarried” (their word) women.  And the other week (May 26), Cathy Young asked in a Boston Globe article (“Single Mothers and the Baby Boom“) whether we should be treating single motherhood as “the new normal” or (once again) as a problem that needs to be addressed.  Writes Young:

Today, we have two contradictory trends. Millions of fathers are involved in hands-on child care to an unprecedented degree; millions of children have little or no contact with their fathers. Ironically, the mother-child family unit takes us back to a very pre-feminist idea: family and child-rearing as a feminine sphere. (For both biological and cultural reasons, men are far less likely to parent on their own.) Male alienation is another likely result.…Certainly, many single parents do a wonderful job of raising their children and many married couples do not. But in general, the two-parent family does work best for children, women, and men, and marriage seems the best way to ensure it. No one wants to go back to the day when unwed mothers and their children were outcasts. But restoring a cultural commitment to married parenting is a goal that should unite sensible conservatives, sane fathers’ rights advocates, and reasonable feminists.

Call me unreasonable, but I’m not so sure.

And on that note, be sure to check out Rachel Lehmann-Haupt’s awesome new book, In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment, and Motherhood.  Rachel will be talking it up on Good Morning America next week, and keep an eye out for forthcoming reviews in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. This book is generating BUZZ.

(Thanks, of course, to CCF for the heads up on Young’s article.)

Tis the season of awesome events here in NYC, if you’re into next-generation feminism that is.

On THURSDAY, the National Council for Research on Women will hold a special session as part of their Annual Conference on Igniting Change, called “Youth: Opportunities and Challenges for Building Leadership Pipelines”. The session takes place from 9:00 am – 10:30 am in Room 9205 at CUNY Graduate Center. Here’s the descript: As tomorrow’s voters and leaders, young women need to be vital partners in advancing the movement for social justice. This means working in partnership with young women, recognizing and valuing their diversity, to understand their perspectives and concerns and foster programs that emphasize both their rights and civic responsibilities. The panel will highlight current issues facing young women and address structural and cultural factors that support or hinder their empowerment. Attention will also be given to strategies for working across generational and cultural differences to build a viable movement.” Speakers include Rosalina Diaz-Miranda, Medgar Evers College, CUNY; Supriya Pillai, Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing; Kim Salmond, Girl Scouts of the USA; Ellen Silber, Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University; Sally Stevens, Southwest Institute for Research on Women, University of Arizona; and Liz Abzug, Bella Abzug Leadership Institute.

On FRIDAY, the blog of all blogs, Feministing, is throwing a 5th anniversary fundraising bash. Even if you can’t go, you can still contribute!

On SUNDAY, Girls Write Now will hold their Annual Spring Reading from 4-6pm at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th Street. Some of NYC’s best teen writers will showcase original work, and keynote speaker Amy Robach and featured reader National Book Award Nominee Jean Thompson will be there too. The event is FREE and open to the public.

And that’s just this week!