Archive: 2011

Speaking of Superwoman, today at Framingham State University Stephanie Coontz is coming to campus: that is a highlight! A low light this week, feels like, is the airing of Waiting for Superman – that’s the anti-teachers union documentary that pulls heartstrings, and, as Diane Ravitch discusses in the New York Review of Books, misrepresents a lot about charter schools and teachers unions. A column in the NYRB, no matter how smart, doesn’t have the emotional impact of a documentary. Ravitch summarizes the American disappointment in education that underlies the film, and notes,

At last we have the culprit on which we can pin our anger, our palpable sense that something is very wrong with our society, that we are on the wrong track, and that America is losing the race for global dominance. It is not globalization or deindustrialization or poverty or our coarse popular culture or predatory financial practices that bear responsibility: it’s the public schools, their teachers, and their unions.

I’m banking on some grounded dialogue at my school on Waiting for Superman that can overcome the intense manipulation we’ve been receiving these days regarding the public sector and teachers. You can check out the American Federation of Teachers site on this topic. And Not Waiting for Superman recently has provided considerable material related to the war in Wisconsin; “Not Waiting” was founded by Rethinking Schools “to talk back to the film and support efforts by teachers, students, and parents to improve and preserve public education.”

Here’s the concern about WFS: As Ravitch notes about the film’s celebration of the success of charter schools:

Some fact-checking is in order, and the place to start is with the film’s quiet acknowledgment that only one in five charter schools is able to get the “amazing results” that it celebrates.

She goes on regarding the function of such a film,

Why propound to an unknowing public the myth that charter schools are the answer to our educational woes, when the filmmaker knows that there are twice as many failing charters as there are successful ones? Why not give an honest accounting?

I don’t know the answer. But here’s the deal: there is a discourse of going after teachers, and teachers are disproportionately women. As part of the ongoing “war on the public sector” that I wrote about last month, the anti-union rhetoric in general seems all mixed up with anti-woman sentiments. Women make up a higher percentage of public sector unions overall, and especially teacher unions. According to 2010 data from the Current Population Survey analyzed for GWP by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, women were 56 percent of all unionized public sector workers. For more information see CEPR’s state by state review of public sector union participation. You can see a girlwpen dialogue on the benefits of unions to women here.

I am not waiting for Superwoman. I already know a lot of Superwomen–and Supermen, my fellow teachers.

–Virginia Rutter

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act.  I encourage everyone to become familiar with what the Act has already accomplished, as well as the plans through 2015 (see an interactive timeline online).

Today, I dedicate this month’s column to reflecting on one of the new consumer protections that is scheduled to become effective January 1, 2014, No Discrimination Due to Pre-Existing Conditions or Gender:

Before the Affordable Care Act became law, insurance companies selling individual policies could deny coverage to women due to pre-existing conditions, such as cancer and having been pregnant. 

A WhiteHouse.Gov fact-sheet describes the ways in which, “The Affordable Care Act Gives Womem Greater Control Over Their Own Health Care.”  When I first read it, even as a feminist medical sociologist familiar with health care inequities, a few lines jumped out at me:

Right now, a healthy 22-year-old woman can be charged premiums 150 percent higher than a 22-year-old man.

Less than half of women have the option of obtaining health insurance through a job.

Today, maternity benefits are often not provided in health plans in the individual insurance market.

I appreciate the many positive effects this law has on women, men and children, but I find myself asking: why did the Affordable Care Act not include this provision — to eliminate discrimination to due to gender — among its original 2010 provisions?  A comparable provision was effective as of September 23, 2010 for children:

…health plans that cover children can no longer exclude, limit or deny coverage to your child under age 19 solely based on a health problem or disability that your child developed before you applied for coverage.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for protecting children’s rights to receiving coverage.  As a mom, I understand the instinct to want to protect one’s child before one’s self.  However, it feels like the policy-makers did not take into account the body of research on the direct correlations between maternal health and child health.  To put it simply, an unhealthy mom is not good for the health of her child — whether or not her child has excellent or poor health care coverage.

For example, a 2005 article in the journal PEDIATRICS documents research findings that,

“Maternal depressive symptoms in early infancy contribute to unfavorable patterns of health care seeking for children.” 

Another 2005 article examined the psychological and physical health of adult caregives of children with cerebral palsy and found that:

The psychological and physical health of caregivers, who in this study were primarily mothers, was strongly influenced by child behavior and caregiving demands…These data support clinical pathways that require biopsychosocial frameworks that are family centered, not simply technical and short-term rehabilitation interventions that are focused primarily on the child.

It’s easy to imagine the ways in which a child’s health might suffer if her/his primary caretaker has poor mental and physical health.  And, solely providing health care to the child did not necessarily improve the health outcomes of the caregiving moms.

One more example along the lines of the effects of maternal depression is the case of pediatric asthma.  A 2007 article in the Journal of Health Economics reports a study which shows:

…treatment of mother’s depression improves management of child’s asthma, resulting in a reduction in asthma costs in the 6-month period following diagnosis of $798 per asthmatic child whose mother is treated for depression.

Our health care system will likely save more money once we end insurance company discrimination on the basis of sex/gender.  Now, I recognize that not all women are mothers, but the overwhelming majority of mothers are women.  So, if the gendered division of labors in most families remains such that moms are primarily in charge of maintaing and protecting the health of their children, then wouldn’t we want these caregivers to have access to affordable, quality health care before 2014? 

That said, I am grateful that this law passed and hope that we will continue to work on ways to strengthen coverage for all Americans.

Since becoming a first-time mother 17 months ago over here, I’ve decided that PAMPERING OTHER MOTHERS can be a feminist act.  In that spirit, I share news of a new offering of mine:

Rejuvenate Your Writing Life!

A Restorative Mini-Retreat for Writing Mamas

With authors Deborah Siegel and Christina Baker Kline

Saturday, May 21, 9:30am – 3:30pm
Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture

For details (like, you know, how to register!) click here.

I’m thrilled to be teaming up with my fellow She Writer Christina on this one. In addition to being one of the most prolific writers I know, she’s a gifted teacher. Plus, two people have now said we look alike.  Which makes me smile.  A lot.  Come meet us in person and see if you agree 🙂

Many GWP readers know Christina from the anthology of personal essays she coedited called About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror and the book she co-authored, with her mother, on feminist mothers and daughters called The Conversation Begins.  She also commissioned and edited two widely praised collections of original essays on the first year of parenthood and raising young children, Child of Mine and Room to Grow.  Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Yale Review, Southern Living, Ms., Parents, and Family Life, among other places.  In addition to writing nonfiction, she’s also a novelist (Bird in Hand, The Way Life Should Be, Desire Lines and Sweet Water), Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University, and an on-staff editor and writing coach at the social networking site SheWrites.com.

Our first retreat is taking place in Brooklyn.  But Christina and I are also available to take it on the road.  To discuss the possibility of bringing this retreat to a locale near YOU, please email me at deborah[at]shewrites[dot]com.

When my dear friend and beloved colleague Gloria Feldt invited me to write a guest post for the 9 Ways blog in honor of Women’s History Month, I thought long and hard.  I wanted to do justice to Women’s History Month, while also offering, as her tagline suggests, “tips and power tools for No Excuses readers.”  But I was feeling at a loss for words.  I ended up beginning the post like this:

The other day I was riding the number 2 train home from the city, thinking about what I might write here in honor of Women’s History Month and feeling overpowered by current affairs. The tsunami, earthquake, nuclear disaster. Senseless murders in Libya. The gang rape of an 11-year-old girl. This month, I sense such widening circles of sorrow swirling, it’s easier, I confess, to shut off and just hold close those I love. If I pause long enough to truly let the world in, I fear I’ll be carried out on a wave, swallowed up by a sea of emotion from which there is no return.

And then something happened to me.  I witnessed an act of violence–against an older woman–in the subway car.  And suddenly I knew what I would write about: the tragedy going on right in our own backyards—that which lifts us out of our chairs and just kind of compels us, without thinking, to act.

You can read the full post here. And if you haven’t read it already, I strongly recommend reading Gloria’s book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think about Power.  Two of the lessons she writes about come up, a bit, in my post: Know Your History.  Wear the Shirt.  Gloria has taught me a tremendous amount about the value of these lessons–and so much more.  It was an honor to write this for her.

Dear Girl w/ Pen readers,

You may remember that just before the new year, Deborah posted about some exciting changes coming in 2011. If you do remember that post, you may wonder whatever happened to those exciting changes! Well, they are coming slowly but surely, and I wanted to step in, introduce myself, and tell you a little bit about what’s going to be happening in 2011. My name is Avory, and I’ve recently come on board as Girl w/ Pen’s webmaster. I’ll also be writing a column called Relating Radically, and you can read more about me on my bio page.

We’re excited about changes to the blog in a few areas, and I’d like to take a moment to tell you about them:

1. Site Design. Bit by bit, I’ll be updating the site design to make it more attractive and easier to navigate.  If you enjoy the Girl w/ Pen site and would like to offer suggestions on how we could improve the site to make it easier for you to use, please let me know using the “Contact” link in the menu above!
2. Social Media. We want it to be easy for you to get the latest feminist research and our spin on current issues.  To that end, our social media streams are now active and ready for you to subscribe.  You can find us on Twitter @girlwpen or on Facebook via the Girl w/ Pen Facebook Page.  I’ll be updating those streams regularly with new Girl w/ Pen posts, and you can also Tweet us or leave a comment on our wall if you have something you think Girl w/ Pen readers should know about.  And as always, you can also subscribe to our blog using RSS.
3. New Content. In addition to my new column, Relating Radically, we’ll soon be looking for guest posters to write for a new monthly column featuring young scholars (under 30).  We’ll post the details about that opportunity soon, but in the meantime, if you know anyone who might be interested, ask them to follow Girl w/ Pen for updates!  You can also always contact us (see “Submit Your Ink”) above if you’re interested in writing a guest post.  Be sure to read the guidelines there to find out what we’re looking for.

Thanks for reading, and I’m glad to be on board with this amazing group of writers!

Women’s history month has led to the predictable school project in my home: interview a woman you admire.  I’ve reflected cynically about the value of such work in the past, but this year I’m taking a different view by thinking about women’s history on a smaller scale, within the course of a generation.

My mother, Louise Kimmich, is a retired teacher.  She stayed home with me, my brother, and sister until my sister entered kindergarten, and then she returned to work.  I remember her telling me many times about her limited professional options—teacher, nurse, and secretary—as a way of encouraging me to have big dreams about my own career choices.

But my mother modeled those ambitions, too.  She returned to graduate school while working full time and taking care of her family, earning Master’s degrees in early childhood and special education.  She took a page from the feminist activists’ playbook and went on strike at home, effectively engaging me and my siblings in taking care of some household tasks.

So here’s my own women’s history month project, an interview with a woman I admire.  My mom, Louise Kimmich, helped pave the way for me and all the daughters of feminism.  Her reflections illustrate how much feminism has achieved in a generation; they also point to some shortcomings that I’ll address in future columns.

Meanwhile, GWP readers, how do you take stock of feminists’ achievements and its unfinished business?

AK: Tell me about some of obstacles you faced as a woman.

LK: It was really the dark ages of womanhood if you were growing up in the 1950s!  You had a certain stereotypical set of occupations you could enter: teacher, nurse, and secretary.  You really weren’t encouraged to do anything else.  If I had it to do over again I don’t know if I would enter education.  I would probably choose something less stereotypical.

AK: How did feminism affect you?

LK: During the civil rights movement, I saw that people had the opportunity to participate, and make a difference.  It was an awakening.  I also remember Title IX.  I was a wife and mother by then, but I realized what had been missing for me in terms of high school sports.

AK: Tell me about a woman you admire.

LK: I admire all the young women of today, pursuing their dreams due to the feminist movement.  I also admire Hillary Clinton, who is my age, for rising to Secretary of State.

AK: What is an accomplishment of which you’re proud?

LK: My proudest accomplishment is being the mother of three wonderful adult children who are educated, responsible, kind, and caring adults.

Before I’m accused of self-serving pandering by including our last exchange (and really, she said that without  prompting from me!), I would argue that my mother’s reflections on the value of motherhood highlight an area where feminism has dropped the ball.  But more on that in the future.

Hooking up is getting lots of video and academic attention. Plus, it’s Spring — and Spring Break — so it seems timely to re-post the following (with permission from the Ms. Magazine Blog).

The days are finally longer. Birds are chirping and green leaves are starting to bud. This can only mean one thing. Spring Break! And with Spring Break comes hook ups.

Some folks are freaking out about this “new phenomenon” of hooking up, but I’d argue it’s hardly new — check the lyrics from those 1975 disco heroes, KC and the Sunshine Band:

baby, babe let’s get together
honey, honey me and you,
and do the things, oh, do the things
that we like to do.

oh, do a little dance, make a little love …
get down tonight…

Translation? Hey, shorty, let’s hook up.

The 1960s had Free Love. The 1980s was about the cazh (as in casual sex). Today we can knock boots, hit it and quit it, find an FWB or a ONS. Call it what you want, it’s still consensual sex outside of a committed relationship. And while the language may change, the moves remain the same.

What is new on the sexual landscape are debates about whether casual sex is all about fun and free will, or if hooking up is linked to sexual assault and women’s objectification.

The fact is that young adults ages 18 to 24 who have casual sex do not appear to be at higher risk for psychological fall-out compared to their partnered peers. In so many words, Score! says Jaclyn Friedman of Yes Means Yes. Research from the University of Minnesota “reveals the truth that neither Hollywood nor the Religious Right want you to know: Casual sex won’t damage you emotionally. Not even if you’re a girl!”

But Occidental College professors Lisa Wade and Caroline Heldman might disagree. Their forthcoming article, “Friends with Benefits, Without the Friendship Maybe?” points out that college hook-up culture often involves drinking — a known factor in sexual assault. Young women and men alike say the sex is often unpleasant and meaningful connection is elusive. Many students offer harrowing descriptions of assault, sexually transmitted infections, emotional trauma and gendered antagonism. Yet hooking up — with its risks, missteps, and possible mistakes — is still a chance to explore sexual boundaries.

Determined to get to the hot-and-bothered heart of the matter, Heather Corinna from Scarleteen.com is launching a new study on multigenerational experiences with casual sex. Corinna hopes to find “a more diverse, realistic and non-prescriptive picture of people’s sex lives and ideas about sex.”

Yet, according to Salon.com’s Kate Harding, “the problem that needs solving isn’t hook-up culture, but the intense pressure on girls and women to focus on getting and keeping a guy, rather than on getting and keeping whatever they want.” Documentary filmmaker Therese Shechter of The American Virgin gives a nod to this point:

What’s actually bad for women and girls is treating us like victims who need protecting [and] ignoring that our sexual experiences, good or lousy, can contribute to our growth and development as human beings.

“I’m all for sexual freedom as long as you’re safe,” says Jacob Levy, an 18-year-old student at California State University, Long Beach. “[But] there should be a warning label on hooking up,” adds 20-something Stefaney Gonzalez. “Something like WARNING: proceed with caution.”

As Nancy Schwartzman documents in her gripping film, The Line, there is potential for both pleasure and peril with sex, casual or otherwise. Hooking up doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but against the backdrop of crime rates that show one in six women (and one in 33 men) statistically likely to face sexual assault in their lifetime.

Hooking up also has a gendered hue when girls are taught that being sexy is about performing instead of about self-pleasure and expressing what feels good. It’s what philosophers call “illocutionary silencing” — when girls and young women fail to say what they want. As Heldman wrote in Ms. magazine, self-objectification has serious impacts on girls’ political efficacy and sexual pleasure. Getting off becomes tied to seeing oneself through the eyes of someone else, or through the lens of an imaginary porn camera.

The issue isn’t imaginary porn cameras, though; there are lots of items that clutter the sexual imagination. But here’s a thought, and it’s not a new one: Reducing sexual harms like assault, coercion, and slut shaming means maximizing sexual pleasure. Let’s kick forced power disparities and nonconsensual objectification out of our everyday lives in the bed and beyond. That’s when the girls will really go wild. On our own terms.

Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaelx/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

The peculiar drama of my life has placed me in a world that by and large thinks it would be better if people like me did not exist. My fight has been for accommodation, the world to me, and me to the world.

–Harriet McBryde Johnson, Too Late to Die Young

I’m gonna sit at the welcome table,
I’m gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days,
Halleluia!
I’m gonna sit at the welcome table,
Sit at the welcome table, one of these days.

–Traditional spiritual

“The Welcome Table” is a song that my daughter has been able to sign along with for months now. As many readers already know, Maybelle has Down syndrome. She was born in 2008, into a cultural moment that was ready for her in ways it would not have been even a few decades earlier. In one of my classes recently, a student shared that forty years ago, her sister was born and her mother was told to institutionalize her. A few decades later, shortly after Maybelle was born, I was told, “The College of Charleston is starting a college program for people with intellectual disabilities!” It’s a very different world.

And yet it’s still a world in which many people have a hard time seeing my daughter as fully human, and a world in which many people believe they ought to have prenatal testing so they can be sure their pregnancies won’t result in the births of people like Maybelle. As Harriet McBryde Johnson notes, it’s “a world that by and large things it would be better if people like me [and Maybelle] did not exist.” I know that the stigma surrounding—and, indeed, creating the meaning of—disability persists. I’m aware of it now in a way I wasn’t before Maybelle entered my life. Watching her sign this song recently, I felt how much I want Maybelle to be part of a community where, as one young feminist scholar puts it, “We [can] bring our whole selves to the table.” I want her to sit at a table where she’s welcomed, recognized as a valid and valuable person, and fully included.

I’ve just finished teaching Johnson’s memoir, Too Late to Die Young. Every time I read this book new parts jump out at me, and as I prepared for class last week, the passage quoted above got caught in my head and hasn’t left. Johnson explains that her “fight has been for accommodation.” She makes this point as she recounts an extended dialogue with Peter Singer, a philosopher who argued—kindly, but distressingly and persistently—that people with disabilities, people like Johnson, live lives that are “worse off” and therefore they should be eliminated before (or shortly after) birth, or allowed to commit suicide later. When many of Johnson’s activist cohort criticize her for talking with Singer, she notes that he’s not any more a monster than most of the people she encounters in her life.

One of the moments of real controversy to disability activists is when Johnson sits down beside Singer for a meal. This is during her visit to Princeton, and they dine with students who ask Johnson questions about, essentially, why she deserves to exist. At one point Johnson’s elbow slips, and she’s unable to feed herself. She needs an adjustment. She writes, “Normally I get whoever is on my right hand to do this sort of thing. Why not now? I gesture to Singer. He leans over and I whisper. ‘Grasp this wrist and pull forward one inch, without lifting.’ He looks a little surprised but follows my instructions to the letter.” Some disability rights activists saw this as a flawed endorsement of the humanity of a genocide advocate. Johnson, though, recounts this moment in her book with a kind of wry tenderness.

Interestingly, Singer himself reminisces about their meal, and about his assistance to Johnson, with a similar tenderness in the eulogy he wrote about her for the New York Times. He writes that Johnson’s description of their meal “suggests that she saw me not simply as ‘the enemy’ but as a person with whom it was possible to have some forms of human interaction.” And he identifies her as a person whose “life was evidently a good one.” What happened at their meal was that Johnson brought her whole self to the table, and by doing so, she endorsed Singer’s full humanity, as well. Having a meal together, sitting side by side at the same table, made that possible.

Early in my career at the College of Charleston, Johnson sent me an email, alerting me to the fact that the Women’s and Gender Studies Program I was directing was hosting an event at a venue that was inaccessible to people using wheelchairs. I was a good enough feminist that I recognized the need for a basic level of accommodation, so I made the change. It was a first step for me, a moment when I committed to spaces that were accessible: we’ll have plenty of tables for everybody!

Now, six years later, I’m moving beyond that initial understanding of accommodation. I want accommodation to mean that we are reimagining our communities in significant ways, that we are conceiving of our world as made better—richer—more wonderful by the inclusion of all kinds of diversity, including the diversity of physical and intellectual disabilities. I want us to bring our whole selves to the table, one table that everyone has the chance to sit at, a table where we’re all truly welcome.

Rango opens with our lizard hero accompanied by a headless, legless, one-armed Barbie as his female companion. Rango (voiced by Johnny Depp) imagines himself as a suave leading man instead of the googley-eyed lizard he is, draping his arm around Barbie and asking “are those real?” Ah, the joy of objectifying sexist jokes in kids films. What fun!

As you can imagine, this opening did not bode well for my hopes that this film might just be the one that has equal female and male characters (in numbers as well as in narrative arc) and maybe, just maybe, a representation of femininity that goes beyond the princess, witch, dead mother meme stamped on our psyches by Disney.

Thankfully, the film moved beyond dismembered Barbie, introducing us to a key female character – Beans (voiced by Isla Fisher) – a rebellious, smart, and outspoken female lizard trying to save her farm as well as discover the truth behind her town’s water shortage. Alas, she is not the hero, Rango is. He has to mosey in with his Depp swagger to save the town – and, in the end – to save Beans as well, with the obligatory blossoming romance between Rango and Beans closing the film.

Yawn, you might be thinking.

But wait — even though the representation of females is problematic (not to mention the stereotypical depiction of the one Native American character who is – surprise surprise – a noble warrior type of few words), the film itself is a visual treat with the dessert dwelling animal protagonists vividly portrayed, the action scenes expertly paced, and the narrative itself offering a lovely blend of adventure, mystery, and humor.

Yet, I don’t want to like this film, damn it!

Yes, I like Johnny Depp, yes I appreciated the updating of the western genre with the tongue in cheek critiques of corruption, consumerism, and our apathy towards the environment, but NO NO NO I don’t want yet another film that has scant female characters and for the billionth time relies on the damsel in distress being saved by a plucky male hero. Puke.

It’s true that in a key escape scene, Beans does the driving and she is the one (yes ONE!) woman to join the group setting out to save the town, but is this type of paltry tokenism really enough? Why not make her Rango’s EQUAL? Why not nix the romantic, hetero-monogamous ending? Why not cut the horrid cat-fight scene between Beans and one of the few other female characters, a fox named Angelique, in which Beans and Angelique call each other “tart,” “tramp,” and “floozie”?

To keep with the “all women are catty sluts” message, there are also a handful of saloon-hall prostitutes in the background. Why place women front and center when you can instead place them on the side, all tarted up and ready to claw each other apart? At least Beans is closer to the center of the film – too bad she has an affliction where she freezes up, going all catatonic at the most inopportune moments. How feminine of her!

I can hear the groaning right about now – why do you have to be so picky? Can’t you just enjoy the film for what it is – a crazy take on the western genre with several metatexual components, a great voice cast, and jaw-dropping animation? Well, yes, I can, and I did. Yet, I can also, like Rango, call for a “paradigm shift” – one that stops representing the world as if it was 90% male, 7% slut, 2% silent/catatonic female, and 1% headless Barbie.

Choices, not discrimination, deter women scientists

So read the headline that summed up a few weeks of articles, blog posts and opinion pieces on Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams’ article, Understanding current causes of women’s underrepresentation in science. And that’s the conclusion I would come to as well if I didn’t understand that you can’t examine the issue of underrepresentation of women in the sciences by comparing women and men with equal resources to each other. Because part of the issue with the lack of women in the sciences is that resources are not distributed equally.

It’s Women’s History Month and for the past few years women in the sciences has received a lot of attention during this month. First Lady Michelle Obama mentioned the shortage of women in the sciences and the Smithsonian Channel included comic books to their Women in Science programming this year. After 15 years of studying and working on this issue, if it were that easy, I’d pack it up and move on to a new puzzle to solve.

But let’s look at the “choices” Ceci and Williams claim are at the real root of the issue:

If not discrimination, what is the cause of women’s underrepresentation? Today, the dearth of women in math-based fields is related to three factors, one of which (fertility/lifestyle choices) hinders women in all fields, not just mathematical ones, whereas the others (career preferences and ability differences) impact women in math-based fields. [1] Regarding the role of math-related career preferences, adolescent girls often prefer careers focusing on people as opposed to things, and this preference accounts for their burgeoning numbers in such fields as medicine and biology, and their smaller presence in math-intensive fields such as computer science, physics, engineering, chemistry, and mathematics, even when math ability is equated. [2] Regarding the role of math-ability differences, potentially influenced by both socialization and biology, twice as many men as women are found in the top 1% of the math score distribution (e.g., SAT-M, GRE-Q). [3] The third factor influencing underrepresentation affects women in all fields: fertility choices and work-home balance issues. However, this challenge is exacerbated in math-intensive fields because the number of women is smaller to begin with. [Numbers in brackets were added by me.]

Let’s take these one at a time:

1] Career choice. Girls just like working with people better. I’ve wrestled with this issue for years. I almost bought into it too at one point, but I came to a different conclusion. Parents, educators and career/college counselors are terrible at teaching kids, boy and girls, what “good” comes from math-based careers such as computer science and engineering. For the most part, I would agree that women are attracted to careers that appear to benefit humanity. It’s easy to see that connection when one looks at medicine and biology, especially with the abundance of shows about doctors saving lives on TV almost every night. The CSI franchise is moving that view towards chemistry. Now to work on computer science! Which is why I love that my campus has a good number of women faculty members in the computer science department.

2] Are we really going to revisit the Larry Summers debate? Really? Do I really need to state again that one does not need to be a genius to be a rocket scientist? Yes, smart…but if we restricted math-based careers to just the top 1%, I think we’d have a shortage of computer scientists. Oh, wait, WE DO!

3] The fact that fertility coincides with the tenure clock is discrimination. It impacts women far greater than it does men. The fact that the academy has dragged its feet to alter the tenure system to retain intelligent women in all fields is at bare minimum biased towards a masculine way of promoting workers and thus smells like discrimination.

We can no longer hide behind the idea that women choose to do X when all the social forces in her life is choosing for her. When we settle the question of inequality with “but women choose” we let ourselves off the hook and place the entire burden on individual women. When we don’t encourage our girls to embrace their intelligence, we choose for them. When we tell them that being an engineer isn’t helping humanity, we choose for them. When a woman faces the “choice” between buckling down to get tenure versus starting her long awaited family, we choose for them.

Until women and girls can truly make free choices, we must look hard at the system we operate in and ask, “What is wrong? Where can we help women make the choice they really want versus the choice that seems to fit best?” Now that’s a choice I can stand behind.