Getting tenure first January 19, 2008

For women who want to have children, an academic career in a tenured position can seem unfairly problematic.  One approach to the problem is to hold off trying to have children until you have gotten tenure.  The alternative of late motherhood is explored in Elizabeth Gregory’s new book,  Ready:  Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood, which is based on interviews with over 100 moms who chose this option. Using both anecdotal and statistical evidence, Gregory delivers what may be unexpectedly good news about later motherhood, which amazon.com lists as:

-Stronger family focus: Having achieved many of their personal and career goals, new later moms feel ready to focus on family rather than trying to juggle priorities
-More financial power: New later moms have established careers and make higher salaries
-Greater self-confidence: New later moms have more career experience, and their management skills translate directly into managing a household and advocating for their children
-More stable single-parenting: New later moms who are single have more resources
-High marriage rate: On average, 85 percent of new later moms are married, lending stability to the family structure
-Longer lives: Evidence indicates that new later moms actually live longer than moms who start their families earlier

( Gregory’s blog lists another advantage that applies to lesbians.) 

The downsides of waiting are all too familiar; the advantages can now be considered too.
You might also want to look at Gregory on the Huffington Post here and here.  A review is here. 

(Required disclosure: the author is a friend of mine.)

Exercise and Mental Function December 29, 2007

Feminist philosophers who feel their careers were slowed down - or at least not accelerated - in comparison to similarly talented men, might want to take steps  to prolonged their productive years.  The evidence is mounting that exercise can play a big role in preserving mental function.

 So if you are tempted to do a New Year’s reassessment of the ways you allocate time to your health, think about including more exercise. 

 There are several things  we now understand about starting and sustaining a successful exercise program.  One big one is that including friends and family can be a huge help.

However, do make sure you all have some prior understanding of direction and goals:

And most of all: Enjoy!

“aging white men” November 6, 2007

We are all aging; this is a cautionary tale about how bright and sensitive people can maintain a startling degree of ignorance. It’s also about a small but disgraceful nationally (USA) aired episode in racism and sexism.

Don Imus described Rutgers women’s basketball team in terms that were both highly racist and sexist and put in a way such that the racism and sexism compounded each other.  He was fired when the sponsors got the message that his program would deter people from paying for the products advertised on it.  Now he is getting back on the US airwaves and Dick Cavett, for one, is glad.

Cavett’s take:

There is really no getting away from the injustice that’s been done. A program enjoyed (and missed) by millions was trashed for the sake of the few. No one who contributed to the denouement of the Imus show and the mindless abuse heaped on him has anything to be proud of.

Cavett’s most egregious comments, in my opinion, concern why Imus’ remarks shouldn’t have been taken ‘personally’:

There’s no getting around what he said, of course, but it’s worth asking under what circumstances would a man ever be justified in calling a bunch of women — of any color — by the volatile term “hos”? The first requirement, really, would be that he would have to know them. How can an insult be personal if the person delivering it and the person(s) receiving it don’t know each other?

Isn’t that just how prejudice works? If you are prejudging, then of course you don’t have to know them to do it.

One very interesting feature of Cavett’s stand on the NY Time are the responses to it. Of course there are the “yeah for free speech” and “down with political correctness” advocates, but a very, very solid set of comments say “aging white men” just don’t get how bad it all was. At least one indeed fron a self-identified aging white man.So what is the lesson to be learned?  Racism and sexism reveal your age?  How about:  Every once  in a while there’s some sign that some part  of the human race is growing in its grasp of the requirements on living a decent life. 

Men and Hair Dye October 16, 2007

Apparently, hair dye companies are now targeting men with gray hair.  But they’re finding it very important to insist that their products are different from women’s hair dye, because they’re designed to be natural-looking and discreet, while women’s are designed to get them noticed.  My impression is that that this is how women’s hair dying started out.  One thing I wonder about is generational and class differences.   Plenty of male students (at least around here) dye their hair (not in subtle ways), and that seems acceptable.  But when Mr Jender was in a working-class, non-university part of town he was called a “fucking poof” for his dyed hair.  

And no, that is not a photo of Mr Jender. (Thanks, S, for the link.)

Aging and the female philosopher October 10, 2007

FemaleScienceProfessor observes today

… it still amazes me that any man in the physical sciences today can seriously ask the “what if there are no qualified women” question as if it is a sane question. 

Her post starts off with the story of a conference which had to have at least one woman speaker and did meet that very minimal requirement.

One could be excused for thinking that the only thing worse than being a women in a male dominated field, such as philosophy, engineering, the sciences and math tend to be, is to be an aging woman in one of those fields. As one’s social-sexual value diminishes, the fact that one is thought to have little or no intellectual value becomes all the more evident.

And everyone knows that one’s abilities are on the decline after 40 or 50, right? Maybe not.

Margaret Mead said, “There is no more creative force in the world than a menopausal woman with zest.”  A ‘health article’ in the NY Times puts the point in today’s idiom. Its title: Evolution’s Secret Weapon: Grandma.

Studies of modern hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, Venezuela and Eastern Paraguay — societies that offer insights into how humans evolved — consistently show that Grandma is doing much of the work. … Often, the scientists find, women in their 60s are as strong as women in their 20s. “It’s the women over 40 who are carrying the heavy loads,’’ said Dr. Hawkes.

If one looks at how much of academic and business life is shaped by expectations built on men’s lives, the differences in aging may reveal an overlooked way in which the talent and potential contributions of women are squandered. 

The article is drawing on research by Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. The results of her work have been in the public domain for some time. As Natalie Angier noted in 1997

As Dr. Kristen Hawkes of the University of Utah and her colleagues have found in their extensive studies of the Hadza, women in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and beyond are among the most industrious members of the group. They are out in the woods for seven or eight hours a day, gathering more food than virtually any of their comrades.