In article <cjfuller-1510970739040001 at c-fuller1.uncg.edu>,
C.J. Fuller <cjfuller at mindspring.com> wrote:
>I have lived in the Bible Belt (Dallas and North Carolina) for about 12
>years. My problems in Dallas while I was a postdoc were related to the
>fact that I was working at a medical school with a PhD (i.e., patient fees
>wouldn't cover part of my salary) and the med school was and still is a
>whitebread male preserve. Here in NC I am fortunate to be in a reasonably
>liberal dept. in a reasonably liberal school (we have the first female
>chancellor in the UNC system, and this used to be the state's Women's
>College).
Isn't the research triangle--including Duke and UNC also not much like
the rest of the state's reputation? I lived in NC for a year when I was
9-10 years old and really liked it; I have a hard time reconciling that
pleasant memory with the reality of Jesse Helms.
I have not met with much resistance to my status as a female
>researcher who is in a committed relationship, but not yet married. I
>also tend to travel in circles outside work (e.g., the UU church) that
>will not consider me a mutant.
As a fellow UU, I agree that there's a lot of value to finding one's
niche, and that something like that can really mitigate the toxic effects
of some of the larger culture.
To get back to Germany for a minute, though . . .
There is no UU in Germany, in fact, most Germans don't attend church
of any sort. My father in law was really curious about it, especially
because we had a UU wedding ceremony, and he had never seen anything
like that before (he would have expected us to get married in a
"Standesamt"--like a courthouse--in Germany).
What I was wondering, especially from any Germans who might read this,
was what positive forces exist in Germany to make things better for
women scientists in particular and women in general. I have seen a
feminist magazine called "Emma" that I've read and enjoyed. And I also
know a female professor in Cologne who has two kids and a physicist
husband who works at home and looks after them! She is really great . . .
I know she's an exception and had to work incredibly hard and put up with
a lot to get where she is. There's also a mailing list called
"biofrauen," which I read occasionally to practice my German.
It's not as if feminism is invisible there, but it seems to be rather
closely associated with environmentalism and the Green Party (and I
must say that I think that in many ways Germany is light years ahead
of us on environmental issues. They have an efficient recycling
program, the cities are much more bicycle-friendly, the public
transportation is actually reliable and can actually be counted on
to get you places in a timely fashion, and they aren't hamstrung by
the false "debate" on global warming that seems to paralyze us).
Unfortunately, my limited experience has been that the nature of
German feminism, being more politically "green," also works against
woman scientists. Their energies are channeled into causes like
animal rights, rather than women's rights. The "right" to conduct
experiments on laboratory animals as a professor in a biology lab
is seen as something that self-respecting women should not want.
Karen
