In bionet.women-in-bio Jan Henry <jan.henry at ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
: great number of the women in charge are nasty, vindictive, spiteful and
: seem to have chips on their shoulders, and their behaviour seems
: particularly directed towards other women!
There's a problem with making generalisations as broad as this. True,
undoubtedly some women fit the description, but then again, so do some
men. This sort of behaviour (nasty, vindictive, etc.), in my experience,
is independent of gender.
: These are the senior women who were supposed to be our role models in
: science and in society, and yet they seem to want us relative youngsters to
: fail whilst they sneer (perhaps they are resentful because they had it
Maybe what they want is for you to be tempered. The desire to see
someone fail is not limited to the corridors of academia, particularly
not these days in a highly competitive job market.
I've been known to be fairly rough on students in my care, but it's
not because I want them to fail...quite the contrary, I want them
to succeed. But condidly, I don't think success should come too
easily. I want them to learn to think critically, examine data
skeptically and be able to pick themselves up, dust off and re-examine
things when they fall on their faces. I want them to learn that
even though the person criticising you may have a personal stake
in your failure, one can still treat them with professional courtesy
and aplomb.
Do I pick conclusions apart? Yup. Poke holes in theories? You
betcha. Why? Because part of the learning process is discovering
how to find the holes or mistakes in one's work *prior* to someone
else pointing it out. The other part is the art of justifying and
defending one's conclusions/methods. On occasion I've been known
to poke at something, which for all intents and purposes, is
entirely reasonable, for the simple objective of forcing the student
to *think* of why. It's very easy to fall into a mode of
"Cook-book Chemistry".
I'm sure some students classify me as mean, petty and vindictive,
but in doing so, they're giving themself entirely too much
importance. Picking apart isn't personal and it's not intended
to "wash one out". I'm the *easiest* critic these folks are
going to face during their career because I want them to better
me with logical arguments. If they can't manage someone who
would like them to succeed, how will they fare in the Real World
where people do desire their failure?
Being a mentor means teaching, setting an example and fostering
professional growth. It does not automatically imply easy
sailing or coddling. The woman I learned the most from was a
royal bitch, and I was sure she was out to get me...it was only
with 20 years perspective that I realised she trained me to
*think* rather than parrot the party line. And if she was hard
on me (and she was) it served to hone my abilities and in the
long run, my character.
There are enough *real* enemies out there without manufacturing
more from those whose only fault is their failure to present
themselves as Obvious Allies.
Deirdre
--
| Deirdre Sholto-Douglas | e-mail: finch at mcs.com |
| | |
******* The only acceptable substitute for intelligence *******
is silence.
