Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!alpha.ces.cwru.edu From: hunt@alpha.ces.cwru.edu (Francie Hunt) Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: On our own terms Message-ID: <6992@ecsvax.UUCP> Date: 10 May 89 15:20:46 GMT Sender: skyler@ecsvax.UUCP Organization: Computer Engineering and Science/CWRU Lines: 75 Approved: skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts) Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu In article <6970@ecsvax.UUCP> eliz@cs.rochester.edu writes: >I'm a holdout for competing On Our Own Terms. >My first reading of Ware was that she was saying "don't compete" to women. >This isn't really what she's saying, though. For women to compete on our >own terms is to not blindly accept the standards of success that have >been used in the past, which make no reference to special values or skills >we may have after being raised as women in this culture. Years ago, I would have thought that any differences between men and women should be ignored and that we would all compete on the same footing. The problem with this is that the rules of the game have evolved over the years and have a decidedly male bias to them. Add to that the fact that we all have a different set of social baggage we were brought up with, and it turns out that many of the valuable contributions that women make are unrecognized in the current acknowledgment/reward structure. Rather than turn ourselves into male-clones, and suppressing some of our qualities, we should fight for the opportunity to have "our own terms" recognized as valid. >Some other traditionally feminine values that have a place in the workplace: > >problem-solving by consensus: not just the loudest person gets heard Now if only our faculty meetings would run under this concept! :-) They would be a lot shorter and more productive. >legitimacy of non-work relationships like family commitments that might > call for some flexibility in scheduling (gee, men want > paternity leave all of a sudden. why is that?) Isn't that interesting? When women take maternity leave and/or need some flexibility in their scheduling, it is seen as a burden. When men start asking for the same considerations, they are applauded. If you think I am being too harsh, look at how you would react to a man requiring a leave after some kind of surgery. It seems that people are much more sympathetic in that case, than when a woman has gone through childbirth and needs to heal. >These issues are all very relevant to the computing profession -- >you can figure out the details. Let's just say that if no one can >listen to clients, it doesn't matter how many stud coders the company >has. Sure, there are women stud coders. But there are other ways to >succeed. This is true in academic departments as well as industry. You have to look at the traditional model of academic "success" as embodied in the number of publications, amount of research grants, etc. A faculty member can contribute to the education of students in many different ways, but only a few are rewarded. It's getting harder in computer science, because the field is advancing so quickly. In order to read enough of the literature to keep up with the current work, and write results of your own work, and teach classes, and supervise graduate students, and chase funding from various agencies, not to mention all the administrative stuff that is required, takes an inordinate amount of time, something that is a precious commodity if you have young children at home. On a happier note, I was finally recognized on my own terms this year. I went through an incredible struggle during my tenure review, with both positive and negative feedback along the way. What saved the day was the president of the university standing by his statement on the importance of teaching and balancing my contribution in that area against my adequate (but not stellar) research record. I feel that my strongest contributions to the university and our CS students have been in my commitment to teaching, and am gratified to have been accepted for it. Had a different administration been in place, I would have been out pounding the pavement. To sum up, (sorry this is so long), we have to get out of the mindset that only certain qualities count for success. When people try to mold them- selves into something that they are not, we all suffer. -- Francie Hunt Associate Professor, Computer Engineering and Science Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 hunt@alpha.ces.cwru.edu OR {sun, att, decvax}!cwjcc!alpha!hunt