Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Interesting points!  I also was born in 1965, and I expect to be
    treated with respect and equality.  This was often an issue with
    me and my friends in college (I went to an all-woman's college),
    and some of my friends felt that they never really felt that there
    was an attitude that they were unequal, or inferior.  They never
    noticed it in sports in high school etc.  
    
    I come from what could be considered an unusual situation- where
    both my parents worked, but my mother was the only and final say
    in our household.  I have never in my life asked permission from
    my father to do anything, mom was and for that matter still is
    the boss.  Even my father gets permission from my mother.  Granted
    their relationship is anything but a marriage, but this was the
    environment that I grew up in.  
    
    However, there are areas that I notice some inequalities -
    some of them obvious, and some subtle.  For example in high school
    sports, our teams always got equipment etc, only after the football
    team was budgeted.  In college- when budget cuts came- only the 
    women's sports were affected.  I had a few business professors who
    basically had the attitude- women weren't really qualified to be
    in the business arena, but I'll teach you anyways (what they were
    doing teaching at a women's college I'll never know).  And in often
    times in relationships- I was always assumed to be the one who was
    concerned about birth control (granted this is changing).
    
    One thing that I think is interesting is that women our age are
    not faced with the choice of working, it is no longer a choice but
    rather a necessity.  However evidence still exists today to that
    age old view of women working in the home- if anyone followed the
    Tamposi-Douglass political race, one of Douglas' supporters- NH
    Senator Gorden Humphreys stated in so many words that Tamposi should
    not be running for Congress because it will take time away from
    her two young children.
    
    Without further rambling though, I do agree that we have a level
    of expectations to be treated fairly and equally.
    
    Terri
    

    

    I'd like to clarify that when I spoke about women's sports being
    cut and not men's, I was speaking of colleges around me, where some
    of my female friends programs were cut, and the extra money went
    into football and men's soccer.

    Now this is an interesting point, myself and another person
    who read this conference got thrashed when we though others were
    being treated fairly, and when we thought that decisions should
    be based on qualifications nothing else.
    
    Here I see 2 people my age that felt they were brought up with out
    being looked down upon cause they are women
    
    I just find these comments interesting
    
    mike

    Mike-
    
    I'd like to clarify that a bit.  I agreed with .0 in the fact that
    growing up I felt I did not feel as much of the "inequality" that
    many speak about, but then again I think that has come from the
    environment that I specifically was in, and also the fact that a
    lot of the groundwork has been previously laid down through the
    era of the 50's, 60's and 70's.  However I also spoke about a few
    of the things that I have noticed- and yes those things do exist!
    
    Perhaps it was only through education and experience, and as the
    author of .0 mentioned- getting past the view of life which didn't
    extend past the "halls of high school", that I began noticing the
    inequities.
    
    Also note though, that the point of this discussion is not to say
    that we feel that we were brought up without being looked down upon
    cause we were women (getting into a kickball game as a kid was not
    always easy, and fearing the label "she throws like a girl" was
    certainly a serious concern), rather that it seems we now expect
    to be treated equally, and expect to work as hard, compete with,
    and not to delegate work according to sexes, just as much as our
    male counterparts do.
    
    Terri

    I graduated from high school in 1956 and I didfnot feel any inequality
    in school.
    
    The sad part is it never really hit me until I became a single
    parent...it was there and it had chipped the armour a bit. 
    
    When you go out into the world and think everything is okay and
    get these little jabs every now and again it takes awhile before
    reality sinks in.

    I guess I have some questions i want toa sk but I have think about
    the wording, again I want to see the point of view here, not to
    make it into the rat holes we had before. 
    
    mike - with questions later
    

    My husband and I have a running joke (no pun intended):
    
    	"That person runs like a girl"
    
    	"That's because she IS a girl"
        
    	"Oh"
    
    Initiated by one or the other of us.
    
    K.C.

    
    re:  back a couple.....no inequality in school in 1956....
    
    Well, I graduated from high school in 1973, and there was
    still tremendous inequality....
    I couldn't take wood-working shop----girls took home-ec
    I couldn't run for class president---had to be a boy....
    the only girls sports was basketball--the guys had b'ball, football,
    	golf, and tennis.
    etc, etc...
    
    So, even a decade+ ago there was still discrimination in some
    places.  Note...this was in Tennessee....but that doesn't mean
    it didn't happen elsewhere too.
    
    deb
    

    My comment about 1956 read something like "I did not feel
    that I had any limits" when I graduated from high school
    in 1956.  It was only when I started to live that I discovered
    the limits I had because of my gender.
    
    I was trying to compare my attitude in 1956 to the author of
    the base note.
                          
    I must have been living in a vacuum!
    

    Some clarification seems  to be calle for.  
    
    
    I wanted to point out that my generation seems to be the first who
    didn't have limitations placed upon them by society early on in
    life and have to "overcome" those limitations.  
    
    I NEVER heard any gender classifications in either school or my
    home when I was growing up.  My periodic decisions to be either
    an astronaut, fire fighter, or mommy were all met with the same
    enthusiasm and noone told me or my friends "Wouldn't you rather
    be a nurse, teacher, secretary, etc..."
    
    
    Just another part of my observations.
    
    Sue

    re:.8
    
    � I couldn't take wood-working shop----girls took home-ec �
    
    On the other hand, I couldn't take Home Ec -- boys took shop.
    
    I'm sure it was more a matter of potential peer flack than
    school rules, but up until the time I graduated high school
    (1971), I'd not heard of a single boy who took Home Ec.
    
    --- jerry

    Re: .0
    
   	Having gone to an all male high school, I never had to compete
    with women academically, or ever noticed that there were was special
    treatment for a male group over a female group, cause there weren't
    any female groups. I did notice how certain sports teams like football
    seemed to end up with better budgets than say the swimming team,
    but that was cause people go to football games, no one ever came
    to our swimming meets, but back to the subject.
    
    	Going to college was the first time since grammer school that
    I actually had women in my classes. In my mind these women were
    there like me to get engineering degrees. During my time there
    I ended up being a very average student - read c's - the point I
    am trying to make is since 1982 when I entered college I have 
    not seen women get the short end of the stick when it comes 
    to opportunities, I guess .0 says it best
    
>        Consequently,  I have always expected to be treated with respect
>    and integrity for my abilities and accomplishments and have competed
>    with everyone just as hard as they compete with me.  
 
    	When I suggested that this is how everyone gets treated I got
    bashed. I guess when I read this it seemed to be a fair statement.
    Am I off base here?
    
    	mike    
    	

    	Re: .11
               
    
    	At Waltham High School (early 70s), instead of Home Ec, they had a CHEF
    class which was open to anyone. Anyone could sign up for the sewing
    class, but no males ever did.         
    
    Guy Novello

	I went to a Vo-tech (euphemism for "Trade School") instead of a
	normal high school. Out of our 80 or so graduating class we had 
	1 female in Drafting* (included a half-year in the Machine shop),
	4 in Beauty Culture, and about 10 in Health Service Occupations. 
	None of the males were in BC or HSO. The class after mine graduated
	a female carpenter, and a male in beauty culture.

	All the women took typing, while the men took blueprint reading 
	(except the woman in drafting). Personally, I'd rather have had
	the typing. I don't recall there being a "Home Economics", and 
	I'd rather have had a little training there, rather than having
	to teach myself how to cook.

						Tom_K

	* At first, I wrote "1 female draftsman", but I caught myself :-)

At my Chicago grammar school in 1952 (fifty-two), we had an all-in-one
shop/home ec/sewing class that *all* of the eight graders took.  I sort-of
learned to sew, and we all learned enough plumbing to be able to change
a toilet valve.

How can it be that the rest of the country is still stuck in the dark ages?

Martin.

    RE: .15
    
    Wow! Martin, I am impressed! Changing toilet valves is *exactly*
    the kind of thing we should be taught in such classes in school!
    
    You can always buy clothes and go out to dinner, but plumbers
    are *expensive*!!! 
    
    --DE
    

    
    Well, I didn't mean to get this note off on a tangent.  Just tried
    to say that not all folks in all places in the country have the
    same opportunities in order to feel 'free to be anything'....
    Don't get me wrong, I thought I could be anything I wanted, do anything
    I wanted, and expected to be respected for what I did, but that
    was NOT the norm for the girls I went to high school with.  
    
    I do think, hope at least, that my high school alma mater doesn't
    do the same thing today.  I'll have to talk with my niece who just
    graduated from high school, about her experiences in the South,
    to see if things have changed substantially. (sp?)
    
    Oh well, as for the original note....I do truly hope that all young
    women have your expectations, and feel comfortable with performing
    any job, and demanding the respect they deserve.  That would be
    a giant step forward!  Guess I'm too old ! .... sigh.....
    

    re: .0 
    
    I, too, was born in 1965. And I did much of my growing up in a single
    parent home. My mom was the mother and the father. I've been hearing
    forever that I can do whatever I want, I mean there were no gender
    based arguments for studying or doing one thing or another. And I
    guess that I was so matter-of-fact AND at the same time, very solid 
    in my opinion that this-is-the-way-it-is that very few people have 
    ever tried to tell me differently.
    
    re: home ec -vs- shop
    
    My year was the first when they decided that everyone should take
    home ec (cooking AND sewing) AND shop (woodworking and metal shop).
    It was great! I had a lot of fun in both, although I already knew
    how to cook and sew (having been making the family's dinner and
    making handicraft gifts for many years). And I loved shop class
    as well.
                                          
    -Amy.

    I suspect that the phenomenon you note isn't so much a factor of
    age as it is of the DEC population not being representative of
    society at large.   
    
    Everyone responding to this note works for a large high-tech
    corporation.  We're not all engineers or programmers, but we all,
    from temporary secretaries to principal hardware engineers, had to
    compete against other people to get the job we've got, and a great
    many of us have already made quite a lot of progress in those
    jobs, or we expect to in the near future. 
    
    Obviously we don't have too many deep-seated feelings of
    incompetence, fears of failure, or beliefs we should stick to
    women's work, whatever that is, or we wouldn't be here in the
    first place.  The women who were discouraged from following
    professions, who were discriminated against and held in low-paying
    jobs, are not, on the whole, working for high-tech companies these
    days.  Too many of them have given up.  Too many of them gave up
    long before they even gave it a chance. 
    
    --bonnie

    re .19 good point bonnie (though I'd question the part about fear
    of failure and insecurities - the high acheivers I know are often
    terrified of failure and have extremely high standards thus setting
    themselves up to "fail" rather regularly.  but we can continue this
    otherwhere if you'd like to pursue it)
    
    One of my best friends in high school (1980-81) came from a blue
    collar family and went to the local public tech school.  She was
    "learning computers" (data entry).  Her father beat her and her
    mother.  Her mother beat her.  The love of her life beat her.  The
    only way for her to escape her home environment that was acceptable to
    her socio-economic group (fancy way of saying her neighborhood,
    family, friends) was for her to marry.  [she's turned out really
    well, despite the horrible hand life dealt her: got rid of the abusive
    boyfriend without permanent injury, moved out of the home to live
    BY HERSELF, and later met a sweet gentle guy]
    
    I am 25 and was raised to believe that I could do anything.  I went
    to an excellent technical school, despite my parents being broke,
    and already have a higher standard of life than that with which
    I was raised.
    
    Thus my adamance about sexism; the first big incident was like a
    bazooka in the face: outlandish, ridiculous, sheer lunacy,
    outrageously neanderthal, and terrifying.  Later incidents were
    yet more severe and threatening to my well-being.
    
    Yes, things are better.  Nevertheless, they remain enormously unjust.
    
    Lee

    Mom's up for a visit and I mentioned the discussion to her.  I said
    I couldn't remember being told that I would eventually marry and
    have a man take care of me.  She said that none of the women in
    her family were told that.  They were all expected to get an education
    so they could take care of themselves.  In general, though, I'd
    say that attitude is more common these days.
    
    Re: high school
    
    In small-town Georgia, near Atlanta (Duluth, in Gwinnett County,
    for anyone who's been there), my older brother was in 6th grade.
    Everyone took 6 week samplers of the electives offered:  6 weeks
    of typing, 6 weeks of home ec (mostly cooking, I think), etc.  I
    thought that was a good way to work things.  We moved before to
    Texas that year, so I never got to try out for myself.

I was born in 1965 and when I was just four years old, I came home from
kindergarten one day and told my mother that I'ld like to be a nurse.  My
mom, of course, wasn't going to argue me out of it if I wanted to be a
nurse, but she was curious.   "Why a nurse?" she asked.

And, I told her that I *did not* really want to be a nurse.  I really
wanted to be a doctor, but that all the kids in my kindergarten class told
me that only boys could be doctors.  And, I remember to this day the
intense feelings of indignation I had when mom explained to me that if I
wanted, I could, indeed, become a doctor.  

I don't doubt that that experience has helped me.  When I would hear that
girls can't do math, I would just think of those kindergarten children and how
early one can get socialized to believing something...  or not.  And, let
me tell you, I heard that crap from a few (male) students when I was in
engineering school!  One fellow student said this to *me*!  And I'm most
definitely female and I can most definitely handle math!  

Tamar

    Tamar,
    
    One night when we were going home from the pub (at university),
    one of my friends explained to me why women can't do math.  All
    very serious, all very logical, for a 15 minute drive. I went along
    with it, thinking it is a put on, till he said he's not sexist or
    anything, that's just the way it is.  After I picked myself up off
    the ground, I asked, what about me???
    
    He said  that's ok, I'm different.  I never did figure out if I'm
    the exception that proves the rule or just some freak of nature,,
    not quite female, ya know, she does *math*.
    
    He held to his views several times over the next year, usually as
    he was copying my diffy q or linear algebra homework.
    
    The biggest problem is,, he's not the only adult with this view.
    Just one of the few willing to admit it.
    
    
    mary

    Math, eh?  Well, I did calculus tutoring part-time when I was working
    my way through college.  I don't think it would occur to many people
    (men, I mean) to me what I "can't do" when they see me doing whatever
    it is (short of being a sperm donor!); don't laugh but it is one of the
    advantages of being taller than the average American man, let alone
    woman: people find it hard to "look down on you" if they have to look
    up at you!  Of course, I can't help being tall; my whole family is
    tall, and sometimes that is a nuisance (you all know what I think about
    shopping for clothes! - of course, I save money since I can't impulse
    buy things even if I felt like it since they would be way too short!)
    
    Well, actually, there was my ex-father-in-law, an old, bad-tempered,
    blue-collar French Canadian man.  He didn't think women could do math,
    but then, he couldn't do math either.  I didn't pay much attention to
    his arcane opinions on stuff other than to try to avoid his anger (his
    temper was worse than my ex's - no one in that family was ever taught
    to control their temper anyhow...I'm glad to be out of there!).  I was
    sort of marginally OK in his book since I kept my mouth shut most of
    the time (like his wife - she wouldn't even converse with you if he was
    in the room, because if she did he would trounce her) and knit sweaters
    for his son, darned socks, etc. (yes, I can do those things too....my
    mother is a musician and mathematician who also darns socks).
    
    
    /Charlotte

Ahem....

  There is a standard reply to men who make speeches about why women 
  can't do math.  Just look the guy straight in the cro...I mean eye, and 
  tell him .....
		.
		 .
		  .
		   .
	"The reason women can't do math is because all their
	 lives they've been told that *that* [at this point
	 indicate a span between your thumb and first finger]
	 is six inches."

    re .25
    Cathy (I think that's you, right?), you're onto something!  I just
    measured the span between my right thumb and first finger (well, I am
    right-handed), and it is 7 1/2 inches!   I don't have a long enough
    ruler in my cube to see if the distance from my nose to the end of my
    outstretched arm is a yard, though!
    
    ;-)
    
    /Charlotte

Hi Charlotte.  Yup it's me (Kathy).

You do realize the span you should be indicating when (if) you
tell this joke should be considerably \*LESS*/ than 6 inches - right?

(By the way, for me to get a 7-1/2" span I have to go from my thumb to
my little finger.  Have you considered taking up pro piano playing for a
living?  All the travel you want, it pays better than software engineering,
and it sounds like you would have a natural advantage - a key-span to beat 
Rubinstein's!)

    Someone already sent me mail saying that the thumb-to-first-finger
    gambit is the punchline of some joke - I'm dense that way; I don't
    react to most jokes!   It's a big distance on my big hands.
    
    My mother always hoped that I would decide to become a cellist,
    because, with my long fingers, I could play one with the violin
    fingering, apparently a big advantage if your fingers are long enough
    (although my little fingers are very, very short, as is true of
    everyone in my father's family).  However, I turned out to be tone-deaf
    like my dad (who had other fine qualities, however!) rather than
    musical like my mother's people, so that never panned out.  My mother
    plays the viola, mostly, although she plays several other instruments
    too - semi-professional even now that she is retired.
    
    
    /Charlotte, again
    PS -  I never look at a man below the shoulder level; it embarrasses
    them so!  I wish men would do the same.

    
    Getting back to the original topic, I was also born in 1965, so
    I definitely (as usual) have a few thoughts. 
    
    I was raised in a non-sexist environment so it is hard to say how
    much of my attitude came from that home environment and how much
    of it was around me at school, but basically it was always my
    assumption that I could do anything a male could do. I recall a
    couple of instances when I became extremely indignamt when that
    assumption was challenged.
    
    When I was, I believe, in 6th grade (1975-76) I was furious because
    there was a boy's basketball team for the six-graders, but no girl's
    team. Guess what? The girls got to be cheerleaders! Only one other
    girl and myself declined that honor. A couple of girls and I tried
    to start a team, but it came to nothing. Even thinking about it
    now I get furious. I hope to God they've changed that policy. Maybe
    the next time I go home (my mother still has a house a block from
    school) I will look in at the gym.
    
    At about age 13, I had been in my town's Little League for 2 years.
    At a certain age, you went into a different division of the league.
    When I went to register I was told that they didn't allow girls
    into that division "for insurance reasons". I cried all the way
    home, but my mother gently consoled me by telling me that if worse
    came to worse, we would call up the ACLU! We called some higher
    ups in the league first, and eventually someone got back to us stating
    that there was no such rule against girls playing.  When I went
    back to register, there was a handwritten sign on the blackboard
    congratulating me (by name!) for being the first girl in the senior
    division!             
    
    I think things are better now than they used to be, and I believe
    (present politics aside) they will be better still for my kids.
    Just thinking about having been through those experiences makes
    me feel old. To expand this topic, I would be curious as to what
    parents of CURRENT grade school and high school children have to
    say about their kids experiences with opportunities in school such
    as sports, shop, etc. 
    
    Roberta

>    To expand this topic, I would be curious as to what
>    parents of CURRENT grade school and high school children have to
>    say about their kids experiences with opportunities in school such
>    as sports, shop, etc. 

Me too. And, of course, the traditionally _female_ areas as well (cheerleading,
home ec, etc., for boys).

	Mez

    
    
    Well, our local junior high requires boys to take both cooking and
    sewing, and girls to take shop.
    
    High school sports - boys only for football (appropriate in my
    opinion), soccer (I wish it were a big enough school for a girl's
    soccer team, but don't REALLY want girls on the boy's team) and
    I believe baseball and basketball.  Both sexes have track programs,
    cross country died this year 'cause no one went out.  Girls only
    for volleyball and field hockey.  The school is in my opinion small
    (400 in the student body total), and I think this skews the
    opportunities.  My son wants to play volleyball in the winter -
    but it's only a fall sport and soccer is his first love.  There
    was a boy on the field hockey team this year, I believe he got to
    be manager (ie, didn't actually play).
    
    Personal opinion - it's improving, but there's still a long way
    to go.