From today, for one week only, in order to celebrate the International Women's Day, my two blogs have the exactly same text
The Eve of the International Women's Day could not have been lovelier than spent dining with my fellow 'Mum abroad' Susanna Niiranen - discussing among other topics blogging, photographing, Jagellonica family, children, Villa Lante, grant applications, husbands and wives, restaurants in Stockholm and everything else any person having a full life experience would do. Generally just having splendid time in one of my favourites, Kvarnen, from where we headed to Gamla Stan (it was just so much easier than to try to navigate the trendy places in Södermalm on a Saturday evening).
As a previous NCT (National Childbirth Trust in UK) branch committee member, I know how important it is to meet people in the same situation and share experiences - no matter how you do the parenting and if you are an earth-mother or a career juggernaut. As Susanna said, so many female blogs are about cooking or fashion or decorating - and much fewer, like Susanna's, about women actually having a career, while also having a family and enjoying cooking every now and then. However, I have decided to split my professional blog separate from my more private blog, since I so have things to say about both spheres, but some of the mummy stuff, such as the dealing with the SEN evaluation, school life and bilingual (well, nowadays functionally monolingual for good reasons) family life, is something I rather share more with my peers - the other parents. I also write about adults in my professional blog with their own names, whereas I do not want to write about the friends of Number One Son or their parents in a similar manner.
Well, I have the traditional one child per a female researcher, but Susanna wonders where are the female professors with more than one child? How could we give more hope for the future generations of women and show that you can be a whole person: both to explore and raise a family? Do we women have to try to create a world where 'lattepappor' stare at us in awe and iron our shirts to mirror the one we observe in certain corners? Or do we try to create something truly more equal? The estimates for Sweden to reach gender equality in different aspects of work and family life run between 11 to 125 years, so we will have a lot to do. Happy International Women's Day!
PS. To celebrate, in a more professional manner, do visit the British Women Archaeologists website and follow the Trowelblazers, the stories of those talented and wonderful women who dug it before us.
Well, a few female Professors with more than one child pop up into my mind immediately: Emerita Maarit Kaimio, Emerita Stephanie Dalley (Assyriologist in Oxford), Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum (Assyriologist in Berlin), Adelheid Otto (ANE Archaeologist in Munich), Aygül Süel in Ankara... I could perhaps continue the list, even if there is more female colleagues, professors or not, who don't have any children.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but when you normally look at single universities, the normal context of any female student, the majority of female professors has only one or none. A bit of a generalisation for an added effect...
ReplyDelete... so that people would think of those socio-economic contexts and support networks that are needed for having more female professors everywhere. And how one could stress less about the money and childcare and balance both research and family.
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