The Buddy System for Working Moms

Madeleine Albright said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." Her intention was to point out that women as sisters should help each other succeed. Successful women have an especially high burden in this regard. To me, her comment seemed to be directed at individual women. A couple of things that I read/heard this week made me wonder if this should be directed at the structural and social arrangements that we have. In other words, we as women need to systematically seek each other out to be partners and help each other succeed in the workplace. I give you two very different examples to illustrate, one from a former professor and one from an officer in the Navy.

A personal essay by Kathy Weston appeared in Science recently. She is a science writer, who used to be a professor at University College London. After 20 years in her position, a Research Assessment Exercise deemed her contribution to the department to be inadequate. She left before she could be fired. Her career started off well enough, but her research projects became more modest and unambitious over the years. The causes included the competing attentions of family and her own self-doubt. One paragraph of the essay especially caught my attention.

Trying to run a lab full time with small children at home is very likely to result in a drop in research productivity or quality, and yet little allowance is made for those of us, mostly women, who find ourselves in this situation. I believe I could have run my lab very successfully if I had been permitted to job-share with a close female colleague, also with two young children. Between us, we could have covered all the bases, and perhaps as a team we would have retained our competitive edge and hence our enthusiasm. This just does not happen in the male-oriented world of science in which, traditionally, dogs are keen to dine on dogs rather than share the bone between them, so to speak.

And the part about collaborating with a female colleague is important. While sharing a lab with a male colleague certainly would be beneficial, he would not be feeling the same pull from home and pressure to perform at work.


Petty Officer 1st Class Sheena Sullen was the subject of an story on NPR this morning. She had enlisted in the Navy and was about to be deployed on a missile destroyer. Her fiance had already been deployed, so there was no one available to look after her two children, ages 14 and 8. Sullen made a call to her childhood friend, Jihan Sanders. After careful consideration, Sanders quit her job and moved into Sullen's home in another state along with her own children, ages 12 and 9. It's an incredible act of friendship-- in both directions.

For Sanders, it is a privilege to be a temporary mother, as Sullen had been to her. "I never had a mother, so I didn't know what it was like, even how to act like a girl," Sanders says.

Sanders is helping Sullen at home, so Sullen can succeed at her job as a Naval officer. If Sullen could not have deployed, it would have been the end of her career.

What if women could have buddy systems that were not ad hoc? What if it became the norm for women to find other women to help them run households and research laboratories? This pairing up would have nothing to do with romantic relationships (and would probably be better if it didn't). It would be more like a sister than a mate. I don't want to suggest that Weston would still be professor if she had a buddy to share her lab. Her story could have done in any number of directions. But it would have helped, and it would probably help women, including me, would benefit from an arrangement like this.

And as a special bonus, that special place in hell would be a lot smaller.

Liberal government representative shot by lone gun man

A moderate politician who supported progressive policies was shot by a lone gunman at a busy local market last week. No, I'm not talking about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, but Salmaan (or Salam) Taseer.

Taseer was governor of Punjab province in Pakistan. He was a moderate Muslim in country that is becoming dominated by religious extremists. He was an opponent of Pakistan's Blasphemy Law, which forbids blasphemy against Islam. The law has become an excuse for a witch hunt against "troublesome" officials and neighbors alike. Since the allegation of blasphemy is sufficient to bring about harassment, attacks, and riots, the law is often used to intimidate moderates and non-Muslims. Even a false accusation can lead to someone losing their job, their home, or worse. Taseer sought the pardon of a Pakistani Christian woman who had been convicted under this law.

The gunman was Taseer's own security guard, apparently encouraged by clerics who criticized any opposition or leniency toward the Blasphemy law. The shooting occurred on January 4, 2011 at Kohsar Market, a shopping centre in Islamabad. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, said in an interview with the BBC,

"[Taseer] shares a vision of Pakistan that is liberal, that is tolerant, that is inclusive. Unfortunately, he has been gunned down by those with a totally different vision of Pakistan, a theocratic vision, a narrow vision, a vision that conflates blasphemy with a man-made law and wanting to change it...

He has been assassinated not just by an individual, but by the entire movement that basically tries to play up the emotions of Pakistanis rather than telling them the facts, and that tries to say to them that anyone who questions a law made by human beings a few years ago, critizing the law is somehow the same is, God forbid, insulting the holy prophet of Islam. I think those people are responsible, the lone gunman, or conspiracy or plot will come out in the police investigation. For now, let us focus on the two conflicting visions for Pakistan, the theocratic and the democratic."

The similarities to Gabrielle Giffords' shooting are eerily similar. Both Giffords and Taseer were moderates. Both were shot at a market. Both shooters used a very large number of bullets, emptying magazines. Taseer was killed, but Giffords is now in critical condition in the hospital. The motives of Giffords' shooter are still unclear, but it's safe to say that he had a different vision for the government.

Coincidentally, I wrote about the Montreal Massacre recently. There, too, a gunman killed many innocent people for what they represented. I think my characterization of the killer from that incident also fits these two cases: an individual who had his own personal, psychological problems, whose desire to kill was fed by rhetoric around him. Giffords' shooter was creepy and seemed to fueled angry anti-government movement that sees conspiracies everywhere, such as government brainwashing and validity of Barack Obama's citizenship. I haven't read anything about the mental state of Taseer's killer, but the fact that the governor was shot 29 times speaks to a certain amount of rage and overkill. This killer was clearly influenced by a prominent movement in Pakistan seeking to create a theocratic state. The strength of this movement is evident in the hordes of people raining rose petals down on the alleged killer. Fortunately, the US has not sunk to this level, though there is a lot of inflammatory rhetoric going around.

My point in drawing these parallels is not that we live in a scary world full of crazies, but that people are the same all over and that they only way out is tolerance, inclusion, and just peace. Every tragedy seems uniquely horrifying. We want to strike back at the cause, to hurt as much as we have been hurt. But this response only fuels the cycle of hatred and violence. It's no use to annihilate one form of intolerance only to replace it with another form, to get rid of "them" and replace it with "us." I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna who says "Why can't we get along?", but the only way to stop hate is through personal choice. We as individuals have to make an active choice to be open minded, to learn, to ask questions, and to find ways to we make room for people who are different from us, whether those differences are religion, politics, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or any other source of categories.

What did Solomon know about motherhood anyways?

There is a famous story in the Hebrew Bible about how Solomon adjudicated a dispute between two women both claiming rights to a child. The story is intended to show how wise Solomon was.

1 Kings 3:16-28 (New International Version, ©2010)

A Wise Ruling

16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 One of them said, “Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me. 18 The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
19 “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”

22 The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”

But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.

23 The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”

24 Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

26 The woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”

But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”

27 Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

28 When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

This story, and the interpretation of it, drives me nuts. It feels very unfair and imposes a very narrow view of how a mother should be have. It emphasized the self-sacrificing aspect of motherhood and makes this an expectation of all "good" mothers. Why is it not possible for a "real" mother to prefer that her child die than go to some one else? Someone who might not be a good mother, such as a child abuser or drug addict? At the same time, I would be very sympathetic to a mother who has been looking after a demanding, colicky baby and has become completely fed up with the situation. Long term sleep deprivation (I'm talking months here, not days or weeks) is a nasty thing. I could see King Solomon's offer to divide the child in half being the last straw-- "You want him? Fine. Take him."

It would be more productive for all concerned to think of "mother" as a verb, and not just a noun. Mother, the noun, is like a job title. It’s static. Once you give birth, adopt, foster, or marry into a child, you are given this label. It does not say anything about how, or even if, you fulfill any of the duties of the position.

Mother, the verb, is an action that needs to be performed over and over. It’s a process that needs to be sustained on a daily basis. You do this by caring for and nurturing someone, by paying close attention to their emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs.
Some of us have a mother (the noun), who isn’t very good at mothering (the verb). Maybe they were too young or immature when they had us. Perhaps they may were struggling with their own demons of mental illness or addiction. Or they were in need of a mother themselves. For people like us, Mother’s Day can be awkward and bittersweet.

Some of us have people in our lives who are good at mothering, but aren’t necessarily mothers (the noun). We may have had a relative, teacher, or neighbor who looked after us when we needed it. Men can mother too. The stay-at-home dad in my family is proof of that.

So, what did Solomon know about motherhood anyways? Did he give birth to a child? Was he responsible for the care and feeding of a child on a daily basis? How many nights has King Solomon stayed up walking the floors with a baby who won't stop crying? There is little historical evidence to answer these questions definitively. But it would be fair to answer in the negative. Raising children tended to be women's work and not in the job description for a royal prince. (To be fair, not necessarily work for a royal princess or queen, either.)

So did Solomon get it right? We don't know. But if Solomon were alive today and making judgments using the same categories, it's more than likely that he wouldn't have. It's not as easy to be wise, when you're not living in a narrative, people are not stereotypes, and categories are in flux.

Patriarchy is the enemy, not men or other women

There is a well-known phrase, "The personal is political." It is often used, but not well understood, and often not used correctly. It is often used to refer to the idea that personal issues become important in political campaigns. (Remember the "values voters" who helped to decided the 2004 presidential election?) The "political" in the phrase actually refers to power and the structures that perpetuate existing power relationships. The "personal" in the phrase refers to problems that women are encountering in their daily lives. Taken as a whole, the phrase is intended to say that women have problems that are personal, such as inequality in the workplace, finding good daycare, imbalances in household chores, and sexual violence, are actually caused by the political system. A blogger, Winter, from the Cardiff Feminist Network explains:

The theory that women are not to blame for their bad situations is crucial here because women have always been told that they are unhappy or faring badly in life because they are stupid, weak, mad, hysterical, having a period, pregnant, frigid, over-sexed, asking for it etc. The personal is political proposes that women are in bad situations because they experience gendered oppression and massive structural inequalities.

"The personal is political" came from an essay of the same name by Carol Hanisch, written in 1969. She was working (at subsistence wages) for the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) as a community organizer. She was using a technique called "consciousness raising," which involved a group of women discussing their personal problems, realizing that these were problems encountered by other women, and seeing the politics underlying their common problems. Consciousness raising was often perceived as "therapy" or worse, brainwashing women into militancy. Hanisch's essay was a memo back to SCEF defending the use of the technique. Later that year, the memo was published as part of an anthology of feminist writing and given the now-famous title.

There are other ideas in the essay that are not as well remembered, because they are more difficult to embrace. Hanisch also argues that feminism needs to be more tolerant and inclusive of multiple models of how to be women. She wrote:

One more thing: I think we must listen to what so-called apolitical women have to say—not so we can do a better job of organizing them but because together we are a mass movement. I think we who work full-time in the movement tend to become very narrow. What is happening now is that when non-movement women disagree with us, we assume it’s because they are “apolitical,” not because there might be something wrong with our thinking. Women have left the movement in droves. The obvious reasons are that we are tired of being sex slaves and doing shitwork for men whose hypocrisy is so blatant in their political stance of liberation for everybody (else). But there is really a lot more to it than that. I can’t quite articulate it yet. I think “apolitical” women are not in the movement for very good reasons, and as long as we say “you have to think like us and live like us to join the charmed circle,” we will fail. What I am trying to say is that there are things in the consciousness of “apolitical” women (I find them very political) that are as valid as any political consciousness we think we have. We should figure out why many women don’t want to do action. Maybe there is something wrong with the action or something wrong with why we are doing the action or maybe the analysis of why the action is necessary is not clear enough in our minds.

In other words, feminism should be about making space for women to make meaningful choices. Work or not work, have children or not, live collectively or individually, to get breast implants or not, have polygamous marriages or none at all. Feminism is about ensuring that everyone has equal rights as human beings, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. It does not, or should not, impose a certain view of what women should be, e.g. politically active, not wearing make up, bra-burning, and angry. Hanisch takes this view because there are bigger fish to fry: patriarchy.

The groups that I have been in have also not gotten into “alternative life-styles” or what it means to be a “liberated” woman. We came early to the conclusion that all alternatives are bad under present conditions. Whether we live with or without a man, communally or in couples or alone, are married or unmarried, live with other women, go for free love, celibacy or lesbianism, or any combination, there are only good and bad things about each bad situation. There is no “more liberated” way; there are only bad alternatives.

This is part of one of the most important theories we are beginning to articulate. We call it “the pro-woman line.” What it says basically is that women are really neat people. The bad things that are said about us as women are either myths (women are stupid), tactics women use to struggle individually (women are bitches), or are actually things that we want to carry into the new society and want men to share too (women are sensitive, emotional). Women as oppressed people act out of necessity (act dumb in the presence of men), not out of choice. Women have developed great shuffling techniques for their own survival (look pretty and giggle to get or keep a job or man) which should be used when necessary until such time as the power of unity can take its place. Women are smart not to struggle alone (as are blacks and workers). It is no worse to be in the home than in the rat race of the job world. They are both bad. Women, like blacks, workers, must stop blaming ourselves for our “failures.”

As defined by Wikipedia, "Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and is dependent on female subordination." Patriarchy is the system that keeps us in our pre-defined roles, because there is no space, no accommodation for difference. To be clear, patriarchy hurts men just as much as it hurts women. There is a poster by Crimethinc., an anarchist art collective, that I love that is based on a poem by Nancy R. Smith, written around the same time as Hanisch's essay.

For every woman who is tired of acting weak when she knows she is strong, there is a man who is tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.

For every woman who is tired of acting dumb, there is a man who is burdened with the constant expectation of "knowing everything."

For every woman who is tired of being called "an emotional female," there is a man who is denied the right to weep and to be gentle.

For every woman who is called unfeminine when she competes, there is a man for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity.

For every woman who is tired of being a sex object, there is a man who must worry about his potency.

For every woman who feels "tied down" by her children, there is a man who is denied the full pleasures of shared parenthood.

For every woman who is denied meaningful employment or equal pay, there is a man who must bear full financial responsibility for another human being.

For every woman who was not taught the intricacies of an automobile, there is a man who was not taught the satisfactions of cooking.

For every woman who takes a step toward her own liberation, there is a man who finds the way to freedom has been made a little easier.

By Nancy R. Smith, copyright 1973

Patriarchy hurts us because it reduces our potential as human beings to live fulfilling lives. Feminism is about changing this social system. But it is of no use to anyone to replace patriarchy with matriarchy, that is, a social system where women are the primary authority figures and men don't have power. Really, patriarchy needs to be replaced with equality. So it's the system that needs to be defeated. (Recall the dialog from Scene 3 of Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Dennis the peasant seeks to reject Arthur as his king. Although farcical, Dennis' view is a feminist one.) To sum up, the only way to not be a good feminist is by maintaining status quo social roles or imposing new ones that limit self-determination. This is not done by defining what "real" feminism looks like and staking out territory, but by finding allies and making changes that benefit men and women equally.

December 9, 1906 and December 6, 1989

This year, December 5-11 was declared Computer Science Education Week by the US House of Representatives, with leadership from Congressman Vernon Ehlers and Congressman Jared Polis. The goal of CSEdWeek was to raise awareness of the importance of computer science for every student at all levels. Some understanding of how computers work is absolutely essential for everyone as more and more of our lives move onto the screen and the web.

The week was chosen to coincide with the late Admiral Grace Hopper's birthday. She was born on December 9, 1906-- the first date in the title of this post. She received a PhD in mathematics from Yale University at the age of 28 and six years later she had reached the level of Associate Professor at Vassar College. She took a leave of absence from this position to enlist in the Navy to help with the war effort. Hopper served on the Mark I computer programming staff and was a pioneer in programming and the design of high level languages. She passed away on January 1, 1992. Hopper was a tiny woman-- she needed an exemption when she enlisted because she was only 105 lbs, 15 less than the minimum. But she was an inspiration to us all, through her colorful anecdotes, and lively and irreverent speaking style. The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is conference to bring together women in computing from undergraduates and onwards, from industry, academia, and government.

I have attended two of this and they were amazing experiences. The first time that I went, I brought my 4-year-old daughter with me. My intention was to be a role model and to mentor other women. Boy, was I wrong. I received far more mentoring and inspiration that I expected, and provided very little myself. I was reminded that despite the strength of my own beliefs, it is still important to go to the temple and be with other believers. It feels so different to be in a conference room with 1800 women and the occasional man. It feels like I belong, and I say this with no lack of confidence in my abilities or comfort level at other conferences. It makes me dream about what it would be like create other places in the world where I, and other women, felt this way.

CSEdWeek also coincides with the 11th anniversary of the passing of Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz. On December 6, 1989-- the second date in the title, a man armed with a hunting knife and a rifle went to École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec with the self-stated intention to fight feminism. CBC Radio 1 had a tradition for many years of not naming the perpetrator to emphasize the innocent victims, and I follow that here. The killer went into classrooms and offices, and specifically targeted women. In one classroom, he sent the men out, before lining up the women and turning his gun on them. All told, he killed fourteen women and injured ten other women and four men, before committing suicide.

This occurred during my last year of high school, so I came of age as woman in the shadow of the Montreal Massacre. I, like the rest of the country, struggled to make sense of it. Was it a symptom of general misogynist tendencies perpetuated by society? Or was the killer just a crazy person?

By the time I entered university, there were annual candlelight vigils commemorating the event and December 6 was designated National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. While there was no denying the tragedy of the event, I benefited from discourse surrounding it. There was much greater awareness, sympathy, and understanding of rape, date rape, and domestic violence afterward. Still, this took many years. In the early months and years, it was hard to find a narrative for the event that allowed us to live with ourselves and to look to the future with optimism.

One claim that I heard, liked, and repeated myself was that the gunman was a nut and that his act was the equivalent of someone going into a classroom, lining up, and shooting all the red heads. I wasn't very enlightened at the time, but this explanation felt right to me. The guy was a nut. Even if there were misogynist messages everywhere, you don't see everyone running around shooting women. (Well, they do, but I did say that I didn't yet have my consciousness raised.)

But over the years, I have come to realize that my choice of analogy was more apt than I realized. I chose "red hair" as the category, because it seemed silly to categorize people based solely on hair color. Yet, little did I know that there is a strong bias against redheads, or gingers as the British call them. Jokes are told about them, red-headed children are teased and bullied, and even surgeons fear doing operations on them.

Red hair is just a physical trait, but it's also one that significantly influences life course and has some associated genetic characteristics. It seems to me that sex is similar. As a woman, my physical equipment is different from a man's, and this affects my life course and makes me more susceptible to some disorders. But at the same time, these are just physical characteristics and not determinants of my humanity, ability to feel emotional hurt, or entitlement to equal rights as others who have different hair color or personal plumbing.

Grace Hopper's birthday and the Montréal Massacre anniversary are not just chronological coincidences; I think they are both part of a larger narrative about women in technology. Women still have to seize their own space and demand that there be a place for them in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. But at the same time, the status quo needs to make room for them. This goes deeper than numbers and percentages, but also looking at curriculum (why programming first and not design or user studies?), decorum in meetings (unruly), a de facto dress code (jeans and t-shirts), obligatory passage points, and the kinds of skills and contributions that get counted.

The ground was broken for me by other women, including Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace, Jean Bartik, Marlyn Meltzer, Kay Mauchly Antonelli, Betty Holberton, and Fran Allen. I feel very lucky to have them as my fore-mothers. But I am looking forward to the day when unexceptional women feel that it's OK for them to go into computers too and when I can feel a strong sense of belonging not just at a Grace Hopper conference. Until then, I too will continue to break ground (not without cost!) as a woman in technology, a researcher, an author, a professor, and a mom.