Tangents from a Book
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I just finished reading Marilyn French’s Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals. It was written in the 1980s and is somewhat dated. There were quite a few items that surprised me as I read and made me realize how naïve I was about the limitations on women in the US while I was growing up. For example - women were not allowed to serve on juries in Alabama until 1966 when the Supreme Court struck down the state law. There were still many limitations on property ownership in the 1960s as well. But much had improved by the 1980s and early 1990s. Somewhere along the line, progress slowed and increased limitations on women are the new trend - once again, as it has many times before in history.
As I read, my mind jumped very easily to related topics from my own life (since this book was written) or the news:
- I was part of the peak of women entering the computer field. That happened in the mid-80s and has been declining ever since. When I was in school, the college courses for people that wanted to go into programming were in various departments: math, business, and engineering. It was new field and there was an excitement about it. In my classes there were about equal numbers of men and women. The same was true when I started work. Over the years, there were fewer women. I’m sure there are many reasons for the decline - but the move to put computer science almost universally in the engineering department is probably a significant factor.
- Years later, my daughter was in an engineering physics course - one of two women in the class. The professor was not a problem (but was not helpful either). The male students picked on the other woman (said that she wasn’t qualified to be in the class) but fortunately left my daughter alone. She had to beg the other woman to stay in the course….and then study hard without the benefit of a study group. What does this say about what these men will be like once they are in the work force? It causes me to shudder.
- Another experience my daughter had was on a geology field trip - in a van full of people, only two of them women. The guys talked about ‘hot’ women all during the trip. My daughter chose to stay silent and hope they would stop soon. It was not a pleasant field trip. Are the guys rude or just clueless? I assume that it is probably a little of both.
- And in the news - Lindy Boggs died recently. What a great lady she was --- and a champion for the cause of women’s economic rights! Her efforts came after this book was written.
For much of my career, I assumed that the trends toward increasing opportunities for women were on the right track….that the progress made had an unstoppable momentum and that, in time, the perspective of women would be fully integrated into our culture. For the past 10 years or so - I am no longer as certain that is true - and there is a possibility that the trend has reversed. Reading this book reminded me of that.
