I suppose I've had it relatively easy in a sense. Professionally I've wound up in a discipline area (education) where there are a lot of highly regarded female researchers and theorists, although of course it wasn't always like that, and there's still the history of Big Important Men who carved out the foundations. That said, in a previous role, as an adviser at a medical school, I sat on various policy and strategy development committees, where I used to joke about being the only person without a grey beard.
People always bang on about Mrs Thatcher (previous UK PM) as not being a 'real woman'. Just because she was tough and not very nice to poor people. To me, that's no evidence that she's not a woman, but that not all women are nice. Or weak, for that matter. I think the problem stems from the assumption that there's one correct way to 'be a man' and one to 'be a woman', but really there are as many ways of being men and women as there are men and women.
I've no idea how feminine other people think I am, but at least at work I'm rarely passive. Sometimes I'm quite pushy, and I'm often arrogant. I do think I'm helpful though. I think we should smash up these sets that supposedly go together.
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Date: 2006-10-16 03:58 pm (UTC)People always bang on about Mrs Thatcher (previous UK PM) as not being a 'real woman'. Just because she was tough and not very nice to poor people. To me, that's no evidence that she's not a woman, but that not all women are nice. Or weak, for that matter. I think the problem stems from the assumption that there's one correct way to 'be a man' and one to 'be a woman', but really there are as many ways of being men and women as there are men and women.
I've no idea how feminine other people think I am, but at least at work I'm rarely passive. Sometimes I'm quite pushy, and I'm often arrogant. I do think I'm helpful though. I think we should smash up these sets that supposedly go together.