"Whoever said that you can have it all is fudging on what 'all' is."
I resent(ed), and resist(ed), that remark for nearly ten years, issued as it was from the mouth of a career woman turned fundamentalist. (It is to be noted that our ships crossed somewhere in the night.) But alas, I begin--albeit grudgingly--to acquiesce.
And with apologies to Dylan Thomas, who surely deserves better, I exhort myself: Go not gently into that dark night (of reduced expectations and limited capacity)! / Rage, rage against the dying of the light (of ideals and possibilities and Big Things)!
More soon.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Mrs. Ph.D.
I did not expect to be posting this morning. This is not helping me get out the door on time, but I read this article in the "Chronicle Careers" section of the online Chronicle of Higher Education (the part one does not need to have a subscription to read). In it Marie Kelleher writes about life as a an Adjunct/Faculty Wife. After reading this, I thought "I am not the only one (minus the children)." I am married to a full-time, tenured track faculty member. As an adjunct, I am a part of the institution, but not. While I have a full-time job somewhere else in a non-university (but academic) setting, we are dependent upon the steadiness of his income and health benefits. And, within academia his career and work is valued more than mine because I am only an adjunct and independent historian.
I am not sure what to do with that and I do not have to today, particularly since I need to get to work and stop this blogging thing. For now.
I am not sure what to do with that and I do not have to today, particularly since I need to get to work and stop this blogging thing. For now.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Snippets
Embodiment. The Erstwhile Medievalist informed me that, through no fault of my own, I cause him irritation because my actions, questions, and reminders embody for him the gnats of obligation swarming his head. It's clear enough for me now that general use of the term embody indicates giving form to. It's not clear to me what it means to be a person in a body. Is a person a soul that is given form by being in a body? Is a person some admixture of soul and body? We covered this in my modern philosophical questions class, spring 2005. (But it was a survey, full of indifferent twenty-year-olds, and I was working fulltime and trying to figure out whether marrying the Erstwhile Medievalist, or marrying at all, would result in a life of oppression and squelching... So I didn't give the thing my whole attention.)
From embodiment to gender... (geez, give it a rest, will ya? Me and Myself sometimes say to I.) What does it mean to be embodied not just person, but female, or male? This question formed as I realized that discussions of gender I've encountered run immediately to questions of gender relations and not at all to gender as such. (Note to self, rescue The Woman in the Body from its dust-gathering spot on my bookshelf.)
From embodiment to gender... (geez, give it a rest, will ya? Me and Myself sometimes say to I.) What does it mean to be embodied not just person, but female, or male? This question formed as I realized that discussions of gender I've encountered run immediately to questions of gender relations and not at all to gender as such. (Note to self, rescue The Woman in the Body from its dust-gathering spot on my bookshelf.)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Appearances
From an early age, we are taught not to judge a book by its cover. Appearances can be deceiving. What is on the inside is more important than the outside. Intelligence and a good personality are much better than being pretty or well dressed or thin or all of the above.
Despite these good ideas and the best intentions, we tend to care how we look and how others perceive us. OK, well, me. I care. We think about what we wear and if we will wear makeup. Even those who consciously do not conform to standards of dress make choices about how they want to be perceived by others--even if they protest they do not care.
The Second-wave Feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s produced women who rejected the cosmetic industry, women's magazines, foundation garments, and a myriad of other products designed specifically for women. Some feminists argued that these products were a part of the larger subjugation of women. Since the 1960s and 1970s, we have become an increasingly casual society. The rules of no white shoes after Labor Day is a thing of the past. Conforming to such standards is a sign of buying into an outmoded system of repression. And not just for women. Men too let it all hang out. No one will tell me how to dress. OK, I accept "no shirt or shoes, no service." But other than going into markets and restaurants, I will not be told how to dress or style my hair or whether or not I wear makeup.
Yet, appearances do matter. I care whether my shirt matches my pants, or if I am wearing the right type of pants for that matter. (Our society obviously cares a great deal about the type of pants one wears; take Jessica Simpson's recent fashion faux pas. Apparently it was a slow news week. ) I want people to take me seriously. For that to happen, is it essential that I wear nice clothes (or the nicest clothes that I can afford), makeup, and have a suitably professional haircut? Will I be taken less seriously if I show up in jeans despite the fact that I am smart and prepared for work?
The situation gets even more dicey when I consider how much pleasure I get out of looking nice. Then I am in trouble, because I find myself taking time to dress well, fix my face, and style my hair. And all these efforts come at a price. Can I justify spending money that I do on hair, clothes, and makeup that I can find cheaper, but may not have the same "nice" result? Should I not be spending my time and money in better ways, such as reading or supporting a charity? The answer cannot be simply that I am giving in to male patriarchy or succumbing to the advertising industry.
Why do appearances matter?
Despite these good ideas and the best intentions, we tend to care how we look and how others perceive us. OK, well, me. I care. We think about what we wear and if we will wear makeup. Even those who consciously do not conform to standards of dress make choices about how they want to be perceived by others--even if they protest they do not care.
The Second-wave Feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s produced women who rejected the cosmetic industry, women's magazines, foundation garments, and a myriad of other products designed specifically for women. Some feminists argued that these products were a part of the larger subjugation of women. Since the 1960s and 1970s, we have become an increasingly casual society. The rules of no white shoes after Labor Day is a thing of the past. Conforming to such standards is a sign of buying into an outmoded system of repression. And not just for women. Men too let it all hang out. No one will tell me how to dress. OK, I accept "no shirt or shoes, no service." But other than going into markets and restaurants, I will not be told how to dress or style my hair or whether or not I wear makeup.
Yet, appearances do matter. I care whether my shirt matches my pants, or if I am wearing the right type of pants for that matter. (Our society obviously cares a great deal about the type of pants one wears; take Jessica Simpson's recent fashion faux pas. Apparently it was a slow news week. ) I want people to take me seriously. For that to happen, is it essential that I wear nice clothes (or the nicest clothes that I can afford), makeup, and have a suitably professional haircut? Will I be taken less seriously if I show up in jeans despite the fact that I am smart and prepared for work?
The situation gets even more dicey when I consider how much pleasure I get out of looking nice. Then I am in trouble, because I find myself taking time to dress well, fix my face, and style my hair. And all these efforts come at a price. Can I justify spending money that I do on hair, clothes, and makeup that I can find cheaper, but may not have the same "nice" result? Should I not be spending my time and money in better ways, such as reading or supporting a charity? The answer cannot be simply that I am giving in to male patriarchy or succumbing to the advertising industry.
Why do appearances matter?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Late Nights in the Lab
The thought of me, a slightly reluctant laboratory scientist, posting on a blog with a historian and philosopher immediately brings to mind the Sesame Street song, "One of These Things is Not Like the Other." Be that as it may . . . I am at the lab late tonight compiling data in Excel spread sheets and find myself in desperate need of distraction . . . so that I can stay even later into the night compiling Excel spreadsheet.
On days like today, when the data is piling up . . . and time for properly recording has vaporized like ethanol on dry-ice . . . I usually follow a little routine for blowing off steam. I walk down several flights of stairs and leave behind the laboratory. In fact . . . I leave this part of the building entirely and allow myself the pleasure of strolling through the lobby of the adjacent hospital. Then I remind myself, that if I faithfully carry out my days in the lab . . . I may at some undetermined point in the future be able to do what I actually love -taking care of people.
However, I didn't follow that routine tonight.
Instead I vented my frustration in a fiscally irresponsible way and splurged on a t-shirt from my favorite coffee shop, sporting the molecular structure of caffeine on the left sleeve. I probably wouldn't have done it, but I was on the phone saying how much I liked the shirt and that I have wanted to buy one for years . . . and the voice on the other end said . . .
"So . . . what's holding you back?"
On days like today, when the data is piling up . . . and time for properly recording has vaporized like ethanol on dry-ice . . . I usually follow a little routine for blowing off steam. I walk down several flights of stairs and leave behind the laboratory. In fact . . . I leave this part of the building entirely and allow myself the pleasure of strolling through the lobby of the adjacent hospital. Then I remind myself, that if I faithfully carry out my days in the lab . . . I may at some undetermined point in the future be able to do what I actually love -taking care of people.
However, I didn't follow that routine tonight.
Instead I vented my frustration in a fiscally irresponsible way and splurged on a t-shirt from my favorite coffee shop, sporting the molecular structure of caffeine on the left sleeve. I probably wouldn't have done it, but I was on the phone saying how much I liked the shirt and that I have wanted to buy one for years . . . and the voice on the other end said . . .
"So . . . what's holding you back?"
Monday, February 2, 2009
A New Book to Read
I have a new book to read. Kathleen Sprows Cummings, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era. This book was just published by University of North Carolina Press this January and I am anxious to read it. With books like this, how can we not be inspired to do better?
More Stuck
Not that I'm any more, or less, stuck in a body than I was last Thursday, but more puzzling over embodiment. I googled embody, and encountered 6,200,000 entries--ranging from Herman Miller furniture to yoga studios to tantric methods to philosophic manifestos to UN press releases to... well, I got impatient after about 30 entries.
And, though woefully inadequate, here are a few dictionary definitions of embody, just to provide a starting point of sorts.
Merriam Webster Online
Main Entry: em·body
Function: transitive verb
Date: circa 1548
1: to give a body to (a spirit) : incarnate
2 a: to deprive of spirituality b: to make concrete and perceptible
3: to cause to become a body or part of a body : incorporate
4: to represent in human or animal form : personify
Wiktionary
embodiment: a physical entity typifying an abstraction. "You are the very embodiment of beauty." "The law is the true embodiment Of everything that's excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw, And I, my Lords, embody the law."
Synonyms: incarnation
to embody To represent in a physical form; to incarnate or personify. "As the car salesperson approached, wearing a plaid suit and slicked-back hair, he embodied sleaze." To include or represent, especially as part of a cohesive whole. "The US Constitution aimed to embody the ideals of diverse groups of people, from Puritans to Deists."
And, though woefully inadequate, here are a few dictionary definitions of embody, just to provide a starting point of sorts.
Merriam Webster Online
Main Entry: em·body
Function: transitive verb
Date: circa 1548
1: to give a body to (a spirit) : incarnate
2 a: to deprive of spirituality b: to make concrete and perceptible
3: to cause to become a body or part of a body : incorporate
4: to represent in human or animal form : personify
Wiktionary
embodiment: a physical entity typifying an abstraction. "You are the very embodiment of beauty." "The law is the true embodiment Of everything that's excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw, And I, my Lords, embody the law."
Synonyms: incarnation
to embody To represent in a physical form; to incarnate or personify. "As the car salesperson approached, wearing a plaid suit and slicked-back hair, he embodied sleaze." To include or represent, especially as part of a cohesive whole. "The US Constitution aimed to embody the ideals of diverse groups of people, from Puritans to Deists."
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