In a message dated 08/07/97 21:32:17, you write:
<<
On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, David Silver wrote:
> Then one day she got seriously ill and spent three weeks in the hospital.
> When she got home I initiated our litany, "What are you going to do when
> you grow up?" Her reply was "I'm going to be a nurse." I asked her why and
> she said "Men are doctors and girls are nurses", which is what she had
> observed in the hospital. I immediately scoured Toronto for a female
> pediatrician and spent the next fifteen years encouraging her to pursue
her
> own interests without regard to society's, or my expectations. She is
> entering law school this coming fall.
>>
At school it was always my intention to become an astrophysicist. I had no
doubt about it. I read all sorts of science fiction and wrote my own stories,
and i took my A levels with a view to going to university to do Astrophysics.
The physics master didn't belive in women doing physics. He made fun of us,
derided us, and encouraged the boys in the class to exclude the girls from
the physics projects. He told the girls that we were all going to fail our
physics A levels. The others failed, or got an E (the lowest pass) I scraped
a D and took great pleasure in waving the grade in front of his face. But my
confidence was shattered, and when I went to university I did maths and
psychology, and eventuall ended up in psychiatric social work, which is where
I have been for the last 20 years. The irony was that my boyfriend in
univesity did physics, and he got through his course because I was helping
him with his maths.
Any way the point of this posting, is that women need to provide good strong
role models, and even in conversation with children remind them that the "man
with the van" could equally be a woman. And it is distressing when
supposedly strong women in science fiction roles (like Janeway) revert to
stereo type when under stress. I am sure that there are better coping
mechanisms.
janet
(continuing to be motivated to delurk)
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