April 1, 2008 at 11:45 pm · Filed under taking a stand
This August is my 10th year of living in the United States of America. Every year that passes I quite honestly know less about what is happening in Canada, in the government, the political backdrop upon which my family layers the complexities of their lives.
Living in the States as an expat is starting to feel pretty irresponsible. Taxation without representation has an upside, if you like your head in the sand….like not my country, not my fault.
Sigh.
Damn Ira Glass. Whether its giving money to public radio or joining another country, he always has the compelling argument. This week the TAL episode was called “The Audacity of Government” and it was in part the story of the worst aspect of having a government formed around the notion of a cult of personality [my perspective]–the part where the President [one person] can decide that treaties and international law don’t apply when he doesn’t want them to….and a bunch of lawyers work damn hard to make this true.
Umm, not my country, not my fault??
America is the land of opportunity and I’m enjoying the opportunities. [Infrastructure like healthcare, childcare, social safelty net is a different issue….for a different post….something about the false infrastructure | opportunity dichotomy].
That said, I was raised to believe that opportunity and responsibility are ethically quite good friends. Even to me it seems counterintuitive, but the more disappointing and confounding I find the practices of the current government, the more I realize that I’m no longer just visiting.
Bring on the paperwork.
March 8, 2008 at 9:32 pm · Filed under taking a stand
i always kind of cringe when i attend *women* oriented talks, generally too sex/gender reductive, but somehow i thought it was my duty to attend the “what women need to succeed” panel today at sxsw. it’s an understatement to say i shudder still.
from the panel description: With a lack of high-profile women in tech-related fields, the question arises–glass ceiling or glass hat?
i hadn’t heard the term “glass hat” before but in the panel discussion, it was strongly suggested by the moderator that the hat, not the ceiling, was the issue for discussion.
glass ceiling: a ceiling based on attitudinal or organizational bias in the work force that prevents minorities and women from advancing to leadership positions
thus i’m assuming that “glass hat” is an attitudinal or organizational bias that minorities and women chose to hold about themselves that prevents them from advancing to leadership positions.
the perspective that women and minorities do not advance because of something they themselves are choosing to do is tricky and lonely. as a proponent of field research, situative models of action and a special interest in the Stanford Prison Experiment, i think context matters. it doesn’t necessarily determine the actions of every individual, but those that transcend their context are in a minority. it may be safe to say, all of the women on the panel have successfully transcended their context–they are women in technology in leadership positions–and their actions have been exceptional.
two of the women self-report that they work all the time, one woman started her own company so that she could craft her own parent friendly environment, one woman employs a *wife* to perform many household and childcare tasks, and one woman responds to the issue of life-work balance with the notion of fuck life-work balance….you chose to have children.
the reality is that there will always be a few people who perform amazing feats and are able to transcend their context, but i guess i was more interested in how we might transform the context so the lot of us (and many more girls and women) who are equally, but not exceedingly exceptional to the men we work with, also have a place in our industry.
two tangential context transformations of late:
Free tuition at Stanford, Harvard and Yale
Stanford University announced that it would eliminate tuition costs for families earning less than $100,000. With the third highest endowment in the nation and the highest in California, Stanford follows Harvard and Yale who made similar decisions earlier this academic year.
New childbirth policy for female graduate students
The university has adopted a childbirth policy for female graduate students to accommodate the demands of late-stage pregnancy, childbirth and the care of a newborn. The new policy will allow the new mother to maintain full-time, registered student status, as well as facilitate her return to full participation in class work and, where applicable, research, teaching and clinical training in a seamless manner.
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