Re: How To Recruit Women to Tech and IT Classes

[Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>]

One troublesome item related to what Herb said below about latch-key
children and related to one of my comments is the assumption that it is the
female physicist who should give up her time for the raising of the kids
and
not e.g. her lawyer significant other.  IMHO the problem of latch-key kids
should not be viewed as a gender specific issue or problem.  I realize in
practice it typically is, and the reasons are of course quite complicated
and rooted in the cultural and sociological dynamics between couples and
their larger society. (Wow what a mouthful!)

Joel Rauber
Joel_Rauber@sdstate.edu


> -----Original Message-----
> From: phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators
> [mailto:PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2000 2:38 PM
> To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
> Subject: Re: How To Recruit Women to Tech and IT Classes
>
>
>
> > ....... Another problem facing women in  physics
> > is that of rearing a family.  ... . In fact, the discrimination
> > against women seems to have shifted a few notches to one side or the
> > other, away from just assuming that "women can't do physics" toward
> > "women can't do physics and have a family life." We need to work
> > hard to get around that problem.
> > Hugh
>
> If (and when) we solve that problem we still have the problem of
> "latch-key" children who are brought up without the care and
> guidance of
> their full time working parents. In the past it was the
> children of  the
> women elementary and high school teachers who had a most
> difficult time
> adjusting to social, moral, and other niceties while growing up.  The
> daily working hours of teachers is still less than those of full time
> physicists. How can a woman work the long hours of a professional
> physicist and still have sufficient time left at the end of the day to
> devote to her own children?
>
> Herb Gottlieb from New York City
> (Where physics problems are MUCH easier to solve than
> latch-key children
> problems)