histories of women / of a women's college

Still formulating a response to Alok's "Books Tag."

In the meantime, would like to write about a reading I attended last evening.

This was a well-attended alum gathering at which two alums discussed their work; Alison Baker ('63) talked about her book It's Good to be a Woman, and Susan Johnson talked about her various books about lesbian relationships and lesbian sex, which segued into a large discussion about history, the college, careers, etc. At the time when Johnson attended the college, nobody was out as a lesbian, so there were all of these queer women surrounded by women at a women's college and nobody knew that anyone else was gay, so nothing happened, and people came out of the closet later in life, way after graduating. I find this remarkable. I really enjoyed hearing all of the tales about the place and so on.

Then came a discussion about success and if/how higher degrees translate into making a meaningful impact on the world. Some believed the pressure to get a PhD in something is mostly individual and internalized, others found it endemic to the college and as a part of the sense of responsibilty resulting from the privelege of having attended the college.... A few people prefaced their comments with things like "well, I only have a MA/MD/JD, but..." And one person confessed that getting an MD instead of a PhD felt like copping out, because it is applied. But then the question came up: "the PhD... and then what?" How does that translate into saving the world? A number of people discussed their experiences breaking into male-dominated fields. As I've gotten to know myself better and have read more and more statistics of various sorts (some of which were very difficult to find indeed) and thought more and more about things I'd like to do and am good at, a PhD in the humanities, and in a language/literature where I'm not a native speaker, has seemed less and less of a logical choice, but there is still some core thing that says "I must get my PhD." I wouldn't call it one of my demons, but rather, something to think about and fit better into my objectives as I scout around at a few different fields, to see if it makes sense for the work I want to do, so I guess it's best described as "on hold." A number of people discussed the feeling of intellectual confidence gained from their experiences at the place, and what a supportive environment it was-- it's true, after that, anywhere else seems really chilly. Some of the idea of its supportiveness has come into question for me in the last years after some experiences which made it seem less genuine-- it began to seem to me that it's something which is what people do while there, but the same people may in fact be entirely different in other contexts. I think that one thing which came clear for me is that as a student, you don't see the politics of the place and of the profs and so on, and in grad school, you get a peek behind the curtain, and this can be an enormous shock and even feel betraying, esp. when it's the same people who are suddenly behaving entirely differently, like they've turned into other people entirely. I would not give up a more realistic worldview and view of academia to preserve a sense of naievte, but it's been a struggle that the truth of some experiences has come into question, and I guess the test is whether in light of what I know now, which parts of what I thought I knew then still work.

Anyway, the event really hit the spot in terms of what I'd been missing, in terms of discussion and sharing history and memory, and was quite inspiring to learn about the lives of these women and their career paths. It was also a nice morale boost-- haven't visited the college in years, but wanted to find my way to it or a similar such place eventually. I hope there are more events like it.

In the meantime, the jobhunt is still going on, but recently has been a bit disappointing. I applied to one job at a corporation. First they interviewed me, and that went well, and then they had me take a test which was like a combination of a personality test like the Meyers-Briggs and the SAT, which took about two hours, and the whole thing was in German. So I did that, and they got back to me, and said I was too much of an independent thinker to fit well into the position based on the personality part. But I was careful to answer the question asking whether I unquestioningly trust people in power postions just because they're in those positions positively, just to appear suitable, and now I have a little guilt from that. I don't know. I guess I also very honestly said I don't like to be micro-managed. Then I also tried to get an interview doing admin. work for a very intersting firm. They read my resume and said they thought I'd be bored in that position and was overqualified and didn't even want to interview me. So if I want a job, I guess I have to massacre my resume a bit more and be more of a cookie cutter type. Either that or start working independently. Arrggghhh.