I have a dream that one day, academics--both men and women--will be able to take time to go the mountain top--or just the hill in the local park, or even a slope on campus--and cherish watching their toddlers roll down, confident that their careers aren't rolling downhill with them. I have a dream that academics will take the wisdom they gain from fostering their children's development back to their intellectual work, and feel confident that their community admires them for doing so. I have a dream that the stalled revolution will jump-start one day, that all women and men, whatever their cultural and economic backgrounds, will be empowered to give the best of themselves to both love and work. Maybe those folks in my dream will even have the time to look up from their toddlers for a moment, take a breath, and enjoy the view.
That passage is from an essay called "In Dreams Begin Possibilities" by Judith Sanders. It's the final essay in the book Mama Ph.D. I've been reading and digesting the book over the past several months, and I'll have more to say about it soon, but for now I'd just like this passage to rest on its own for a day or so.
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Not being in academia, i sometimes wonder if gender inequalities are worse there than in the rest of the world.
Great post. Love the thoughts expressed in this passage. . . . "that all women and men, whatever their cultural and economic backgrounds, will be empowered to give the best of themselves to both love and work."
I would only hope that my daughters could live in such a world.
Ciao
"Maybe those folks in my dream will even have the time to look up from their toddlers for a moment" heh, not if I know toddlers :)
Make room in your dream for the two men who are also holding hands and watching their kids and I'll be there =D