Male Colleague Research Articles

Women and Work

Women and Work

Opportunities for women

Throughout my career in dentistry I have occasionally been surprised to discover examples of discrimination against women dentists. The one that I still find hard to accept (although I know it happens) is the example of a female dentist applying for a position as associate or VDP. Initially she is told the position has been filled yet when a male colleague contacts the practice immediately afterwards he is offered an interview. Thus I wondered if the report 'Better Opportunities for Women Dentists' published on the 5th September this year would hold further surprises, and I was not disappointed.

BEEN THERE; DONE THAT: LIFE AFTER THE PRESIDENCY

Some years ago, a senior male colleague reminded me of the wise adage which says, "You don't have to do everything you can do." Because he was subsequently "retired" when his inappropriate relationship with a female subordinate came to light, it appears that he did not heed the advice. Women must learn to heed that inner voice when it cautions, "I don't need to do that." Today's unprecedented pressure to "be all you can be" can be unhealthy when pursued immoderately. Greater courage and strength is required to resist the pressure than to succumb to it. In academe, the community college presidency beckons the self-actualizer. This article examines some of the myths surrounding the presidency and recommends an honest self-appraisal that may assist aspirants when evaluating the benefits and costs of the quest. Just because women can attain chief executive officer positions does not mean that ultimate rewards will follow. For some, pursuing the "best" you can be may mean a stop before reaching for the top rung of the ladder.

A Literature of Theory: Christa Wolf's Kassandra Lectures as Feminist Anti-Poetics

Christa Wolf's Frankfurt lectures, delivered in May 1982, have enjoyed (or suffered) a critical reception that adequately addresses the narrative as literary discourse, while generally neglecting the theoretical import of the accompanying lectures.1 In the five lectures, Wolf deliberately avoids providing a unified poetics. However, she does present theories of literature that are key to understanding her more recent writing and illustrate affinities to feminist literary theory and cultural theory developed by scholars in Germany, Europe, and North America. To adequately read the five Kassandra lectures as theory, one must examine them as a whole, as we intend to do in this article. As Judith Ryan suggests, Wolf develops a poetics (or rather, anti-poetics) in which theory and practice are not separated (86). Our investigation of how the five lectures do this will suggest that together they live up to the title of Lectures on Poetics under which they were given - provided one can include an anti-poetics under that rubric. Recognizing the problematic relationship between postmodernism and feminisms, we will not explore Wolf's theoretical stance within a postmodernist framework as Ryan has done, but rather within and in resistance to the larger German literary-theoretical tradition and in an international feminist theoretical framework, suggesting that these positionings are more adequately understood by reading the lectures and narrative together. In addition, we will see that the unusual form of the lectures suits their feminist content. Wolf thereby makes the indirect point that feminist criticism and theory must assume new forms in order to challenge patriarchy, and refuses the desire of a male colleague that she accept the authority of literary genre (die Autoritat der literarischen Gattungen [...] gelten lassen [VEE 131]).2 The focussing of reading and of critical attention on the narrative apart from its began with their publication history and has continued in their critical reception. In the Federal Republic of Germany the lectures appeared in two separate volumes: the Vorrausetzungen without the story, and without the Vorrausetzungen. In the German Democratic Republic, Aufbau Verlag published Kassandra. Vier Vorlesungen. Eine Erzahlung in 1983 (and in several subsequent editions). As its title indicates, this edition contained all five lectures in their original order, illustrated, but with portions of the third lecture censored (see Appendix; on the censoring of the VEE, see Graves). The story was also published separately by Reclam Leipzig. Though the story has been translated into nearly all European languages, including Icelandic and Catalan, as of 1986 the other four lectures had appeared only in English, Italian and Dutch editions (Geist and Rost 482-86). To further complicate things, the English translation by Jan van Heurck put everything (except the Literaturnachweis) back together, but reversed Wolf's original ordering. Van Heurck's relocation of the story to precede the lectures made them into an appendix rather than Wolf's intended Voraussetzungen (translated as conditions, but really preconditions or requirements). His jettisoning of the author's Literaturnachweis, while understandable given that the titles were in German, made the lectures less a scholarly exercise than a personal memoir. Wolf herself has affirmed that the Vorlesungen and die Erzahlung zusammen stellen ein Asthetisches Gebilde dar (Ursprunge 914). Criticism has by and large ignored the author's preference for considering the five lectures as a whole. Leslie Adelson, Heidi Gilpin, Judith Ryan, Sigrid Weigel, and Sabine Wilke all separate the first four lectures from the fifth, focus on one side of this divide or the other, and then conclude - tautologically - that Wolf adheres to [...] generic boundaries (Adelson 511), creates Kassandra as an autonomous, stable subject (Weigel), and negates radical critiques in her earlier texts in order to end the narrative conventionally (Wilke). …

Purity and Pollution: Gender, Embodiment, and Victorian Medicine (review)

Reviewed by: Purity and Pollution: Gender, Embodiment, and Victorian Medicine Gail Pat Parsons Alison Bashford. Purity and Pollution: Gender, Embodiment, and Victorian Medicine. Studies in Gender History. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. xvii + 188 pp. $59.95. Alison Bashford would convince her readers that British practitioners’ obsession with gender influenced the internal organization, knowledge, and practice of Victorian medicine. Men dominated the practice of medicine by virtue of their rationality, self-interest, and physical prowess. Since women seemed particularly ill suited for such rigors by virtue of, well, their virtue and a supposed physical and intellectual fragility, Bashford must account for those women who managed to become physicians. She claims that the gendered stereotypes became weapons in the hands of aspiring women physicians, who insisted that medicine would benefit from the inclusion of women who were ideal missionaries in the cause of health promotion based on the importance of moral rectitude and domestic order. Previous historians have cited this accommodation to widely held gender differences as an occasion to credit women for recognizing the wisdom of couching their demands in terms congenial to maintaining the status quo; Bashford cannot support this explanation, for she detects a protofeminist edge to the supplicants’ argument. She distills from the women’s argument an explicit feminist critique of mainstream masculine medicine. Women physicians championed a simultaneous ministering to the patient’s body and soul, which contrasted sharply with the focus of male physicians on diseased and broken body parts rather than the whole patient. This gendering of medicine empowered women to challenge the male prerogative to determine optimum health care. Bashford admits that the advance of science and its emphasis on a particularistic medicine marginalized feminine medicine, but she proclaims the ill-fated attempt to generate a regard for holistic medicine a notable, early skirmish in the ongoing gendered politics of health. Her interpretation is sufficiently provocative to demand more evidence than she provides, for she devotes comparatively more attention to the critique of medicine voiced by Florence Nightingale than to that of Elizabeth Blackwell. Further research may clarify whether the concept of feminism had a [End Page 515] resonance for Victorian-era women medical pioneers equal to that of modern feminist historians. As a writer reliant upon literary and cultural theories, Bashford states boldly that “medical knowledge is always socially constructed and always culture-bound: it is never simply ‘true’” (p. xvii). Except, of course, when it is simply true. Her discussion of puerperal fever “privileges” Ignaz Semmelweis. Curiously, she conveys regard for his insistence on a single (true?) cause of the disease by omitting any discussion of how his identification of cadaveric matter as the sole pathogen was either socially constructed or culturally bound. Neither does she disclose a familiarity with Semmelweis’s medical context, which included an informed regard for the pathogenicity of decomposing matter partly due to the reports of the often-fatal illnesses contracted by physicians who sustained a wound during the performance of a dissection. Bashford purports to right the historical record by noting that, contrary to received wisdom, Semmelweis’s warning about the danger attendant on physicians’ contaminated hands did not fall on deaf ears in Great Britain. However, she appears unaware that the ensuing discussion may have been motivated by a crucial difference of opinion between the notoriously anticontagionist Semmelweis and those he held in contempt, the contagionist-bent British practitioners. Bashford’s unfamiliarity with the medical context is further betrayed by the assertion that cultural attitudes informed physicians’ belief that puerperal fever could arise de novo. She believes that their explanation reveals a culturally warped view of women’s bodies, which were conflated with other environments that constantly fouled themselves: hospitals and houses. She is wrong to declare that the classification of self-poisoning was peculiar to puerperal fever, as this was no culturally informed, gendered reading of disease. A closer reading of medical texts would have acquainted her with physicians’ belief that an amputated stump as well as an abraded birth canal invited the absorption of a gender-neutral poison. Indeed, Semmelweis’s genius was the observation that puerperal fever was identical to the fatal illness of his male colleague Kolletschka. Purity...

An examination of the influence of working with an opposite sex partner on a police officer's behaviour

32 male and 32 female police officers took part in a study which investigated the influence working in mixed sex pairs had on their recall of an interview of a suspect. It was found that male officers made more minor mistakes when working with a female than a male colleague. With females the opposite was true. Female officers had more confidence in the accuracy of their recall when working with a male than another female colleague. Males were no less confident when working with females. It was suggested that mixed sex pairs provide benefits for female officers with minimal adverse effects on male colleagues.

A MEMORABLE PATIENT

It was my second shift in casualty. The first had not been as bad as expected. I had just about mastered the computer enough to order an x ray examination and was rather pleased with my sutures to a lacerated arm. This evening had been quiet; I had finished work in “minors” by midnight and I went to the “major” side to see if I could help out. A staff nurse, looking rather hesitant, said, “I don't think you should see this one, he is best left to a male doctor. He is a homicidal, suicidal, HIV positive drug addict who needs help. And he's carrying a garrotte.” “I'm certainly not going to see him!” said my male colleague retreating across the department. I thought that …

From the Editor

From the Editor Elizabeth Lennox Keyser (bio) Volume 22 marks the transition of the editorship of Children's Literature from the University of Connecticut, where it has been so ably edited for the past twenty-one years, to Hollins College, where we hope to continue the tradition of publishing the most original and provocative work in the field of children's literature. Hollins College, like everyone even remotely concerned with the past, present, and especially the future of children's literature—the writing, reading, studying, and teaching of it—owes an immense debt of gratitude to the founder of the journal, Francelia Butler. The story bears retelling. When, over twenty years ago, Francelia asked a male colleague why the field of children's literature was so often denigrated, he responded that a field must have a journal to be considered important. That was enough for Francelia. She promptly established one (which is not to imply that all Francelia, the fairy godmother of children's literature, had to do was wave her magic wand). Since then the annual, together with its complementary publication, the Children's Literature Association Quarterly, has been invaluable in promoting the scholarly—but accessible and unpedantic—examination of books and, increasingly, other media that children of various ages, periods, and cultures have enjoyed. I can attest from personal experience, as can the many contributors to and consultants on this volume, that Children's Literature has succeeded in luring specialists in other literatures to the field. As most subscribers to Children's Literature know, the journal has been edited in recent years by Barbara Rosen with the assistance of colleagues and graduate students at the University of Connecticut, as well as by an occasional guest editor. I want to thank Barbara for generously sharing her editorial knowledge and wisdom. Innumerable consultants and contributors have referred to her uncanny ability to identify a manuscript's weaknesses and strengths and to nurture those strengths. Fortunately Barbara will continue to act as a consultant to the journal, as will other members of her staff at the University of Connecticut. Margaret Higonnet, who has coedited volumes of the journal with Barbara, will remain on the editorial board, and Jean Marsden, coeditor of a recent volume, has served [End Page vii] as a consultant on this one. Anne Phillips, coeditor of volume 21, has contributed a book review to this volume, and I trust that she and those who worked with her will continue to contribute to the journal in various ways as they launch their academic careers. I would like to thank John Cech for staying on as book review editor, thus relieving me of that weighty responsibility, and Rachel Fordyce for continuing to contribute the valuable feature Dissertations of Note. I am also grateful to the consultants who have helped me with this volume, especially the dozen or so to whom I have turned repeatedly, and to the contributors for their good-natured responses to consultants' comments and for revising their essays against tight deadlines. Above all I am grateful for my collegial relationship with Cynthia Wells of Yale University Press. This volume, as these acknowledgments suggest, is very much a collaborative effort, one that builds on the past and will, I hope, lay a solid foundation for the future. Perhaps fittingly, this volume, which marks the transfer of editorship and thus encourages reflection on the history of the journal, contains essays of retrospection and commemoration. Without conscious design on my part, the volume celebrates and critiques the Victorian past and even, as in the Bixler and Sircar essays, analyzes others' attempts to do so. Phyllis Bixler's essay on the recent Broadway musical version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Secret Garden (the collaborative effort of a four-woman team) demonstrates the power of a children's classic to inspire fresh works of art, which in turn invest the original with new meaning. In the Varia section Sanjay Sircar's analysis of the Australian novelist Miles Franklin's account of a 1932 Lewis Carroll centenary celebration presents the darker side of canonization—cult status and commercialization. Both deal with what has become a pervasive theme of this volume: the relationship between...

Sexuality In and Out of School

It was exciting to be asked to review a book such as this, which promises boldly on its back cover to examine how 'masculine and feminine identities are formed', how 'girls are increasingly adopting strategies of resistance', and how programmes of sex education can better respond to 'the AIDS crisis at a time when premarital sexual behaviour has become the norm'. And who better to perform such an analysis than Sue Lees, whose earlier work (Losing Out, 1986) established the centrality of 'sexual reputation' as a set of social and linguistic strategies whereby men effectively control women, in school and beyond? It came as a major disappointment, therefore, to find that Sugar and Spice. sexuality and adolescent girls did not live up to expectations-methodologically, substantively, or in its implications for policy and practice. So far as can be discerned, the principal findings derive from an analysis of individual interviews and group discussions involving 100 fifteen to sixteen year old girls at three London schools, and thirty boys. The interviews themselves were carried out sometime in the 1980s by the author, a researcher Celia Cowie, and a male colleague Dave Phillips. Even though the respondents are described as 'ordinary girls and boys' (p. 5), there are reasons to doubt their ordinariness, in some respects at least. Two of the selected schools, for example, had women headteachers (a fact which Lee herself describes as unusual for the time [p. 8]), and all appeared to be in the process of implementing fairly sophisticated equal opportunities programmes. Whilst this is commendable within the context of efforts to remedy social justice, it raises important questions about the external validity of the data collected. Such problems are exacerbated by issues affecting the internal validity of the study. Remarkably little information is provided on the form and structure of the interviews themselves, save that they explored five main topics-what girls and boys said about school, friendship for girls and boys, their families, sexuality, and their expectations for the future. In fact, there is good reason to believe that there may have been reactivity present in the discussions which took place. Several respondents, for example, were reported as commenting on the clothes that Lees wore, and it is admitted that the researcher's own 'conscious partiality' informed the interviews themselves (p. 12). It is unfortunate therefore that the book lacks an adequate account of the circumstances and

Networking by female business owners in Northern Ireland

Women form a very significant proportion of the labor force in the U.K., but both their salaries and their organizational status lag significantly behind those of men, even in female-dominated industries. Consequently, women are turning increasingly to business proprietorship as a means of overcoming labor market and organizational subordination. However, research to date has shown some evidence that female entrepreneurs face more problems and are in an even more precarious position than their male colleagues. A multitude of factors can have an influence on the viability of a new venture, but recently researchers have begun to focus on the significance of the owner-manager's personal contact network as an aid to business development. Thus, for example, those entrepreneurs with large, diverse, and closely knit networks of associates are likely to draw their advice and assistance from an equally large pool. However, networks are the product of personal drive and historical experiences, and the social structure and domestic duties of many women together with their subordinate organizational roles may result in female entrepreneurs having less developed, more closely knit networks than men. Using a modified version of the personal contact network instrument developed by Aldrich et al. (1987), the authors collected data on the size, diversity, density, and effectiveness of the networks of 204 male entrepreneurs and 70 female entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland in an attempt to discover whether the personal contact networks of women are significantly different from those of men. The research posed four basic hypotheses: 1. 1. Women will be less active networkers than men. 2. 2. Women will have less dense networks than men. 3. 3. Women will incline towards discussions with other women. 4. 4. Family members will be the most important persons in the contact network of female owner-managers. Contrary to expectations, the results indicate that, with the exception of the gender of the individuals in the personal contact network, female networks are remarkably similar to those of men. Thus, for example, they are just as active in their networking as men, their personal contact networks are as diverse as those of men, and they are no more likely to consult family and friends than are men. However, analysis of the cross ties shows that they tend to rely heavily upon a male colleague as their prime contact but to revert to their own sex for the rest. In contrast, their male colleagues relied almost entirely on members of their own sex for advice.

The Social Anthropology of Women and Feminist Anthropology

The Social Anthropology of Women and Feminist Anthropology

Women Scientists in India: Their Position and Role

AbstractWomen in India joined modern science professions at the beginning of this century. Starting with medicine they have since been entering all fields of science, including engineering. Almost one-third of women are engaged in bio sciences. Recently, pure sciences such as physics and chemistry have also been drawing greater number of women. In proportion to their number seeking employment, women scientists are well represented in public sector research and development laboratories; there is a greater tendency among women scientists to go in for teaching. The private sector seems to prefer employing men in the application areas. In professions such as engineering, some discrimination exists. So far, the number of women at the higher policy-making levels in organisations is small, and many women scientists do not feel accepted professionally by their male colleague and superiors. Women scientists in India have shown serious interest in science. There are, and have been, many individual women scientists ...

Are men therapists soft on empathy? Two studies in feminine understanding.

A serendipitous finding and a replication among successive populations of clinical-counseling practicum students suggest that the typical female therapist communicates more empathically than her male colleague. In the first study, reactions of 8 women trainees were evaluated as more empathic than those of 10 men counterparts. Despite control for sex-typed handwriting cues in the second study, 8 male novitiates' responses were assessed as less empathic than those of 8 females. The results are consistent with the notion of differential sex-role prescriptions for interpersonal sensitivity.