Member-only story
Gender equality in higher ed?
I have a former colleague who lives in a country where no Ph.D. degree is offered.
While this woman would have no trouble applying to and then pursuing a Ph.D. in any country of her choice where such a degree is possible, she is currently the main income earner of her family (with a correspondingly impressive position and title in a field that provides food to the hungry.)
She is also enmeshed in the usual series of caretaking relationships and responsibilities that accompany modern maturity. She has aging parents and grandparents, uncles, and aunts. She has young children, personal commitments, social obligations, and a mortgage, and she ‘volunteers’ both officially and unofficially in any number of community groups and networks. She stays abreast of information that is relevant to her work, her children, and her other family members, and the various social systems in which she or those close to her participate or in which they have participated or must soon participate. She goes to meetings, pays her taxes, schedules appointments, prepares and processes, makes copies and scans and keeps track of paperwork, manages fees, and oversees budgets.
She’s an unofficial mentor to her subordinates at work, and to her relatives entering new fields (whether professional or personal). She’s a problem solver for her boss and her fellow (that’s a pun…
