Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!seltzer@ernie.Berkeley.EDU
From: seltzer@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Linda Seltzer)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Countering discrimination your children will face
Message-ID: <5424@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 26 Sep 88 02:34:47 GMT
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#The second math major is an acquaintance of mine, who was plagued by
#the same comments, and _hated_ them.  Hated them so much that she
#switched majors in her senior year of college, just because she had
#
#She is now a musician;  I, a mathematician.  I was struck by how
#differently we reacted to similar experiences.  I found it easy to
#brush society's attitudes off as silly and not worthy of notice;  she
#felt society's lack of approval keenly.


Just to show how different people's experiences can be - I used to
be a full time engineer.  Then I changed my major to music, and I
work part time in engineering.

When I was studying engineering, all I received was praise.
"That's wonderful."  "You really have it together."  Or, one night
after work, "You look like a real businesswoman."

When I left my job and enrolled full time in music school, the comments
I received were: "Don't come to me for help".  "Composers are a dime a
dozen."

One man who was attracted to me when he met me at work immediately
stopped paying attention to me when I confided to him that I was
planning to leave to atend graduate school in music.  Some other
men have had the same reaction; God forbid they might have to spend
some of their money on a wife's expenses for humanities graduate school,
instead of having a woman shell out half the money for a down payment.

I'm sorry, but my experience was totally opposite to those you described.
I received lots of encouragement from most people as long as my life
style seemed to follow materialistic values, and I received a lot of
negativity as soon as I made a decision which some people considered
"impractical" (note that my personal happiness was not considered in
this evaluation of what was "practical").  Even some of my friends,
whom I have known for years, cannot accept my decision to work seriously
in the humanities instead of in a business career.

(Luckily, I have received a lot of encouragement from the music professors
here at Berkeley, and from musicians elsewhere).