What kind of life do men have?

In today's Observer, Gaby Hinsliff, Political Editor of the Observer, has a feature titled "I had it all, but I didn't have a life", in which she describes her busy life as a journalist and mother, and how she decided to resign because she wants to spend more time with her toddler. While she surely has put a lot of thought into this difficult decision, which apparently was not easy to make for her, I am annoyed by the message that her article gives to the reader.

She practically complains that she felt that her job was too challenging for her to spend as much time with her son as she wants to. She writes:

"I used to keep a secret running tally in my head: if he woke at dawn and stayed up late enough at night, and if I counted every stolen minute, some weeks he spent more of his waking hours with his parents than his nanny. Then I could feel I was still the one raising him: but too often, the scales tipped the other way."

This is all well and fine, but, honestly, who cares? I do not know Mrs Hinsliff, and the life she describes is the life of many other women who not only work because they like their job (and hence have the opportunity to quit) but also of those who work to feed their families.

From her article, one can deduce that she does love her job and her family. Switching perspective to a stay-at-home mum, who we have heard often enough crying "I have no life" makes me wonder what the title "I had it all but I didn't have a life" was really supposed to mean. She has (had) a fulfilling job and a family. What more can one wish for? Of course, the cry for more part-time options is evident here. This brings me to my second point.

One commenter puts it nicely:
"A man becomes a father. He loves being with his kids.

"Darling, I can't do this any more, I've decided to give up work" he cries to his wife.

Her reaction?

Ecstatic joy?



About time too?



Or...

"What do you mean give up work? How are we going to pay the bills?"




It's a wonderful thing, a sense of entitlement. Depending on gender."

In my opinion, fathers need to emancipate themselves, claiming the right for parental leave of absence instead of maternal leave. In an age of breast pumps et al. it is still mostly the mother who feels the urge to quit her job and stay at home. It is simply not yet accepted in the society that fathers take a leave of absence when their children are born - and if they do, it normally hurts their careers.
If it would be normal for parents to share the chores of childminding, the problem of combining motherhood with a career would be much smaller, and most importantly, it would be divided between both genders, making it more a problem of all the society rather than that of a minority (well, half of the population).

My main point is: articles like this one do not help the cause of any working parents, be them female or male. To cite another commenter:
"All this focus on "working mothers" rather than "working parents" just reproduces the idea that women are ultimately responsible for childcare and reinforces the pressure on mothers to manage everything, strengthens the feeling that dads should be the main breadwinners and feeds the vicious circle of unequal pay between men and women […]"

Animal rights

Ah, - my blog. It still exists, while I ignored it what, how long? Six weeks! That's nearly exactly how long about that live-changing event that is looming on us. But more on this later. For now, I simply want to share this:


Fig. 1: I had to laugh out loud when I saw this. Found on graphjam.

I especially like the "cooking it".

In which I get mistaken for what I am not twice

We have a monthly movie-night-out in our lab, where everybody can go to. It started this semester. I told the organizer that I'd come tonight, but that I wasn't sure since my son had a bit of a temperature. Her reaction was: "Oh, you have kids? It's too bad, this month we're watching a movie in which no children occur, maybe next month will be more interesting for you!"

...speechless...

This has never happened to me before, - being reduced to a mother. *I can be a mother and at the same time interested in movies where no children occur.*

Fig. 1: Me being solely interested in children, their education and a tad-bit in needlework. Please don't bore my life with media not covering any of those topics.

It led to me not going, - which is probably bad because I tend to isolate myself socially, and it doesn't help to have kids for this. Still, I am not going. While her comment was inconsiderate but surely not on purpose so, it still made me being less interested in meeting more people like her.

Fig. 2: Me staying at home, watching Lassie. Please note my shoes. They rock.

The other time where I have been mistaken for what I am not is a nicer occasion. My blog got listed under the Top 100 Science Professor Blogs, this blog is listed as number 11(!!!!). Wow. But: I am a post-doc, not a professor (yet - wishful thinking), but the list is cool nonetheless. Go check it out!

Spaghetti puttanesca

I love Italian food. Did I mention this before?
Well, this is a very nice dish, and the fact that it is called (or, some assume so) "Spaghetti the way whores made them", makes it so much more attractive. Wikipedia teaches me that this may or may not be true, - and until this is settled, I like to call it "spaghetti alla buona scienziata" and I hope that either, none of my dear readers is Italiana enough to tell me my made-up italian is wrong or if you know the right way, have the guts to tell me (fiaatacademia at gmail dot com).
However, it is a great meal, - healthy - contains fish oil, olive oil, no unhealthy (aka saturated) fats, plus fresh veggies (tomatoes) and a good dose of carbohydrates. Adding a salad and the meal is perfect.

Now, the recipe:

Chop an onion, toss in pan containing a bit of hot olive oil. Crush 3 cloves of garlic, toss in, too. Chop up a handful (small can) of anchovies toss in, too. Sizzle for a minute, add half a teaspoon of sugar. Now, add 6 medium sized, chopped tomatoes, two handful of chopped, black olives, a tablespoon of rinsed capers and two chopped chilies (one, without seeds for the weak ones). Let simmer for as long as it takes you to boil spaghetti al dente. While spaghetti boils, prepare salad. Serve with Parmesan cheese.

work-life balance

An ugly phrase. Work-life balance sounds like ones life is set apart from ones work. This is one thing that for sure is not true when working in academia.
Work is omnipresent in my life and thoughts. I have trouble to shut it out. We've been away for a while (ahhh. Summer), - and I could not stop thinking about the science I am doing. I think about what analyzes I want to do, what new data I could gather, which experiments are necessary to prove x ect. I cannot help myself, and mostly I enjoy it - it relaxes me. Actually, I do believe that the fact that I nearly constantly think about science is one reason why I am relatively efficient and effective scientist (and can get along with only 8 hours per day in the lab).

But, - if there are difficulties at work, I also have troubles tuning my pondering about that down. This obviously kills all positive effects of this and I feel stressed. I guess these are the situations where one should claim that one's work-life balance got out of balance, - when I cannot tune out things that make me grumpy, and therefore affect my family life.

What to do? I honestly don't know. I try Yoga. I like to be more Zen. Meditation. Long walks. That's fine during holidays, - but during the week? Whoever has two little kids and a highly demanding job will know that squeezing in one hour somewhere into the tight schedule is difficult, and for me that sometimes even leads to more stress.

I found a very nice and helpful blog about all this, - adequately called Balance, written by Balancing Act. She writes:
What do I balance? I balance mommyhood of two pre-adolescent children and being a wife, having two dogs and a cat, taking care of a home and all that domesticity entails. I balance graduate school to earn a PhD in physical sciences and commuting an hour each way, and the juggling of research and teaching demands, trying to excel at both, which averages at about a 55 hour work-week for me pre-commute time. I balance keeping healthy with exercise, including running half and full marathons on occasion, and also relaxing by reading books, scrapbooking, knitting, and other hobbies that I have no time to do. I balance volunteering with my children's school, which is actually required, and in the public because that is the way I was raised. I balance the need for a minimum of 7 hours of sleep each night.

That are very many demanding things to balance indeed!

Marital status or reasoning for why to use one's title

Every move brings a number of duties with it like canceling and setting up new contracts for various things, - power, heating, water, broadband, daycare ect. I am very thankful for the fact that most of these thingies can now be arranged online, or at least, by phone, which saves a lot of time. To apply for anything, I usually have to fill in a questionaire with personal and financial details.

I am struck by the fact that all these questionaires are fixated on my marital status. They all require me to provide information on whether I am married (Mrs), unmarried and probably virgin (Miss) or somebody who never found a mate (Ms). The Ms title has always confused me somewhat. Wikipedia tells me:
Ms is nowadays fully acceptable when a woman wants to be called thus, or when it is not known for certain if she is Mrs or Miss although many British women are offended by its impersonal nature and perceived diminution of marital status.
and:
you can’t go wrong with Ms.

For men, this information is not required, and they all go simply by Mr .  Why is marital status only informative in women? In any case, the fact that I am supposed to choose from one of those gives me the impression that the company wants to know about my marital status, please.

On the other hand, many of these drop-down menues are requesting additionally, - in the same menu, usually, another sort of information, - titles. Problem is, they are usually mutually exclusive. You cannot be a Miss and a Dr at the same time. You've got to choose.

Now, a title doesn't give much away about the martial status. So, one could deduce from this that the title choice is meant for men only, - since their martial status is unimportant the title is additional information. But if it was intended to be a choice for women, too, information on marital status will not be provided at all. Why then provide Miss and Mrs as choices at all?

This leads to only one conclusion: either, Dr is reserved for males only or marital status of women is not really important and probably a relict from former times. Now, if the first is true, its clearly sexist. If it is the second, it is sexist, too. It could still be that the marital status of a female Dr is obvious, but I fail to see how that would work - and it would be sexist again.

So of course, provided with the choice, I always choose Dr. I am not married, but I don't feel like a Miss (given that I've squeezed out two children), and Ms clearly gives away that I am not married (not that it would be a problem for me to tell people).

If I go for Dr, either the company is annoyed because they actually wanted to know my martial status (and then they deserve the annoyedness for being sexist) or they don't care, which means whatever I would provide them with is unimportant anyways (and they should rethink their questionaires). A pleasant side effect is that at least in some cases, it apparently provides additional evidence for our credit-worthiness - I also fail to see why that would be, but it is helpful.

And, no, I don't feel bad at all for using my hard-earned title to make life a bit easier.

Make numbers speak science

This is the best summary of how I feel when I try to make data speak science.
But it is also why I love it.