[Xmca-l] A Quick Lightning Dive - like a Kingfisher

[valerie A. Wilkinson]

Good morning, XMCAers, Vandy@GST here, promoting "requisite variety" as the
true path.

I've spent some hours pondering all that has happened since Mike dropped his
"bombshell": Time for a generational change."

 

Mike himself put gender and chaining on the table at that time.

Larry, in taking up the themes and honoring Mike for his "middle" role

led to Phillip putting gender and chaining firmly together as patriarchal
and hierarchical, even if unwitting and well intentioned.

 

The discussion has gone in many directions and I am late for work.  The US
election is "tomorrow" and what I wanted to say in an article before the
decision, in a haiku-like spontaneous effusion of wisdom, learning,
philosophy, and engaged learning across a lifetime was "bogged down" by APA
rules.  In Japan, science writers have to use APA format.  I am a humanist
operating in the field of Informatics and even after 20 years on board here,
I do not feel I have a place at the table.

 

So what I want to say now, as everything hangs in the balance:

My Indonesian and Vietnamese graduate students are women who have already
graduated from the university and are getting married and having babies at
the same time that they are students in Informatics.  My Chinese and
Nepalese women students graduated from universities in their home countries,
but their cultural and language level is almost incalculably higher than my
Indonesian and Vietnamese students. My female student from Tunisia is from
yet another world. My class of "Professional Presentations in English" is a
one credit class and I am not their individual advisor.  All of them owe
obedience to their own advisor, which I do not have the standing to compete
with. 

 

It is my job to be a model of a woman of learning to help them discover
their calling and talent while working in their lab with their own
professor.  My own students are at an English level for which writing
correct English is a challenge and at a cultural level (poverty and farmers)
which makes them like very talented Middle School students.  We have to have
fun, make paper chains, popcorn balls, posters.  We have to enjoy our time
and keep our space clean.  Strangely, five years of rehabilitation prepared
me well for this.  Sadly, rank has no meaning if the rest of the gang does
not recognize it . 

I voted.  Now I'm in the "hold my breath" phase of waiting for this thing to
pass so we can get on with our lives.