Women in Media

[firstfrost]

This article is really bugging me:

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/06/02/the_write_time/

It's about women getting their PhDs while having children. Which is a fine thign to write about, and there are some interesting points in the article. The thing that is bugging me is that as far as I can tell, the article assumes that having children is *entirely* a woman thing.

I'm sure that women are still the ones doing the majority of the child-rearing. But I think that's a different statement than something like "Doctoral candidates are more likely to have babies these days for the simple reason that women make up a greater percentage of doctorate recipients than they did 30 years ago" which seems to take as a logical given the fact that having babies is something that women have to deal with and men do not.

In addition, I honestly cannot tell if the article is about three single mothers pursuing PhDs. There is absolutely no mention of a father, or any other partner, anywhere in the article, but neither is there a mention of a lack of one. I don't want to suggest that the idea of raising a child on one's own is what I object to, but I can't tell whether that's what they're doing, or if that's just what the article assumes that they're doing because the fathers couldn't possibly be relevant to the subject.

Comments

[psychohist.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, my reaction to that article is "where are the fathers here?" Shouldn't they be taking care of the kids during the final "disappear from the world to write the dissertation" phase?

[greyautumnrain.livejournal.com]

Didn't your Dad have a kid (or two?) while doing his PhD? Or does it not count if you're a guy because you're not the one gestating?

[psychohist.livejournal.com]

If you're the guy, you're likely not the one doing the child care. I think my mom was taking care of us full time so it didn't impact my dad's PhD. In fact, I think my dad once said he probably would never have finished if it weren't for my mom's nagging.