Halloween and Hallowed Halls

Yesterday, as I was driving home from work, I noticed that a Halloween Express had opened in the old Kerr Drug building on Highway 17 North in Mt. Pleasant.  Now, I could say something noble, like I'm so glad that an abandoned building is in use now...or I'm glad that it's occcupied because it's providing some jobs...but that wouldn't be honest.  I'm thrilled that a Halloween Express is less than 10 yards off my daily route to work because I'm a Halloween freak.  My friend Jeff has already said that I needed to give him my checkbook, credit cards, and ATM card until Halloween is over and the store has closed for the season - but I told him that I would exercise self-control and only purchase one totally gruesome, sick and twisted item - just one BIG item.  Jeff couldn't say much - I mean, this is the guy who gave me a collection of true-to-life cockroaches as a 'thank you' for bartending at his shop one October...and who for my birthday one year made me life-like tombstones out of concrete that I left on my deck for over a year and that now have their own special spot in my garden year-round...and the guy who has parents that pick me up little gifts when they come across a hard-to resist Halloween bargain.  So this guy is telling me that I need to give him my checkbook and credit cards?  Who's he kidding?  I've already purchased my first Halloween treasure of the season:  a $2.50 shrunken head from Walgreens that is now hanging in the window of my office doorway and looking out into the hallway.  My colleagues either don't notice it, or notice it and just shake their head.  Hey, they're freaks too.  Don't look at me that way...

So today on the way into work I couldn't resist stopping off and taking a photograph of this new Mt Pleasant treasure.  I have a feeling (a somewhat pathetic feeling) that having a Halloween Express to visit over the next month or so might help me escape from the deluge of work:  grants to review, grants to write, student stuff, life stuff...just lots of stuff.  Today I thought I'd actually make a point of writing down everything I need to get done between now and mid-November, and half-way through the list I got so depressed that I stopped writing.  Even the partial list was overwhelming...and reading the latest NYTimes article about women in academia didn't help much either.  This section was particularly familiar:

The report also dismissed other commonly held beliefs — that women are uncompetitive or less productive, that they take too much time off for their families, and so on. Their real problems, it says, are unconscious but pervasive bias, “arbitrary and subjective” evaluation processes, and a work environment in which “anyone lacking the work and family support traditionally provided by a ‘wife’ is at a serious disadvantage.”

No kidding.  I say all of the time that I need a 'wife' - and although I don't mean it in that horrible, negative 'wife' way - like I need a 'little woman at home'..perhaps I'm in denial because that is exactly what I'm thinking:  I need someone at home fulltime who manages our lives and makes sure there are vegetables in the refrigerator and that the bills are paid and that I remember birthday presents for my family and to remember to call in the Ancient Wonder Beagles liver meds...I don't need to go on.  I know, I know - there are lots of married men out there that contribute to the home, etc - but to be honest, alot of the men that I work with have women that handle a big part of their home and personal lives.  (They even have their lunches packed for them...I can't imagine - lunch is such a headache for me.)  I'm envious of that - when the holidays come around and I'm frantically trying to fit shopping in, they tell me that their wives have already finished up their shopping.  That's just one obvious example - but there are many others.  I also know that there are many professional men out there with wives in equally challenging and demanding positions (my apologies to them).  But all I know is that during periods of time when I'm as busy as I am now - well, everything in my personal life goes to hell in a handbasket.

In the 18 Sept news release by The National Academies, it was stated:   

Forty years ago, women made up only 3 percent of America's scientific and technical workers, but by 2003 they accounted for nearly one-fifth.  In addition, women have earned more than half of the bachelor's degrees awarded in science and engineering since 2000.  However, their representation on university and college faculties fails to reflect these gains.  Among science and engineering Ph.D.s, four times more men than women hold full-time faculty positions.  And minority women with doctorates are less likely than white women or men of any racial or ethnic group to be in tenure positions.  Previous studies of female faculty have shed light on common characteristics of their workplace environments.  In one survey of 1,000 university faculty members, for example, women were more likely than men to feel that colleagues devalued their research, that they had fewer opportunities to participate in collaborative projects, and that they were constantly under a microscope.  In another study, exit interviews of female faculty who "voluntarily" left a large university indicated that one of their main reasons for leaving was colleagues' lack of respect for them.

You can get an online version of the full report, titled "Beyond Bias and Barriers:  Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering" here (it's awkward to read - but it's about $45 to purchase). 

All I can say about the report, and it's findings is - DUH.  I'm glad they do these things, and that they get these findings out there - but many of the female scientists that I know are so familiar with the results of these reports - we're living it - that you just want to scream 'Can't we get to SOLUTIONS - not talk about what women are experiencing, or list possible solutions - but can't we just get this situation improved NOW?'  I always enjoy the dialogue over at Thus Spake Zuska, even when I'm too tired to comment myself...and I'm encouraged by comments by Open Reading Frame and other males that post on Zuska's blog that 'get it'.  I would say that it's hard to describe effectively subtle discrimination - but really it's not.  It's daily, often even hourly, reminders that you are not 'at the table' - that although you are publishing, and being recognized nationally and internationally through requests to review manuscripts and grants, and even though you are mentoring students that go off to get good positions and prosper in their own careers - that even though you are doing all of these things, that 'they' still forget to cc you on important emails regarding decisions that you should be a part of - that ideas that you initiate and bring forward are discouraged or, worse yet, ignored and then pop-up later as a novel idea that you are not at all connected with.  It's finding out - just a few weeks ago - that you received your promotion.  However, no one had thought to let you know, even though the decision was made a month ago - and that finally, when you were concerned (stressed) that there was a problem, you emailed the department and were told 'oh yeah, it came through without a hitch, we forgot to let you know."  Like a promotion in the hallowed halls of academia is ever a trivial matter?  Individually, each of these subtle (and not so subtle) behaviors are tolerable - but it's their collective weight that makes me weary at the end of each and every day.  For tonight, it's a comment by venky on Zuska's recent post about The National Academies report:

And the committee which authored the report had 17 women out of 18 members. How about some diversity ladies?

Well damn.  Welcome to our world almost every single day.  What would happen if there were only women scheduled on departmental seminar series?  (ask Female Science Professor).  I mean, what would the world be like if there were mostly women on committees, instead of men?

For one, we probably wouldn't be in this crazy war with Iraq.  For another, I would have been told in a timely fashion that I had been promoted.

(PS Now you know why I need that Halloween Express?)

         

Comments

[Bill Hooker]

My wife loves Halloween too. I mean LOVES it. I'd never seen it before I moved here -- it doesn't really exist in Australia -- but I like it just for the amount of fun Cat has with it. Last year, we had Cat dressed up as a witch, a skeleton on the porch and a ghost in the upstairs window, spooky music, lights and a hundred little hand-decorated bags filled with sweets and toys. Seriously good loot. We got about 30 t-or-t'ers; I expect many more this year. So far all I know about the decorations this year is, there will be tombstones.

[Pam]

BH: Tombstones are a must. If you want to make your own, let me know - and I'll see if Jeff will tell how to make them out of concrete. The one's that I have got look great - sufficiently creepy for sure.

[Bill Hooker]

Thanks Pam, but the Spousal Unit informs me that this year's tombstones will be made out of painted insulating foam. The giant spider's web, strung between the monster maple trees in our front yard, will be made of twine and decorated with a truly enormous foam/faux fur spider whom I have christened Peter (as in Parker, of course).

Oh, and speaking of the SU, she would like a picture of the tombstones in your yard if possible!

[Pam]

BH: Wow, a faux fur spider! I took pics and posted them of the tombstones, per your request.

[Bill Hooker]

Thanks for the pictures; Cat was appropriately gleeful. I'm not sure the spider is the kind of faux fur you may be thinking of -- I'll post pictures, anyway, when we get him set up in the web.

[Pam]

BH: My pleasure - I think, since I know that I have at least one potential Halloween freak like myself checking in from time-to-time, that I'll post the 'Twelve Days of Halloween'. (Oh - and I'm guessing the faux fur I'm thinking about is the same thing, since I have a small version of the spider I'm guessing...).

[Cat]

12 Days of Halloween? Do tell! I was thinking of watching 31 scary movies, but I don't have time to watch a movie every day in October.

[Pam]

Cat: I was going to make up my own 12 days of Halloween...the scary movie idea is a great one - but the whole time thing would be difficult. I'm hoping to find the time to read one scary movie this month! I've told myself that once this grant is in, and the review panel is done - that the last two weeks of October are MINE (except for writing the part of the other grant that I'm only co-pi on...). Ever carved beets? I'll post some soon.

[Cat]

Well if you're making them up, may I join in? Though I think I'd do 13 Nights. Heh.

I have never carved beets--I bet they look great though. I may have to steal that idea.

I put up a pic of my stones-in-progress:

http://www.frykitty.com/mtarchives/005205.php

[Pam]

Oh fun - I'll go and take a look at your tombstones. Yes, lets do the 13 days of Halloween! That is too perfect!!! Let's both do it. Fun!