Tag Archives: culture

A Tale of Two Realities: Where Men Thrive and Women Do All They Can to Simply Survive

Leadership, , , , ,

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of woke culture, it was the age of suppression, it was the epoch of making America great again, it was the epoch of controlling American ovaries. The seemingly season of light, overshadowed by the inevitable season of darkness. Where hope was a distant wish and despair was the cruel reality.

Where the whole world was before us, but we had to get there with half the pay. A time where we, the women were all going straight the other way: to hospital beds, to fill our anxiety medication, to inject ourselves with hormones to be able to birth a human being while balancing a career and unrealistic expectations set by a society designed by men, for men. 

Carlin, a political cartoonist from Peru, illustrated a comic representing the
obstacles working women face while men sprint ahead, 2019.

The graphic above went viral when Mahindra, a Mumbai based billionaire shared the illustration on Twitter, posting “I salute every working woman & acknowledge that their successes have required a much greater amount of effort than their male counterparts” (Mahindra, 2019). The illustration resonated with so many due to the clear depiction of the barriers women face when choosing to have a successful career.

Bugid and England explored a barrier women face in the workforce: The Motherhood Penalty. This outlines the thought that motherhood negatively affects women who desire to have a career while raising their children. As Carlin demonstrated in his viral cartoon, the penalty suggest that women with children lose work experience at the expense of raising their children while taking care of the family and household duties. Over the past three decades, that has become increasingly common in the United States, as birthrates have declined for women in their twenties and jumped for women in their late thirties and early forties, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The trend has pushed the median age of U.S. women giving birth from 27 to 30, the highest on record (Minchillo, 2022).

This results in potentially longer maternity leaves as older, new mothers will take longer to return to work after having an extended period of recovery from childbirth, yet federally funded maternity leaves in America are non-existent (Bryant, 2020). The Motherhood Penalty also reveals that working mothers are less productive at work due to the exhaustion of child raising and they are often inclined to elect out of high paying jobs for lower paying jobs that are more flexible or “mother friendly” (Budig & England, 2001).

The rate of attrition at which women are burning out is alarming. It is clearly evident that after the Covid-19 Pandemic and “The Great Resignation” in education, women are electing to give up their dreams of simultaneously being a mother and a professional. As a society, it is our obligation to support women as valuable members of our economy. Michelle Obama said it best when she shared, “No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens.”

It is up to us to ensure that this period is not like any other periods, that even its nosiest authorities will not overcome in silencing the far better things that we’ll do, the far better things that we, as women have ever known.

Reference:

Bryant, M. (2020). Maternity leave: US policy is worst on list of the world’s richest countries. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/27/maternity-leave-us-policy-worst-worlds-richest-countries

Budig, M. J., & England, P. (2001). The wage penalty for motherhood. American Sociological Review, 66(2), 204–225. https://ezproxy.latech.edu:2089/10.2307/2657415.

Dickens, C. & Dunn, H. (1921) A Tale of Two Cities . New York, Cosmopolitan Book Corporation.

Mahindra, A. [@anandmahindra] (2019, Feb. 5). I’ve been helping to baby-sit my year old grandson this past week & it’s brought home to me the stark[Tweet]. Twitter.

Minchillo, J. (2022). Motherhood deferred: U.S. median age for giving birth hits 30. Decisions by college-educated women to invest in their educations and careers so they could be better off financially when they had children have contributed to the shift toward older motherhood. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/motherhood-deferred-us-median-age-giving-birth-hits-30-rcna27827

(Trube, 2017)

Get Black to Mindfulness!

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

Mindfulness. Consciousness. Awareness. 

These are difficult terms to define, given their varying use and the different educational levels that subscribe to them. In 2017, Barbara Trube, a professor of education and an early childhood education program coordinator, published an article that addressed mindfulness practices and its affect on mentoring and teaching. Her understanding of transformative learning supported the references used to make sense of her proposed, innovative strategies. Transformative practice finds its purpose in mindfulness strategies, through the understanding that human beings attempt to make sense of their experiences, and interpret information, rather than simply acting on the judgments and beliefs of others (Trube, 2017). This method of comprehension is liberating for the educated, who understand, but to the unlearned, it’s safer to follow the beliefs and feelings of the group. Throughout history, this created tribalism, religion, political parties, and gangs. In 2021, our respective cultures are the essence of our previous group-thought processes, and certain subgroups, in relation to education, are still behind in development.

In math and reading, according to the article, “High School Seniors Aren’t College-Ready,” “46 percent of white students and 49 percent of Asian students scored at or above proficient, while only 17 percent of black students and 25 percent of Hispanic students did so” (Camera, 2016). The Journal of African American Males in Education published an article in 2010, relating to the discipline patterns for black male students and its impact on their academic achievement. After the analysis, concerning the disproportionate behavioral infraction data across the races, the findings section portrayed the understanding that black students, as a whole, receive harsher punishments than their white counterparts who commit similar disobedient behaviors (Joubert, Bonner, Lewis, & Butler, 2010). This results in the increased number of absent school days and wasted chances to engage in academic curriculum. 

In my opinion, the issue of systemic racism is so deep, that only mindfulness of one’s specific situation, a dedication to education, and consistent reflection can cure a culturally inherited problem. Trube listed meaningful exercises that can be adjusted to be more culturally relevant and address our struggling black students. Trube suggests the application of awareness exercises to encourage mindfulness, through “in the moment” reflections, using the 5 senses to make connections and guide inquiry (2017). The next exercise pertains to exploration through written expression of the their current senses. For black students, I recommend that we use this moment in time to evaluate their mindset and create an agenda to execute their plans. My belief is that the pressure from the culture to conform to the methods and thinking processes of the past, ultimately poison the autonomy and ambition to blaze new paths. Another exercise in the article about mindfulness practices pertains to inquiry and finding inspiration through the identification of external content and research area experts (Trube, 2017). For our struggling black students, this intensive mental planning could be the missing conscious training that they need, to emerge from the bottom of the educational statistics. 

Camera, L. (2016). High school seniors aren’t college-ready. U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-27/high-school-seniors-arent-college-ready-naep-data-show.

Joubert, M., Fred A. Bonner, I. I. I., Lewis, C. W., & Butler, B. R. (2010, March 1). Directory of open access journals. Journal of African American Males in Education. https://doaj.org/article/e11c215aa020400da53c6907af90dc70.

Trube, B. (2017). Mindfulness practices in mentoring and teaching. Childhood Education, 93(2), 159-167. https://eric.ed.gov/?q=Mindful+Mentoring&pr=on&id=EJ1132700