I find another parallel to the point Ingrid makes,in the whole "teaching is a career better suited to women" mythi. And why? (Because they get summer holidays with the children was the most common answer, with other responses eveng going to a fairly canny "their children can study in the same school for free".) I found this particularly a problem in the Gulf countries when we lived there...housewives, sorry homemakers, were drafted into teaching.
Homemakers sometimes make excellent teachers, sometimes not; I think that the ability to teach ..and enjoy doing so...is inborn, and money or holidays should not be the criteria to choose teaching as a profession. Perhaps this is part of the problem we face with education today. Teaching is perceived, not as bread-and-butter, but as jam. As long as we continue to think this way...Goodbye, Mr Chips! Deepa. On 3/8/07, Ingrid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Thank you, Deepa. Agree entirely on the Women's Day tokenism issue. I tried to address that in the piece which ET would have preferred to be slanted towards *why women are better suited to ngo careers than men are*. This misguided belief and the general perception of NGO-wallahs as either, unkempt, khadi-clad revolutionaries OR silk-sheathed socialites is a real barrier to sane people considering jobs in the sector. I could mail the text or a scanned copy to anyone here who is interested. On 3/8/07, Deepa Mohan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This is specifically to Ingrid Srinath, whose email id I can't remember... > > I liked your article in today's Economic Times. I don't know where > else and on what topics you have written; and I am not, in general, > very keen on the tokenism of Women's Day; but I agreed with what you > said, about management -skill requirements being as high in an NGO as > anywhere else. > > > > Deepa. > > -- "The future is here; it's just not widely distributed yet." - William Gibson
