Answer to a Letter from 1961

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Dear friends of women in science,

My Editor in Chief, Ilona Miko, recently told me about a very interesting article in The Washington Post, an answer Phyllis Richman wrote to a letter she had received in 1961 when she applied to graduate school at Harvard. If you've read my memoir, you'll recall I received a letter from Princeton in 1963 saying unless I had a peculiar need for their facilities, they would not even send me a catalog. So I find this letter completely believable. But when it was made available to today's readers, many of the over 1000 responses showed people were shocked to find these sentiments expressed in print. Richman answered the letter from Professor Doebele back in 1961 with her today's summary of her life experience, how she overcame setbacks and became a respected journalist in spite of being aksed by Harvard to supplement her application with an essay about how she could possibly balance family and career demands. She didn't write the requested essay, and she went on with her life and achieved success. But that letter still stuck in her craw over 50 years later, so she wrote an answer in this article.

In her response, Richman says, "Having children in my late 20s, while I was developing my career, and bartering for babysitting, carpooling and cooking made my life complicated - but also encouraged me to be resilient and flexible." She wonders if he had his wife in mind when he wrote in 1961 about the possibility of her education being wasted. She brings up the unequal recognition of married male and female architects and asks that he support the recognition of the woman. She also says she suspects he no longer would feel the same way, based on a speech he had given.

Professor Doebele responding to the response, said yes his mind is not the same. He doesn't offer to support the woman architect, and he also glosses over his implied role in the decision making potentially to be based on her requested essay back in 1961, saying he was trying to help her be aware of societal demands. But if he doesn't see his own role, does that mean he is not really so different? How would he deal with a case like hers today? By considering only the qualifications, or by supposing things about family that he no longer would mention, but that would still influence his actions? We will never know.

Take a look and see what you think.

cheers,
Laura

3 Comments | Post a Comment

Hi Kathy and Ilona,
Yes, I do think there is still discrimination based on motherhood, but it's more hidden as you suggest, Ilona. Men today won't say those things straight out, but if you look at success of women with kids in getting paid fairly or getting hired, you can document the problem. I wish I felt better about the professor's letter, but it's good to see many women do see through it: his lip service is far better than his underlying thoughts, which are self-exculpatory and show a lack of insight into the problem!
cheers
Laura

From: Laura Hoopes | June 18, 2013

Nothing will change until Professor Doebele realizes he WAS and IS the problem. See the comments section in the WaPo piece, they explain this well.
As we have said before in this forum, nowadays this patronizing stance by those in power is much less overt. In some ways, harder to combat, more sinister, concealed inside institutional policies (or lack thereof) rather than interpersonal interactions.

From: Ilona Miko | June 18, 2013

Hi Laura--
I think there's a lot of discrimination still against women with children. Recently I saw information about lower pay for women with children, compared to unmarried women and any man, married or unmarried. That's absurd. Women with children should not be turned away or paid less. They have immense value in today's workforce.

Kathy A

From: Kathy Alvarez | June 15, 2013

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Answer to a Letter from 1961

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