When It Comes To Women Ambition Is Still A Dirty Word

The public argument between the two journalists Ayala Hasson and Geula Even resulted in many schadenfreude responses, especially in the social media. I saw very unpleasant sexist remarks on my Facebook page. Those reactions to the two strong women got me thinking about the instinctive negative attitude to ambitious women.

In 2008 I attended a conference on Women and Ambition in the Workplace. The conference was organized by the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies in Trinity College, Dublin in association with the Irish Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

Although the conference was devoted to ambition that word was curiously absent from the discussions. There was certain unease surrounding ambition itself and as an adjective for a woman.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-it-comes-to-women-ambition-is-still-a-dirty-word/

Feeling The Teacher's Angst

 APR.01.2013 

The minute I leave my last class before the weekend, I experience pure joy. This is a state of sweet freedom when my heart is filled with carefree energy. I call this sensation, which lasts for several hours, my weekly mini vacation.  I have to say that I do like my job and I especially like my students, but lately when I teach on Sundays, the first work day  of the week, my Sunday blues starts on Saturday afternoon.

 I have always felt that I wasn’t meant to be a teacher, however,  reflecting on my life choices, I become more and more convinced that  teaching has always been my true vocation.

I have started teaching as a teen ager and have never stopped. When my girls were young and learnt to play an instrument in the Suzuki method, I was their home teacher. I practiced the violin and the cello with them for years. When my older daughter was two and a half  I started with another mother a Sunday school program for children and their parents so that they all enjoy some Jewish education.

Although I did well teaching in informal settings, where I usually volunteered, I was a complete failure when I tried to join the formal school system. When we returned  to Israel I started teaching high school English. I am embarrassed to admit that after only one week  I understood  that this was not a job which I could do.  I was never  good at disciplining and had to quit.

I have been teaching at a college for almost twenty years; I was lucky to find a good position and was happy that I could enjoy teaching without  worrying about discipline.

But in the last few years things have changed; different political priorities have led to budget cuts and those resulted in much larger classes. Class management, which is the polite word for disciplining has become a real challenge, especially when teaching a foreign language. I don’t want to be strict with my students, it is not their fault. Cramped 40 students in a small room they are the true victims of a changing system.  But as for me, imagining myself tomorrow standing in front of them and try to command their wondering attention,  I realize that, today more than ever, I have a good reason to feel a teacher’s  angst