simultaneous pursuit of wisdom and motherhood
May 27, 2016 5:27 AM   Subscribe

Hungarian philosopher Zsófia Zvolenszky details her experiences of giving talks at philosophy conferences with a small child, starting when said daughter was 5 months old.

News article with pictures (sorry, only in hungarian) and bonus pictures (big pdf). Lots of interesting observations in there.

"A friend told me about an impressive policy at the University of Konstanz: for talks as well as conferences, there is a separate budget allocated that can be used for childcare purposes only. That I thought was wonderful because with that policy mothers with babies don’t get blamed (consciously or unconsciously) for imposing a financial burden on the organizing department by requesting childcare; they (or others) don’t have to feel as though because of the mothers, the conference registration fees of other participants go up or the cookies served during coffee breaks will be less fancy. In an academic world that remains man dominated as much as philosophy still is, especially at higher ranks and at more prestigious venues, it takes time to get the community to adjust and acknowledge the idea that a mother can reasonably request childcare help and other modes of accommodating her so she can participate with a baby. "

[Disclaimer: I was a student of Zsófi between 2007-2011.]
posted by kmt (10 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Apart from anything that is one cute and happy child.
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 6:25 AM on May 27, 2016


It seems the first link is login-walled, but this seems to be the same document on her own home page.
posted by a car full of lions at 6:38 AM on May 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


For me (on desktop) the actual paper folds out below when I click "READ PAPER", so no login required as such from what I can tell.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:44 AM on May 27, 2016


[I wasn't logged in either, and was able to read the paper by simply scrolling down. Wanted to avoid pointing the first link to her own page, as the server it's hosted on is a pretty old (and weak) university machine. ]
posted by kmt at 6:58 AM on May 27, 2016


My bad, I completely missed the "READ PAPER" link. And the scrollbar. Sorry.
posted by a car full of lions at 7:10 AM on May 27, 2016


the server it's hosted on is a pretty old (and weak) university machine

What does not kill it will make it stronger
posted by thelonius at 7:13 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think it's great that she found ways to be a productive academic with a young child. I also find it weird how she seems to have let her husband off the hook -- the word "helping" at home suggests he is doing her a favour of some sort. Olivia is two now, and could presumably travel just fine with her father. Does she?

This isn't entirely fair, it's more "whatever a woman does, it is never enough" -- but I still think a lot of this is just further putting all the burden of parenting on the woman.
posted by jeather at 7:21 AM on May 27, 2016


I agree jeather that is an issue, but nursing moms might actually prefer daycare onsite and prefer the baby to be with them. There are reasons that even if given the choice people who birthed and bonded to the baby might prefer to spend more time with the baby, not to mention nursing issues. So on the one hand, YES to making more options and for men to be more involved when a family desires-- while also YES to more options for women who don't want o deal with pumping and are breastfeeding to be able to have childcare or permissions to bring children into places that could be accommodated. I think we can work on more of both-- and that as long as the options are there that even if it's still a larger portion of women who prefer to do the childcare, that doesn't necessarily mean we have failed. Pregnancy birth and nursing can bring out strong bonding feelings for some women (not all!!) and when that happens I think it should be accommodated not arbitrarily forced onto all families to split parenting 50/50 even in when the mother doesn't want that.
posted by xarnop at 7:48 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


"How will you juggle your family and career?" - a question I would have my students discuss in writing. The young men had rarely even considered the question (and had never been asked it). The young women were glibly declaring they weren't feminists.

This paper should be required reading in high schools - along with spending a day following a parent of infant, notating activities and comments on 'work'.
posted by Surfurrus at 7:50 AM on May 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't know about child care within academia, but the last year and a half spent helping with a friend's child from birth to now has really been an amazing experience of philosophy in action as I try to understand infant thru toddler logic, his expanding view of the world from specific to abstract, and the Wittgensteinian intricacies of language acquisition.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:27 AM on May 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


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