The economic chaos of recent weeks makes it more likely that organizations will cut back on their commitment to nurturing and retaining diverse talent, either out of political concerns (though some companies continue to buck the tide), or because hiring needs diminish in an era of cutbacks.
Greg, thank you for sharing your experience. This is good to hear. I was at Michigan State in 1966 and the girls still have strict curfews and had to wear nice dresses for Sunday lunch in the cafeteria etc. I'd been homecoming queen at my high school so I was heavily recruited to join a sorority based on the assumption that I'd be able to attract a football player boyfriend! Anyway, the experience of your mother is yet another to me heartbreaking example of the limitations talented women faced in the immediate Postwar era. And yes, a perfect example of the Lost Generation theme.
Organizations that cut back on their commitment to nurturing and retaining diverse talent are indeed stupid, and short-sighted, and hampering their own profits.
Elizabeth Bailey's experience at Radcliffe in 1968 seems otherworldly compared to what I observed as women's experience across the river (in Boston) at Northeastern University in 1969 (where I was a Freshman.) While my Freshman Engineering class of approximately 1,500 students has fewer than 25 women, the group I hung with in the student lounge was 50-50 women and men. No constraints were visible or shared in our many card games and nights out. (The women were the better students, too.) My mother entered the U.S. Army stateside as a civilian employee in WWII and helped to string private (telephone) lines for the Department of Defense across America to improve logistics. She didn't keep many mementos from her youth, but she retained her ID, nameplate, letter of acceptance, and another letter acknowledging her service. True to Sally's post, my mother had no alternatives other than marriage upon returning to normal life.
Thanks Cynthia. I enjoyed writing it. Orgs need to be aware of what we are at risk of losing, and what it means for them.
Greg, thank you for sharing your experience. This is good to hear. I was at Michigan State in 1966 and the girls still have strict curfews and had to wear nice dresses for Sunday lunch in the cafeteria etc. I'd been homecoming queen at my high school so I was heavily recruited to join a sorority based on the assumption that I'd be able to attract a football player boyfriend! Anyway, the experience of your mother is yet another to me heartbreaking example of the limitations talented women faced in the immediate Postwar era. And yes, a perfect example of the Lost Generation theme.
Organizations that cut back on their commitment to nurturing and retaining diverse talent are indeed stupid, and short-sighted, and hampering their own profits.
Elizabeth Bailey's experience at Radcliffe in 1968 seems otherworldly compared to what I observed as women's experience across the river (in Boston) at Northeastern University in 1969 (where I was a Freshman.) While my Freshman Engineering class of approximately 1,500 students has fewer than 25 women, the group I hung with in the student lounge was 50-50 women and men. No constraints were visible or shared in our many card games and nights out. (The women were the better students, too.) My mother entered the U.S. Army stateside as a civilian employee in WWII and helped to string private (telephone) lines for the Department of Defense across America to improve logistics. She didn't keep many mementos from her youth, but she retained her ID, nameplate, letter of acceptance, and another letter acknowledging her service. True to Sally's post, my mother had no alternatives other than marriage upon returning to normal life.