2008 Woodie Awards
Book Celebrates Women in the Workforce
Ashley Baldon
Issue date: 3/9/05 Section: A&E
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March is National Women's History Month. This significant event began as a week of celebration in 1978 in Sonoma County, California. It was extended to a month in 1987.
To honor women who make history, or maybe in this case, herstory, students should read "Women and Work: In Their Own Words", an excellent compilation of the stories of women working in wide-ranging fields.
This collection profiles working women in their own voices. For example, Marian Cleeves Diamond, 67, is a scientist, professor, and director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Along with many other accomplishments, she has made major breakthrough research on the brain.
"If we are willing to accept the endless challenges as well as risk the unknown with each step, we can somehow fulfill our dreams," Diamond says,
"No one gave us a blueprint to follow. We have the privilege and the pleasure, each with our unique brains, to plan, execute, and finally accomplish our goals. Dream, for through dreams realities come about."
"Women and Work: In Their Own Words" is diverse without losing sight of its central theme.
The careers covered in this book range from what is often assumed to be "women's work" such as nursing and teaching to "men's work" such as coal mining and tribal fishing.
Smoke jumping is one such career associated with men only. Smoke jumpers parachute into forests to extinguish fires that are inaccessible by road.
Kasey Rose, 25, has worked six seasons with the federal government smoke jumping. Of four hundred men who work in the western states she is one of about only a dozen women.
"There have been times when I questioned whether I should be in the job, since I was breaking down traditions: the boy's club. Often the men laughed and joked in a manner I could not be a part of and I wondered, 'What am I doing here? I don't belong,'" Rose says, "But then I might share a personal conversation with a jumper who opens up to me because I am a woman. Or I will jump into a flower-covered alpine meadow overlooking a glacier-fed lake and my passion for my job overrides my doubt. I know I can be a smoke jumper, too."
To honor women who make history, or maybe in this case, herstory, students should read "Women and Work: In Their Own Words", an excellent compilation of the stories of women working in wide-ranging fields.
This collection profiles working women in their own voices. For example, Marian Cleeves Diamond, 67, is a scientist, professor, and director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Along with many other accomplishments, she has made major breakthrough research on the brain.
"If we are willing to accept the endless challenges as well as risk the unknown with each step, we can somehow fulfill our dreams," Diamond says,
"No one gave us a blueprint to follow. We have the privilege and the pleasure, each with our unique brains, to plan, execute, and finally accomplish our goals. Dream, for through dreams realities come about."
"Women and Work: In Their Own Words" is diverse without losing sight of its central theme.
The careers covered in this book range from what is often assumed to be "women's work" such as nursing and teaching to "men's work" such as coal mining and tribal fishing.
Smoke jumping is one such career associated with men only. Smoke jumpers parachute into forests to extinguish fires that are inaccessible by road.
Kasey Rose, 25, has worked six seasons with the federal government smoke jumping. Of four hundred men who work in the western states she is one of about only a dozen women.
"There have been times when I questioned whether I should be in the job, since I was breaking down traditions: the boy's club. Often the men laughed and joked in a manner I could not be a part of and I wondered, 'What am I doing here? I don't belong,'" Rose says, "But then I might share a personal conversation with a jumper who opens up to me because I am a woman. Or I will jump into a flower-covered alpine meadow overlooking a glacier-fed lake and my passion for my job overrides my doubt. I know I can be a smoke jumper, too."