Both Career and Love , livre ebook

Outskirts Press - Anne Rankin Mahoney

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

142 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Anne Rankin Mahoney wanted a career as a college teacher, as well as a family in which both partners had careers and shared family responsibilities. At Northwestern University she discovered that being a woman in a male-dominated profession was like competing in the Olympics after winning her first swim meet. Finding a man who wanted to share family life was even more difficult. In 1961, she moved to New York City, the setting for most of her memoir. She initially worked for the Vera Institute of Justice on research designed to help indigent defendants gain release from jail before trial without paying bail. This historic work created impetus for national work on bail reform. But Anne's "urge for more," as she called it, kept drawing her into new situations, including more graduate work and travel to Europe, where she fell in love. Anne's memoir is a positive, sometimes humorous love story about a young woman who wanted more than her generation offered.

Sujets

Women's Studies

Social Science

Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	28 décembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781977238498
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Both Career and Love A Woman’s Memoir 1959-1973 All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2021 Anne Rankin Mahoney v4.0
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-3849-8
Cover Photo © 2021 www.gettyimages.com . All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For my children Katherine and Michael,
my grandchildren Maya, Sofia, and Audrey
and to Barry,
without whose love this book
could not have been written.
Disclaimer: Many names and identifying characteristics of individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.
Also by Anne Rankin Mahoney

Couples, Gender, and Power:
Creating Change in Intimate Relationships.
Carmen Knudson-Martin and Anne Rankin Mahoney, Eds.
New York: Springer Publishing Company. 2009

Juvenile Justice in Context.
Anne Rankin Mahoney
Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1987

Ruts: Gender Roles and Realities.
Editors: Anne Rankin Mahoney, Marilyn Colter,
Dorothea Deley, and Kara Colter
Red Feather Lakes, CO: Red Mesa Publishing. 1996

Travel
Exploring Florida
Anne Rankin
NY: Hippocrene Books, Inc. 1992
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note

Part One No Image of Myself Anywhere
1. The Best Fit for You, But…
2. Red Flag Almost No Women Here
3. First Love
4. Love Is Essential
5. Smiles and Games
6. Don’t Do It If It’s Too Hard
7. Survival Mode

Part Two Vera: A Solid Foundation
8. An Experiment in Criminal Court?!
9. Anything Is Possible
10. First Big Job for Vera
11. The Manhattan Bail Project

Part Three The Urge Toward ‘More’
12. Yes, I’ll Climb That Cliff
13. Letting Go
14. Moving On
15. Sociologists Just Wade In
16. Self-Promise
17. Challenge to Standard Practice
18. Momentous Decisions
19. On My Own in Italy
20. On Both Sides of the Berlin Wall

Part Four Managing Challenges
21. Law and Sociology Program
22. Summer of Changes
23. Bursts of Understanding

Part Five Something Electric
24. Kismet
25. Tulips in August
26. Courting by Mail Across Europe
27. Coming Home after a Long Journey
28. Marriage and Religion
29. Change in Status
30. Love and Work

Part Six New Directions
31. Big Decisions
32. Best Laid Plans…
33. High Fever, High Praise, Big Let-Down
34. Facing Boundaries and Picket Lines:
35. Epiphanies
36. Rich in Love
37. Manhattan Family of Four

Part Seven Job Search
38. Word of Mouth
39. An Academic Woman’s Tale
40. Decisions

Epilogue
References
Acknowledgements
THANKS TO MY granddaughters for urging me to write about what they call the ‘olden days,’ to my daughter Katie for heightening my interest in the project by presenting me with several books about writing memoirs, and to my son Mike, whose enthusiasm about the book helped me overcome occasional writer’s block. I thank Shari Cauldron for her excellent memoir workshops at Lighthouse Writers, Denver’s phenomenal writing center. Her advice to start our stories ‘where the energy is’ gave me the direction I had been seeking. I knew immediately where that formative energy of my young adulthood was New York City. I felt it when I visited Manhattan while I was in graduate school at Northwestern University near Chicago, and it fueled my life there from my arrival in Manhattan in 1961 through the time I left in 1973.
This book is much better in every way because of the honest and acute critique of many drafts over several years by members of my long-term writers’ group, Lynn Hall, Lois Hjelmstad, and Esther Starrels. Their encouragement was unfaltering. I also want to thank numerous classmates in my Lighthouse classes who taught me good writing by example and their thoughtful comments on my and other participants’ work.
I especially thank my husband Barry for his ongoing and loving support of this and all my projects. The memoir has more accuracy, fewer errors, and greater coherence because of his close readings of several drafts. He is not only a New Yorker by birth and a good editor and proofreader, he asks hard questions that push me to think further and research more.
Author’s Note
I FINISHED THE final version of this memoir as peaceful protestors from a cross-section of America were demonstrating against the abuse of power and demanding equality for all people. Individuals of color, native Americans, and other minorities have been waiting too long for the end of bias and police violence against them and for the rights and freedoms that they have been promised for generations. Like many of us who are white and sympathetic with the demonstrators’ causes, I have had to look inward in new ways and with greater honesty than ever before. As part of this self-reflection I viewed the book I had just completed from a new perspective. It is about my efforts as a woman in the 1960s to overcome male privilege and enter a ‘man’s occupation.’ What I saw, along with my struggle as a woman encountering male privilege, were examples of my own white privilege. I did not have to face the reality of potential violence and humiliation that accompanies racism. I also had some ‘breaks’ along the way like a recommendation from a teacher, help paying for school, and work with a tutor that I might not have had if I had not been white and middle class. As we live our lives and pursue our dreams we are all entitled to a wide range of opportunities, safety, and a few positive breaks along the way.

Anne Rankin Mahoney
Part One
No Image of Myself Anywhere
CHAPTER 1
The Best Fit for You, But…
"IT LOOKS LIKE college teaching would be the best fit for you," my career counselor announced with a note of caution in her voice.
I leaned forward excitedly. That sounded right. I loved school.
"There are a couple of concerns, though," she continued carefully. "You would need a Ph.D.…"
"No problem," I interrupted, "I’m planning to start graduate school next fall…"
"And," she broke in, "college teaching is primarily a man’s occupation."
"That’s okay," I said, "I like men."
It was 1958, early in my senior year at Kent State University in Ohio. The crystal ball of scientific testing had given me the perfect answer to my career question. Professors did all the things I liked to do--explain things, read, talk, write, think. The fact that college teaching was considered a man’s job seemed irrelevant. In my rural town in western Pennsylvania I’d grown up with the idea that America was the land of equality, and individuals could do anything they wanted if they worked hard. As a student of sociology, I should have known better, anticipated that breaking into a profession dominated by men might be difficult. But discrimination is rarely mentioned when it isn’t being challenged. I thought all I had to do was work hard to get my credentials. I liked sociology, and it had always been easy for me. This seemed like an attainable goal. I didn’t grasp then that the percentage of women in my chosen occupation was in the low single digits and might not even hit ten percent by the end of the next decade.
My larger concern at that time was how I could combine career and family. In 1958 a woman was expected to raise a family. If she couldn’t find a man, she might decide to have a career. I wanted both career and family together, at the same time! My friends just smiled knowingly and explained I would change my mind when I fell in love. My mother worried that no man would be interested in me if I got too much education. I didn’t want to accept either of those perspectives. I was left in a quandary. If I pursued my work too diligently I might never find love. If I fell in love I might feel compelled to let go of my professional ambitions. How could I be whole? Achieve and balance both love and work in my life?
So far, falling in love had not been an isssue. I hadn’t met anyone I could really get excited about, but I was terrified that if I fell in love before I’d made some progress toward my career as a college teacher I might give up my goals. My plan was to start graduate school in September, get a master’s degree in a year, and then work for a couple years before going back for the doctorate. My immediate concern, however, was finding a graduate program. This was not easy in the late 1950s, before computers and the internet, especially since I wanted to strike out into new territory beyond Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.
"Go talk to the chairman of the sociology department," my professors suggested. "He’ll have ideas."
His only suggestion was his own alma mater, the University of North Carolina, from which he had graduated more than thirty years earlier. It was my only lead, so I applied, even though I’d never been there and knew nothing about it. No one helped me with the application or suggested the possibility of applying for student aid. I didn’t even realize until the beginning of June, after I’d graduated from Kent State and was about to start a summer job in Chicago, that I needed to take the Graduate Record Exams (GRE). I’d never even heard of them before. The tests were offered only periodically in different sites around the U.S. Luckily they were scheduled in Chicago in early July and I learned just in time to make the signup deadline. The exam brochure for the three tests, verbal, mathematics, and sociology, said I didn’t nee