Gender Equality

What do these countries have in common?

1, Norway

2, Finland

3, Sweden

4, Iceland

5, New Zealand

They are the 5 nations that came out on top in a World Economic Forum study on the gender gap (hat tip: Lecturer notes). For a summary see the BBC website article

The study looked at economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival of women.

It's good that New Zealand is up there. One of the positive things about the last 12 years of government is that children have grown up with an image that "of course a woman can be Prime Minister". Come to that, there were people voting in the last election who probably didn't remember a male Prime Minister.

That doesn't mean that New Zealand has got it perfect, and there's still room for improvement, particularly in business and on boards, but at least we're at the right end of the table. I suspect our MMP system has an effect - it's resulted in a markedly more diverse parliament than was the case (or would be likely) under FPP.

Cordelia Fine speaking at University of Canterbury

Some of you will know that I sat and seethed through parts of Allan Pease’s presentation last year, especially the bits where he more or less said that women’s brains aren’t set up to do engineering, unless they are lesbian (I summarise).

Although he is a consummate showman, and gave his audience what they wanted to hear, he was way off on his depiction of the different brains of men and women, and misrepresented the science.

Cordelia Fine is one of my hero/heroines and wrote the book “A mind of its own, how our brain distorts and deceives”, in which she looked at how the brain tricks us, and why we are prone to bias and prejudice.

She is currently writing a book on “Neurosexism” (such as that practiced by Allan Pease) where neuroscience study results are twisted and taken out of context to support the biases of the speaker.

She’s speaking tomorrow as part of the University of Canterbury outreach program. The web-link is http://www.outreach.canterbury.ac.nz/neurosexism.shtml. It's a free session.

I’m going – and hope you will too, if you're in Christchurhc.

Whatever the case, remember:

Girls can do maths! And be engineers! And wear fabulous shoes! All at the same time! *

* except when wearing steel-capped boots.

In the Primes of Life

When you write "morning pages" on The Artist's Way, you never know what you will find yourself writing, and where that thinking will lead you.

The other day, I started writing down a list of prime numbers, up to a hundred. I've always liked playing with numbers and patterns – maybe why I'm a juggler and several of my friends are mathematicians or economists.

I started thinking about what had happened in my life around the ages the prime numbers represent. And guess what? It seemed those years often corresponded to major events/growth periods/beginnings in my life.

I then wrote a list of my significant life events. And guess what? They match, albeit with a few additions around the "4" years – 4, 10, 24, 34. This second list was almost certainly biased by doing the first, I know.

But, regardless, a lot of big changes – some endings and more beginnings corresponded to prime number years. The years which weren't necessarily easy, but which contained trigger events when I changed course. Maybe years which "primed the pump" for changes to come.

Over the past few days I've been thinking about doing a workshop for women who are approaching or have reached what used to be called "retirement age". Contrary to stereotypes, women aged around 50-70 have a lot of creative energy, inspiration, and are ready to enjoy themselves. They are often motivated to make the best of their life, try new things, have fun, and live life to the full. Marti Barletta calls women aged 50-70 them "PrimeTime Women", and points out that, in the US at least, women in this age group are the "the healthiest, wealthiest, most active, educated and engaged generation of women in history".

So I started thinking "when is the prime of your life? Some people would place it in your 20s, when you have a lot of freedom, Some talk about it being your 30s or 40s, when you're still young, but may be reaping the benefits of a career. If it's when you get most attention and are happiest, then being 11 months old has a lot to recommend it. My goddaughter laughs dozens of times a day and seems to find everything in life interesting and fun at the moment!

My conclusions:
- The primes of your life come at least every 6 years. There's always another to look forward to! Life changes occur, and they'll keep on changing but there's no such thing as one prime of your life. The Primes of Life will keep on coming - whether you're 16 or 60.
- A good argument is that the best time of your life is now! It's the only time you can actually get to live in, the only time you can make changes, after all.

Follow ups
*To join me in a Creative Cluster on the Artist's Way e-mail me at rachel@liketothelark.com
*If you're interested in the mathematics of juggling, check out Ben Beever's free e-book on Siteswap notation.
*If you like numbers, or have kids at school checkout the actress Danica McKellar's website. She was a child actress on The Wonder Years, before doing a mathematics degree. When she's not starring on shows like The West Wing, she's encourages girls to enjoy maths, and look at maths and science related careers.]
*For more on the benefits of marketing to "Prime Time Women?" check out Marti Barletta's book and website.