There is a lot of emphasis at present
placed on the importance of building networks in the work world, and how employees
won’t get very far professionally without them. Women especially are admonished
for not working harder to build and maintain their professional networks. You
never know when you may need them, and you never know when your network may
need you. I’ve reflected upon how this relates to my own life. Most of my professional
network contacts are women. Many of my contacts/friends entered my life via my
different jobs, others through schools and universities, still others from the
neighborhood I grew up in. Those I’ve met via my different jobs have become my friends,
and we’ve stayed friends even after we’ve left the jobs where we met.
My professional and personal networks
overlap to a large degree; I consider my professional contacts to be my
friends. And my friends from outside of work, from my childhood neighborhood
and schools, are a support network for me in all ways, sometimes even
professionally. One of my friends and I collaborated on a consulting web project
together a few years ago, at her initiative. I wrote a report for another friend
who was thinking about investing in the building of a private lab for the
production of a malaria drug, also her initiative. Another friend--a research
scientist—asked for my help in publishing two articles on which we’d
collaborated during the past few years, and another friend asked me to provide
photos for a scientific writing project she was working on. I have helped a
teacher friend who had her grammar school class write letters to me to ask about
what’s involved in becoming a scientist. I organized a tour of my hospital
laboratory for the high school class of another teacher friend, so that the students
could get an idea of what it’s like to work in a lab on a daily basis, and to
see the techniques and instrumentation we use in our research. A photographer
friend asked me to model for her a couple of times, and has taken some nice portrait
photos of me that I have used professionally. Another photographer friend designs and formats the text and
covers of my published books.When I think back over the years, we have helped
each other in different ways. We’ve stepped up to the plate for each other and
gotten involved in interesting projects as a result, all of which have enriched
our lives, personally and professionally.
I want to acknowledge these women (of all
ages) who are a part of my life and who have enriched it beyond measure. I
consider each of them friends, including those who are family. They come from
all walks of life, and all of them are wonderfully different and talented women.
Many of them have combined work and family life with all of the attendant
difficulties and joys. Without naming them personally, I can list their various
lines of work here:
- at least ten scientific researchers, one of whom is an author and consultant , another who is an author and owner of a scientific publishing company
- two photographers and small business owners
- two social workers, one who heads a non-profit educational organization
- two teachers (one retired)
- supermarket head cashier
- president of a city university
- global marketing manager for a scientific company
- fundraising director
- a minister
- conflict resolution counselor, author and coach
- part-time educational and programming consultant
- university administrator
- owner of a scientific consulting company
- three doctors
- hospital and health professional
- soil conservationist
- paralegal
- computer services manager
- writer and editor
- national scientific liaison manager
- three librarians
- obstetrics nurse
- horseback riding instructor
- three senior research technicians (now retired; all women in their 70s, one of whom works as a consultant)
- nurse (retired)
- apartment superintendant (now retired; a family friend who is in her early 80s)
- tour guide (now retired, 85 years old)
- secretary (was my oldest friend from my first job, who passed away last year at the age of 86)
Society should be celebrating the lives of real women in all of the different media formats, instead of focusing ad nausea on worn-out celebrities and celebrity wannabes. There are, dare I say it, things to write about other than the size of this or that celebrity’s engagement ring or who had a wardrobe malfunction. Who cares? Is this what makes women interesting? The answer is no. That’s my take on it, and that’s my challenge to society at large. Celebrate the interesting women--the women on my list. They are the women who are advancing the world, one small step at a time, and they’re doing it without a lot of fanfare.