Navigating the paths to advancement in academe is difficult for anyone and more so for women. Many must juggle not only the time demands and responsibilities of this choice of career but must also face the reality that their fertile years are limited and will roughly coincide with the years they need to be publishing and working toward tenure.
For those who are parents, the demands inherent in raising a family will in all likelihood conflict with everything their careers require. A number of books have documented this, but DiverseBooks.net offers a few books that approach the issues from different perspectives. If your mom or some mother you know is facing or will face these demands, give her a Mother’s Day or graduation present she can really use. See these selections.
Academic Mothers, by Venitha Pillay, $27.90, (List Price: $31) Trentham Books,
published in collaboration with UNISA, September 2007, ISBN: 9781858564173, pp. 206.
This book explores how the identities of the rational, unemotional and logical identities, historically considered “male,” coexist in mothers, who are usually perceived as nurturing, loving, emotional and sensitive. Pillay relates the stories of three academic mothers in South Africa. Through journals and interviews, she tracks how three scholar/nurturers fit the halves into a whole.
http://diversebooks.net/catalogsearch/result/?q=academic+mothers
Women at the Top: What University and College Presidents Say About Effective Leadership, by Mimi Wolverton, Beverly L. Bower and Adrienne E. Hyle, $58.50 List Price, $65.00 Stylus Publishing, January 2008, ISBN: 9781579222550, pp. 192.
