Interview

Women's Literature Interview

I interviewed my mother about her experience growing up as a woman, and how that has impacted her life and life experiences. I learned that she had many struggles due to the fact that she was a woman, however, she was very determined to fight through sexism she experienced in her life. While studying and researching in her college program, ecology and evolutionary biology, she had to fight to get her voice heard, due to the fact that her program at Tulane was very male dominated. In high school, many people, including her guidance counselor, discouraged her from going into a "man's field", in her case this referred to science. She particularly hoped she could go into paleontology, or some other area of science. Her own guidance counselor strongly recommended that she should go to school to become a secretary, even after she expressed her love of science. She was very frustrated and stubborn, so she continued on to go to college for science. While at her college, Tulane, there was a higher percentage of women and men, and said that she did not experience much sexism. Although she did not experience sexism in her own family, she experienced sexism in her work, and in general day to day experiences.