Hannah Arendt Continued

While baking some Apfelstrudel (recipe from the café at the Belvedere in Vienna), and enjoying my last week off (funny how I am only able to enjoy my free time when I know it comes to an end), I have continued to read a biography of Hannah Arendt. For those of you who do not know her, she was one of the great intellectuals from the 20th century, a Jewish German who fled to the US from the nazis, and wrote seminal works on totalitarianism and "the human condition".

A few reflections on Arendt's life:

On gender: The anecdote I mentioned in one of my last posts: Arendt did not want to accept certain invitations to speak publicly or receive prizes if she was the first woman to do so - she did not want to be merited as the "woman recipient", but as the "recipient". I, on the other hand, would be proud of the fact that I would be the first "woman" to break through a glass ceiling (not that I think I will, though) - I would see it as a kind of double honor (i.e. personal and as a role model / precedent).

On work: Arendt did not want to accept "permanent positions" (e.g. as a university lecturer), because she felt drained and restricted in her ability to write and travel this way. She was fortunate to be successful enough to get invitations to do and to afford such a model of "project work". Her idea was that if work (whether manual or administrative) takes up all of your time, you do not have time to "really create". I second this idea.

On being politically active: One of the reasons that I wanted to read more about Arendt is her idea that it is insufficient just to analyze - one also has to try to shape the world. It's reminds me of a Gandhi quote: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world", although Arendt seems to focus more on relationships between people, and how these relationships make society more than just the sum of individuals. My hope is that I can start doing a bit of both: practicing what I think, and having things happen not just in my head (or on my blog!).

Learn to Let Go

Once a week, I have the cleaning lady and afternoon babysitter here at the same time - an absolute luxury, and not a possibility for everyone, so I am very grateful. I would have a few years ago never accepted such "help" - I find it difficult to delegate, pay for, or not feel responsible for things. But having three small children has taught me to accept the help, and realize it is necessary. I'm bed ridden for a few days after carrying my youngest too much over the past two months, as he only now returned to kindergarden after being ill and recovering from a minor operation. Going back to fulltime work in 10 days time, I wonder whether I could still employ a personal shopper and cook? Maybe my job would need to have a slightly higher salary, and maybe I'd have to have my head completely hidden in the clouds. It's important to keep grounded. But it's also sometimes necessary to let go, and drift into these "luxuries" for the sake of one's health and sanity. (Ps Some people have a cleaner-cook-shopper-babysitter in one. It's called an exhausted stay-at-home mom or grandma. I've done the prior enough, I'm ready for the office for a while!)

Fear

I have always liked the idea that when a child is born, a mother and father are born at the same time. As those of you who are parents know, this changes you as a person in many ways. One aspect, at least for me, is that I have learned to fear things. Suddenly, with responsibility for these little beings, there is fear that something may happen to them, or to yourself as the caretaker. I am having many sleepless nights because of this at the moment (again, I have to think of my own mother...). I am worried about giving my children into the care of a "stranger" in the afternoons, when I start working in two weeks. I am worried about finding a new home for us in Brussels that will be safe for all of us, in particular in the years to come when our kids start traveling to and home from school alone. I am worried about a number of issues with my own health, which I usually wouldn't have thought about twice. I know that it is a healthy instinct to be alert, but it's important to stop spirally into anxiety. As a wise woman said last night, it's time to finally go and get a massage that I have a voucher for, and go back to yoga class. This morning this woman unfortunately realized she needs to shop, cook, go to the bank, buy some clothes for the kids...    
Ps Following the Arendt post from yesterday, read a similiar quote from yesterday - 60 years later - by Harvard President in Davos, who was introduced as "Woman President of Harvard" and retorted that she is "President of Harvard, not Woman President of Harvard".

Hannah Arendt Anecdote

Reading Alois Prinz' pretty good biography about Hannah Arendt, I came across a funny anecdote (p.170) which I will freely translate into english: In the 50s Arendt was invited to give the first lecture as a woman at Princeton. In an interview, she is annoyed at a question that implies she was invited because she is a woman. "I don't mind being called Ms Professor (German: Professorin), because I have gotten used to being a woman." She has no problem with her femininity, so Prinz, and does not understand why she should be less feminine just because she is doing something that was traditionally done by men. Hut ab, as they say here in Germany.

I Like Men - Männer - Miehet

In this blog, I write about women and gender issues, but don't that often mention men. This doesn't mean that I don't like men. As I wrote in one of my first posts, I often prefer talking to husbands over wives! Some of my best friends are male. Some of the most inspiring people in the world are men (Mandela, Desmond Tutu, or Gandhi). I'm married to one of the most amazing people in the world, and he's male. I love so many men that my best female friends have chosen to marry. The point: I don't have anything against men per se.

A woman at a party that I went to yesterday said that she's only now becoming interested in women's rights. I retorted that it's because she's pregnant with her first child, but after further discussion, we realized that it's first and foremost the realization that in our careers, in our mid-30s, we are for the first time in our lives hitting glass ceilings (I think one hits these ceilings far earlier, or from the start, in many developing countries). Another friend of mine recently sent me some interesting data on income discrepancy between women with children and without.

A third factor that comes into play is, I believe, something that a man at the party added, and an issue that my husband often talks about when discussing his female colleagues: they are often too complacent. This is the argument that Facebook's Sandberg often uses: it's up to women to push for leadership positions and higher salaries. A "just do it"-mentality instead of "someone else has to do it".

I just signed a contract with the lowest salary I have ever earned. In fear that with my three kids, I can't bargain for more at the moment. Realistically, I don't think I would have been considered for the position that had been budgeted beforehand if I would have gone in with my normal "ask". Sure, it's an "investment" into returning into the game, into the network, and a price for doing a job that I really want to do.

As a woman, with children, facing the competition of (childless) men (and childless women), life is complicated. I probably just think about these issues too much, and make it complicated...