Comments on: Who stops women?

By: Eva Schiffer

Eva Schiffer — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:10:05 +0000

Dear Alexandra,
If you do draw a map for yourself and how different people helped and stopped you in the process of becoming who you are as a female professional, it would be great if you wanted to share your experience with us. I enjoy having guest posts on this blog and I think we could learn a lot.

During my work in Ghana I saw that a lot of things that we find normal or generally human are actually cultural and that you have to be extremely careful with your own assumptions if working in a different context. On the other hand I also saw that breaking the question down to two simple elements (Who are the actors, how are they linked) works in very different cultural settings and allows people to actually bridge the gap of inter-cultural misunderstandings.
Cheers
Eva

By: Maria Alexandra Jorge

Maria Alexandra Jorge — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:49:31 +0000

Really interesting idea! When you mentioned to use the Ghana woman example I first think of how interesting it would be to do that for myself. It would be a good exercise to try (like the network maps requires for the KS workshop currently running). I often think about my own path and how much of it is own merit, positive thinking, just luck, good contacts or else? Never though about a network map to analyze it. Good to do when I have time, just to brain storm it…
Regarding the Ghana example, it would be much more complicated than it sounds as often language as well as concept barriers can make communication quite difficult, if you want to understand the whys and ifs that are behind current situations. But surely something to think about in any further social study.
Alexandra