Sylvia's Journal

When I was 10 or 12 I used to borrow books from the library about the lives of accomplished women like Marie Curie, Florence Nightingale. I think I inherited a gene from my maternal line that assumed men and women were equal and deserved to be treated equally and could do anything that the other sex could do (men could knit sox and sew clothes and women could be captains, and train conductors). This wasn’t the prevailing opinion in the 1950s in Holland. Only boys played soccer or cricket. Women doctors were rare except in well baby clinics and as teachers of hygiene (which is what my mom did). Most of the mothers of my schoolmates stayed at home, and those who had started university studies stopped them when they got married.  

Mari Popova, in her book ‘Figuring’ tells the stories of several accmplished women who lived in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and whom I had never heard about. All these women, astronomers, artists, mathematicians, inventors also bucked the trend: they were told to get married and focus on children and home.

I am curious about these women who have veered from the path that convention prescribed.  My mom did that, both my grandmothers did that.

To this day I am fascinated by women who dare to run for president of the United States, who take on powerful industry lobbies because of the damage they do, who call out abuses that have gone unchallenged. During my early morning exercise bike rides, I have been listening to Michelle Obama, Melinda Gates, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren telling their stories and making history (her-story) in the process. 

Two things have struck me in all their stories:  they all got to the place where they made history (her-story) because they found (recovered) their authentic voice, never silenced by convention and/or powerful men. They also are (and may be this is a typical feminine trait) driven to understand other people’s lives – empathy is the word they all use. 

In my various neuroscience classes I am learning that empathy isn’t actually as great as people claim. If I empathize with someone who is not in a good place, my brain chemistry micks the other’s and I risk getting into that not so good place myself. Better is compassion, which is a combination of empathy (understanding the other, standing under the other’s reality) and action (“how can I help you?”).

With the democratic primary campaigning in full flight I am looking for candidates who show compassion with proposals for action, anchored in understanding (empathy if you will) that are actually realistic and realizable.