The Paula Principle

Paula in literature

I’m always on the lookout for examples from fciton and other kinds of literature

Amazons!

Today's  post is a little different.  First, Amazons, the topic of today's  In Our Time on R4 (Melvyn Bragg's job is the most enviable I can imagine....).    The  link to the PP is obvious - the Amazons are after all an exceptionally  powerful example of convention-defying occupational choice .   I wouldn't want to push it too far, but it will be interesting to see when a woman reaches the top echelons of the military.    And whether there is any discussion in that sphere over whether/how a female presence would make a difference to leadership styles, as there is over boardrooms and financial trading (and even politics....). I went over to the British Museum ( I'm lucky enough to live…
Read More

The Odd Women – and a possible mirror today

I'm just reading George Gissing's The Odd Women, a curious novel centred on women's prospects in the late 19th century.  These were pretty dismal on  the whole.  The novel focusses on three sisters caught in a kind of genteel poverty.  Two of them are past marriageable age, and also have hardly any chance of a decent occupation but must live on the tiny income bequeathed by their father. The third is still pretty and eligible, but works 14-hour days in a draper's, with very little scope for meeting a suitable husband. The title refers to something which I find hard to explain:  the apparent existence then of half a million more women than men…
Read More

The invisible woman

I've been reading Claire Tomalin's book on Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.  For those of you who are as ignorant as I was about this side of the Dickens story, in 1858 the author left his wife Catherine, taking nine of his ten children, including quite young ones. (His household was managed by Catherine's sister Georgina.) Tomalin traces out the extraordinary story of Dickens' involvement with a woman 25 years younger than he, Nelly Ternan. Nelly came from an acting family, and Dickens had produced and taken part in some theatrical events with her, her sisters and her mother. But he did not set up with her - although several of…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Parental aspirations: a pair of literary examples

Parental aspirations are a powerful influence on educational achievement. They must also have some effect on what kinds of job young people want to do, though I'm not sure what the research shows on this. We do know from Ingrid Schoon's analysis of cohort data that girls' aspirations are higher than boys, at all levels of socio-economic status. (Schoon also shows that for the generation born in 1970 the class gap in aspirations is wider than is was for those born 12 years earlier; once again we have trends in gender and class pointing in different directions.) I have been looking generally for passages from literature whic illustrate the Paula…
Read More

Amazons!

Today's  post is a little different.  First, Amazons, the topic of today's  In Our Time on R4 (Melvyn Bragg's job is the most enviable I can imagine....).    The  link to the PP is obvious - the Amazons are after all an exceptionally  powerful example of convention-defying occupational choice .   I wouldn't want to push it too far, but it will be interesting to see when a woman reaches the top echelons of the military.    And whether there is any discussion in that sphere over whether/how a female presence would make a difference to leadership styles, as there is over boardrooms and financial trading (and even politics....). I went over to the British Museum ( I'm lucky enough to live…
Read More

The Odd Women – and a possible mirror today

I'm just reading George Gissing's The Odd Women, a curious novel centred on women's prospects in the late 19th century.  These were pretty dismal on  the whole.  The novel focusses on three sisters caught in a kind of genteel poverty.  Two of them are past marriageable age, and also have hardly any chance of a decent occupation but must live on the tiny income bequeathed by their father. The third is still pretty and eligible, but works 14-hour days in a draper's, with very little scope for meeting a suitable husband. The title refers to something which I find hard to explain:  the apparent existence then of half a million more women than men…
Read More

The invisible woman

I've been reading Claire Tomalin's book on Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.  For those of you who are as ignorant as I was about this side of the Dickens story, in 1858 the author left his wife Catherine, taking nine of his ten children, including quite young ones. (His household was managed by Catherine's sister Georgina.) Tomalin traces out the extraordinary story of Dickens' involvement with a woman 25 years younger than he, Nelly Ternan. Nelly came from an acting family, and Dickens had produced and taken part in some theatrical events with her, her sisters and her mother. But he did not set up with her - although several of…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Parental aspirations: a pair of literary examples

Parental aspirations are a powerful influence on educational achievement. They must also have some effect on what kinds of job young people want to do, though I'm not sure what the research shows on this. We do know from Ingrid Schoon's analysis of cohort data that girls' aspirations are higher than boys, at all levels of socio-economic status. (Schoon also shows that for the generation born in 1970 the class gap in aspirations is wider than is was for those born 12 years earlier; once again we have trends in gender and class pointing in different directions.) I have been looking generally for passages from literature whic illustrate the Paula…
Read More

Amazons!

Today's  post is a little different.  First, Amazons, the topic of today's  In Our Time on R4 (Melvyn Bragg's job is the most enviable I can imagine....).    The  link to the PP is obvious - the Amazons are after all an exceptionally  powerful example of convention-defying occupational choice .   I wouldn't want to push it too far, but it will be interesting to see when a woman reaches the top echelons of the military.    And whether there is any discussion in that sphere over whether/how a female presence would make a difference to leadership styles, as there is over boardrooms and financial trading (and even politics....). I went over to the British Museum ( I'm lucky enough to live…
Read More

The Odd Women – and a possible mirror today

I'm just reading George Gissing's The Odd Women, a curious novel centred on women's prospects in the late 19th century.  These were pretty dismal on  the whole.  The novel focusses on three sisters caught in a kind of genteel poverty.  Two of them are past marriageable age, and also have hardly any chance of a decent occupation but must live on the tiny income bequeathed by their father. The third is still pretty and eligible, but works 14-hour days in a draper's, with very little scope for meeting a suitable husband. The title refers to something which I find hard to explain:  the apparent existence then of half a million more women than men…
Read More

The invisible woman

I've been reading Claire Tomalin's book on Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.  For those of you who are as ignorant as I was about this side of the Dickens story, in 1858 the author left his wife Catherine, taking nine of his ten children, including quite young ones. (His household was managed by Catherine's sister Georgina.) Tomalin traces out the extraordinary story of Dickens' involvement with a woman 25 years younger than he, Nelly Ternan. Nelly came from an acting family, and Dickens had produced and taken part in some theatrical events with her, her sisters and her mother. But he did not set up with her - although several of…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Parental aspirations: a pair of literary examples

Parental aspirations are a powerful influence on educational achievement. They must also have some effect on what kinds of job young people want to do, though I'm not sure what the research shows on this. We do know from Ingrid Schoon's analysis of cohort data that girls' aspirations are higher than boys, at all levels of socio-economic status. (Schoon also shows that for the generation born in 1970 the class gap in aspirations is wider than is was for those born 12 years earlier; once again we have trends in gender and class pointing in different directions.) I have been looking generally for passages from literature whic illustrate the Paula…
Read More

Amazons!

Today's  post is a little different.  First, Amazons, the topic of today's  In Our Time on R4 (Melvyn Bragg's job is the most enviable I can imagine....).    The  link to the PP is obvious - the Amazons are after all an exceptionally  powerful example of convention-defying occupational choice .   I wouldn't want to push it too far, but it will be interesting to see when a woman reaches the top echelons of the military.    And whether there is any discussion in that sphere over whether/how a female presence would make a difference to leadership styles, as there is over boardrooms and financial trading (and even politics....). I went over to the British Museum ( I'm lucky enough to live…
Read More

The Odd Women – and a possible mirror today

I'm just reading George Gissing's The Odd Women, a curious novel centred on women's prospects in the late 19th century.  These were pretty dismal on  the whole.  The novel focusses on three sisters caught in a kind of genteel poverty.  Two of them are past marriageable age, and also have hardly any chance of a decent occupation but must live on the tiny income bequeathed by their father. The third is still pretty and eligible, but works 14-hour days in a draper's, with very little scope for meeting a suitable husband. The title refers to something which I find hard to explain:  the apparent existence then of half a million more women than men…
Read More

The invisible woman

I've been reading Claire Tomalin's book on Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.  For those of you who are as ignorant as I was about this side of the Dickens story, in 1858 the author left his wife Catherine, taking nine of his ten children, including quite young ones. (His household was managed by Catherine's sister Georgina.) Tomalin traces out the extraordinary story of Dickens' involvement with a woman 25 years younger than he, Nelly Ternan. Nelly came from an acting family, and Dickens had produced and taken part in some theatrical events with her, her sisters and her mother. But he did not set up with her - although several of…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Parental aspirations: a pair of literary examples

Parental aspirations are a powerful influence on educational achievement. They must also have some effect on what kinds of job young people want to do, though I'm not sure what the research shows on this. We do know from Ingrid Schoon's analysis of cohort data that girls' aspirations are higher than boys, at all levels of socio-economic status. (Schoon also shows that for the generation born in 1970 the class gap in aspirations is wider than is was for those born 12 years earlier; once again we have trends in gender and class pointing in different directions.) I have been looking generally for passages from literature whic illustrate the Paula…
Read More

Amazons!

Today's  post is a little different.  First, Amazons, the topic of today's  In Our Time on R4 (Melvyn Bragg's job is the most enviable I can imagine....).    The  link to the PP is obvious - the Amazons are after all an exceptionally  powerful example of convention-defying occupational choice .   I wouldn't want to push it too far, but it will be interesting to see when a woman reaches the top echelons of the military.    And whether there is any discussion in that sphere over whether/how a female presence would make a difference to leadership styles, as there is over boardrooms and financial trading (and even politics....). I went over to the British Museum ( I'm lucky enough to live…
Read More

The Odd Women – and a possible mirror today

I'm just reading George Gissing's The Odd Women, a curious novel centred on women's prospects in the late 19th century.  These were pretty dismal on  the whole.  The novel focusses on three sisters caught in a kind of genteel poverty.  Two of them are past marriageable age, and also have hardly any chance of a decent occupation but must live on the tiny income bequeathed by their father. The third is still pretty and eligible, but works 14-hour days in a draper's, with very little scope for meeting a suitable husband. The title refers to something which I find hard to explain:  the apparent existence then of half a million more women than men…
Read More

The invisible woman

I've been reading Claire Tomalin's book on Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.  For those of you who are as ignorant as I was about this side of the Dickens story, in 1858 the author left his wife Catherine, taking nine of his ten children, including quite young ones. (His household was managed by Catherine's sister Georgina.) Tomalin traces out the extraordinary story of Dickens' involvement with a woman 25 years younger than he, Nelly Ternan. Nelly came from an acting family, and Dickens had produced and taken part in some theatrical events with her, her sisters and her mother. But he did not set up with her - although several of…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Parental aspirations: a pair of literary examples

Parental aspirations are a powerful influence on educational achievement. They must also have some effect on what kinds of job young people want to do, though I'm not sure what the research shows on this. We do know from Ingrid Schoon's analysis of cohort data that girls' aspirations are higher than boys, at all levels of socio-economic status. (Schoon also shows that for the generation born in 1970 the class gap in aspirations is wider than is was for those born 12 years earlier; once again we have trends in gender and class pointing in different directions.) I have been looking generally for passages from literature whic illustrate the Paula…
Read More

Amazons!

Today's  post is a little different.  First, Amazons, the topic of today's  In Our Time on R4 (Melvyn Bragg's job is the most enviable I can imagine....).    The  link to the PP is obvious - the Amazons are after all an exceptionally  powerful example of convention-defying occupational choice .   I wouldn't want to push it too far, but it will be interesting to see when a woman reaches the top echelons of the military.    And whether there is any discussion in that sphere over whether/how a female presence would make a difference to leadership styles, as there is over boardrooms and financial trading (and even politics....). I went over to the British Museum ( I'm lucky enough to live…
Read More

The Odd Women – and a possible mirror today

I'm just reading George Gissing's The Odd Women, a curious novel centred on women's prospects in the late 19th century.  These were pretty dismal on  the whole.  The novel focusses on three sisters caught in a kind of genteel poverty.  Two of them are past marriageable age, and also have hardly any chance of a decent occupation but must live on the tiny income bequeathed by their father. The third is still pretty and eligible, but works 14-hour days in a draper's, with very little scope for meeting a suitable husband. The title refers to something which I find hard to explain:  the apparent existence then of half a million more women than men…
Read More

The invisible woman

I've been reading Claire Tomalin's book on Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.  For those of you who are as ignorant as I was about this side of the Dickens story, in 1858 the author left his wife Catherine, taking nine of his ten children, including quite young ones. (His household was managed by Catherine's sister Georgina.) Tomalin traces out the extraordinary story of Dickens' involvement with a woman 25 years younger than he, Nelly Ternan. Nelly came from an acting family, and Dickens had produced and taken part in some theatrical events with her, her sisters and her mother. But he did not set up with her - although several of…
Read More

Women and work in literature

Examples from fiction to illustrate the Paula Principle in relation  to  female success (or lack of it) in education are quite easy to find;  Maggie Tulliver in Mill on the Floss is particularly well-known, as bright and bookish Maggie is denied access to school, whilst cloddish brother Tom is sent, at great cost, to a useless tutor.  But the other side of the PP equation is more problematic -  I've had more difficulty finding my way to illustrations from novels of how women don't make it to positions at work which exercise their full competence.  I have the data, but need the colour. At the foot of this blog is one example which I've…
Read More

Aspirations and ambitions

In Winifred Holtby's South Riding, published in 1936,  Lydia Holly is the eldest daughter of a large and poor family living in a converted railway carriage.  She is 'an untidy fat loutish girl in a torn overall' - but she shows evident signs of cleverness, and her mother sees this.  "Her mother  was a fighter; her mother had insisted  that she take the second chance of a scholarship to Kiplington High School.  When she was eleven she had  won a place at Kiplington, but her parents had needed her to escort her small sisters to the village school, so she had missed her chance.  Now Daisy was old enough to…
Read More

Parental aspirations: a pair of literary examples

Parental aspirations are a powerful influence on educational achievement. They must also have some effect on what kinds of job young people want to do, though I'm not sure what the research shows on this. We do know from Ingrid Schoon's analysis of cohort data that girls' aspirations are higher than boys, at all levels of socio-economic status. (Schoon also shows that for the generation born in 1970 the class gap in aspirations is wider than is was for those born 12 years earlier; once again we have trends in gender and class pointing in different directions.) I have been looking generally for passages from literature whic illustrate the Paula…
Read More