Ezter Hartigay. Thanks for being her mother: she gave me the gadgetiest gadget a boy could have hoped for.

neat.

On a completely different note, I’d like to point out that you managed to do something I was striving for all day (but then had to leave my machine to go out to dinner): you wrote comment number #25,000 on CT!

Did your friend have a chance to say “Thanks for an interesting gift. You know, it could be taken several different ways; which one did you intend?” or “what made you think of that original thank-you gift?” I might not have the nerve, but it seems like it could be done politely and nonconfrontationally.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha…. I still don’t get it :(

My post’s main intended point was that based on plenty of anecdotal evidence, women are, more often than their male colleagues, seen primarily in the role of nurturer rather than that of intellectual mentor while men don’t face this either/or distinction. This goes along with the general idea that women mainly tend to be seen in one of three ways: nurturer (mommy), sexualized, or a bitch. Where’s the room for the authority figure or the intellectual?

Phil’s comment above is a good example of precisely what I meant to point out is the problem, but a point he seems to be using to dismiss my claim about differences that are a concern [added emphasis mine]: I doubt if male students treat female professors in the same way they treat male professors, but I would also doubt that is primarily because male students expect emotional support from female professors in a way they don’t expect from male professors. Instead, it is probably because they simply don’t see women as authority figures in the way they see men. THAT was precisely my point. Female academics are approached differently than their male colleagues in terms of their potential role. They are not thought of primarily as the authority figure who has the ability to guide the intellectual conversations of their classrooms or their disciplines. I rest my case.

Also, just to be clear, I don’t doubt that there are plenty of male profs who are sought out for and do provide emotional guidance. That’s not the point: the point is that this aspect of their contribution to student development doesn’t overshadow all other aspects of their contributions as it is much likely to do with women.

Sebastian raises a good point about whether “mommy” is really the equivalent of “daddy”. (I struggled with the title of this post and given this point, it may not work so well.)

Well it was stated in the Twitter thing that it was a gag gift. Presumably there’s some private joke behind it. Perhaps the diss. director has openly had cosmetic surgery.

I’d say it is most likely to be an in-joke. The book looks like a particularly crass example of commodification of women, the superficiality of some contemporary US culture etc, the sort of topics that many academics would have discussed in lectures. For a student to give this book then would be a way to say: ‘Look, here’s a particularly clear example of the problems you’re pointing out, let’s laugh at it together’. That would be along the lines of giving someone who lectured on religion and culture a bit of Jesus kitsch or a plastic saint.

Toughen up, people, there’s kids starving in Namibia!

I did once mention to my (undergrad) advisor that he was sort of an intellectual ‘father’ to me, (having truly given good advice, support, ideas and generally being interested in my ill-formed ideas.) He blandly said “Oh, is that the role I get in your psychodrama?” I replied that Freud only gave us about four template roles , which reminded him of a great book I should read… etc. (wonderful advisor, a real mensch. Died much too young.)

However, I was as likely to nurture my professors as seek reassurance from them. Frex, bought one a bike helmet when he didn’t wear one. (He still didn’t wear it.)

Teaching what? Are student/teacher relationships creepier in the philosophy department or the entomology department? God help me, I want to know.