My generation was the turning point. Women older than us didn't expect to have jobs or careers; those younger did. But we were where it was changing - which is interesting but uncomfortable.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the evolution of women's roles in society, highlighting a generational shift in expectations regarding careers.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell's quote emphasizes the pivotal role of her generation in transforming societal views about women's employment. While older generations of women typically did not anticipate having careers, younger women embraced the idea of professional life and careers. This shift not only represents progress but also suggests a complex emotional landscape, where the change can feel both interesting and uncomfortable as it disrupts established norms.
In practice
During a women's empowerment seminar to highlight career opportunities.
There's some evidence that if you're recruiting, you tend to recruit a mini-me. Then you have a very comfortable group round a table. You all think alike. You agree. People are arguing that the banking crisis was because too many of the relevant bodies were thinkalikes, and that if they'd had more diversity, maybe it wouldn't have happened.
The universe is very big - there's about 100,000 million galaxies in the universe, so that means an awful lot of stars. And some of them, I'm pretty certain, will have planets where there was life, is life, or maybe will be life. I don't believe we're alone.
A search for truth seems to me to be full of pitfalls. We all have different understandings of what truth is, and we'll each believe - or we are in danger of each believing - that our truth is the one and only absolute truth, which is why I say it's full of pitfalls.
If you look at other countries, you'll find lots of girls doing physics, engineering, and science. It's something to do with the kind of culture we have in the English-speaking world about what's appropriate for each of the two sexes.
Arguably, my student status and perhaps my gender were also my downfall with respect to the Nobel Prize, which was awarded to Professor Antony Hewish and Professor Martin Ryle. At the time, science was still perceived as being carried out by distinguished men.
When I went to my local grammar school, Lurgan College, girls were not encouraged to study science. My parents hit the roof and, along with other parents, demanded a curriculum change.
If you watch the news and don't like it, then this is your counter program to the news.
Revolutions can no longer be achieved by minorities. No matter how energetic and intelligent a minority may be, it is not enough, in modern times at least, to make a revolution. The cooperation of a majority, and a large majority too, is needed.
You cannot expect to achieve new goals or move beyond your present circumstances unless you change.
Change is a threat when done to me, but an opportunity when done by me.
If we want to create change, we all have to be feminists - men, women, everyone needs to acknowledge that. Sometimes I have more in common with the man than I do the woman in the room.
There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of.
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