JKC's journey

Jill Ker Conway was one of the most iconic woman of the 20th century and a true pioneer for gender equality. Her courage is amazing especially to leave the country she was born in to come to America and live there for the rest of her life. 

I think it's interesting to look at how woman in other countries are effected by sexism. Often when we talk about sexism in other countries it's in third world countries in places like Africa or the middle east. I rarely hear about sexism that happens in countries as developed as ours like Australia. In the reading I thought it was a crazy reality that people got rejected from jobs for being "too pretty". In the reading it discussed how Conway was rejected from a post at the Australian Foreign Service because she's "too good-looking", "would be married within a year". It's crazy to think that women in Australia, the US, and probably most other countries could be rejected for being "cursed" by genetics with looking nice. It's also crazy to think that appearance and nothing else, could be the reason you wouldn't get a job. It's scary to think that in those times they assumed a woman would get pregnant and leave within a few years, even if the woman's only desire and focus at the time was her career. To a certain extent, I think this is still an issue in the US. Obviously now, maternity leave and then coming back to work happens more often but a lot of people use women getting married and having a children as justification for paying them less. I've heard this argument used before and think it definitely has similar ideas to not hiring someone because they might become pregnant. This is an impactful real world issue that I think has greatly improved since Conway's time, but still needs to be worked on. 

One of the things I found inspiring from the presentation is learning about Conway's husband and the period in her life from when she came to American in 1960 to when she became the first female president at Smith College. Leaving home, going to graduate school, going through rough patches in her personal life, and becoming the president of highly respected college, all within fifteen years is truly a testament to her courage and work ethic. Conway and other women like her worked very hard to create a new norm during the late 60's, 70's, 80's, etc. Having the president and staff of a women's college actually being women is something now that we would expect, but we're only used to this because of women like Conway who changed the way we think of women.