Introduction

My name is Megan.  I am a history major seeking a women’s studies certification.  I am graduating this semester, with plans to continue on to graduate school here at UCF in public history with a graduate level certification in women’s studies.  My passion for history fits well with women’s studies.  Along with women’s history, I enjoy studying Soviet history and Josef Stalin.  I have a “thing” for evil dictators, but I really enjoy studying the women who were involved with those men or the women’s lives under terrible regimes.  

In my off campus life, I am married and have a three and a half year old son.  Juggling school and home life is sometimes difficult, but it is highly rewarding.  In the three years I have been back in college, I have learned a lot about time management, caffeine intake, and functioning with sleep deprivation.     

My role as a mother puts me in a leadership role every single day.  I believe mothers are strong leaders and are almost never fully appreciated for their abilities, both within the family unit and away from it in the political arena.  Women are good leaders without being mothers, of course.  Motherhood is a slippery slope for women.  The idea that women are “designed” to be mothers is rampant.  The ideas of mothers as leaders and women as leaders desperately need to be unpacked for me, which is why it is one of my reasons for taking this course. 

  Women who choose not to have children are no more or less qualified to lead than women with children, yet they sometimes have the stigma of something being “wrong” with them because they don’t want kids.  Women with children are often seen as “bad” mothers for spending, what some may perceive as, too much time away from their kids, because they choose to have a career or pursue opportunities outside of the home and family unit.  The pressure to be Suzy homemaker or be content in traditional women’s jobs (secretary, teacher, nurse) is still out there.  For the mothers, “mommy guilt” haunts us every time we wave good-bye to our little ones at the baby sitter’s house or daycare.  For the women who choose to remain child-free, the stigmas and questions about something being “wrong” plague them.  Can’t we just be women?

Who is at home with us should be irrelevant to our leadership abilities.  On the same hand, I cannot deny the incredible strength and understanding my role as a mother has given me.  These skills, I believe, have shaped me into a pretty good leader.  The conclusion I have come to is that individual life experiences, personality, and education shape a leader.  No one experience, such as motherhood, guarantees a good or successful leader.  However, mothers deserve more respect for the leadership work they do in the home and out of the home.  Unfortunately, women as leaders and mothers as leaders are often conflated.          

I have read, understand, and agree to the terms of the course syllabus and blogging protocols.