Dr. Trixie – Changes

By Katharine M. Hikel

My friend’s son – a baseball player – broke his left arm. He’s a lefty; it’s his pitching, batting, throwing arm. It was immobilized for surgery, but he still went out to the driveway to teach himself to shoot baskets 'righty,' even before his fracture had healed. He is fifteen years old.

Changing from a left-handed to a right-handed way of life is a such a huge shift in thinking that it alters brain circuits – it makes the brain redesign itself to accommodate a new way of life, a new skill set, a different spatial approach to the world. My friend's son did this in less time than it takes to read the Sunday paper.

That made me think about the culture of change.

In medical school, I was in a class on "Issues in Gynecology" with a professor who was covering the problem of PMS. She said, "Okay, what are the causes?" The class came up with the usual litany – too much estrogen; not enough progesterone; too much caffeine; not enough sleep. The nontrad students – older women – in the class just looked at each other, knowingly. Then we swung into action: the causes of PMS are cultural repression of women's monthly cycles; lack of political representation; 79 cents to the dollar wage differential; too much housework. The professor countered, "But you can't change that. You'd have to change the culture." In unison we shot back, "Oh yes we can!" And she said, "Then hurry up! Change the culture!"

In medicine, it took about 100 years to change the habit of using the 70-kilogram male as the physical standard for all of humanity. This change came about through the work of the women's health movement, where the clinics, the procedures, and the data-collecting were all designed with the well-being of women in mind. That experience altered the medical landscape.

The ‘problem’ of women in science, in journalism, in foreign policy, in Congress, is not a woman problem. It is a culture problem. It is women trying to fit into an environment that has been designed without any of our input, or consideration of our wants, needs, or production schedules.

Take the standard of the 80-hour work week. Women, many of whom use our brains differently – more broadly, one could argue – than most men, may not be satisfied with a work schedule that leaves time for little else. It's not that we want less work; it's that we also need real time with families and friends, community activity, a wider range of brain function. Instead of always trying to fit in and keep up, maybe we should ask: What would this residency program, this newsroom, this World Bank look like if we had an equitable say in its design? No doubt it would look pretty different.

There are men who are with us on this. At most places we’d want to work, the guys already talk the talk. But they don't always see the biases of their own culture. Nancy Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) biologist who protested Harvard ex-President Larry Summers' notorious speech about women in sciences, spearheaded a study at MIT that looked at the inequities between the women and the men on the faculty. The men gave each other promotions, corner offices, the lion's share of lab space and graduate students; the women got endless committee positions and longer hours with less pay. When the faculty guys were shown these data, they were shocked at their own performance record: “No! That can’t be us!” The plan to correct gender balance then became an inclusive effort.

Susan Estrich, in her book Sex and Power, used this story as an example of the way men relate to each other, thinking of themselves as "us" and women as "them." She also said that all it takes is three women in such an environment – like Nancy Hawkins and her cohorts – to raise awareness, and change the culture.

Advertising mogul Linda Kaplan Thaler said in her book Bang! that there is a physical 'high' that comes from cooperative activity. It's the same high that comes from seeing a beautiful picture, or eating chocolate or dessert. Cooperation makes things go well. It fosters a kind of bliss. I read somewhere that it takes a remarkably small percentage of a population – 20 percent – to bring about a shift in thought. Like recycling, or conserving energy, or thinking cooperatively.

My friend's southpaw son, teaching himself to shoot and pitch righty in two hours, shows how fast a brain can change.This young man plans to continue his ambidextrous training after his arm heals, so he can be a switch hitter – or even a switch pitcher. He makes me think that change is possible – even easy – after all.