Sunday, December 9, 2012

Seeking Testimonials: Single, Recently Divorced, or Unhappily Married Women

Are you a single, recently divorced woman who is struggling to pay back your students loans? Or perhaps you are miserable and married, but feel stuck because of your debt?

Seeking interviews with women of all ages who are in these situations.

If you wish to remain anonymous, that request will be honored.

Contact me at: ccrynjohannsen@gmail.com.

-Cryn
Founder & Executive Dir.
All Education Matters

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cryn:

There are some horrible remarks that have been made about you and in a sexual context on the Law Professor Paul Campos Blog. I implied that Professor Campos should delete the comments, and he has not done so yet.

I am sorry that such a high profile blog shows such little respect for you.

Sincerely,

John Koch

Anonymous said...

Cryn,

Re: the comment before me: Hold your head high. These people are sociopaths. You are one of the few hopes that I and 36 million others have for a future. Do not let these people tear you down. If I could reach through my screen, I would hug you.

Thanks for all you do.

Anonymous said...

Cryn:

I think it all boils down to this bill by now, and this is where it is all going.

http://petri.house.gov/new-student-loan-bill

Anonymous said...

I agree with John Koch's and Anon's above defenses of you.

But back on topic, I fail to see the significance of inviting only women to share their stories of how student loan debts have harmed their domestic lives. Is it because of a presumption that women categorically suffer more from such circumstances? Or suffer such circumstanes more often than men? As for the latter, I'd suggest that given the continuing cultural presumption (inconsistent with simultaneous presumptions of feminism) that to be the family breadwinner remains principally the husband's role, being encumbered by massive student debt makes men even less perceivedly marriageable than women.

Cryn Johannsen said...

@Anon Dec 10 809 AM,

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate the other words of support, too.

So, you are aware, I am exploring this particular facet of the student lending crisis. It is, however, not the only project related to the problem that I'm working on.

This situation impacts people in different ways. I just happen to be working on this angle at this juncture.

The issues that men have are just as valid.

-Cryn

Linnea M. Palmer Paton said...

Except nowadays, there are more women entering higher education than men, so I expect that women in general will have a higher debt burden than men. This is despite the fact that they are less likely than men to hold senior level positions in their careers.

Linnea M. Palmer Paton said...

I'm not sure the idea that men would have more education debt than women is accurate anymore. Last I read, there were more women entering higher education than men, which leads me to conclude that women are more likely to have the higher debts as a demographic. This is despite the fact that they are less likely to obtain senior level positions and will make less money than men in general.

Thanks for shedding light on this issue.

Anonymous said...

The Tom Petri bill concerns me. It does not address private student loan debt which is more dangerous than federal debt... or am I missing something? Right now, my minimum payments are equivalent to my income, and my income is roughly the national median.

Anonymous said...

I would like to suggest covering another aspect of the student debt crisis that affects women. It eliminates our freedom of choice in a very specific way.

I do not mean to discount the ills that men also suffer with their share of the student debt.

Most women, whether we like it or not, were born with the ability to physically bear children. I know that this is not technically politically correct anymore (I was a Sociology major) but I believe that women were also born to nurture.

When we're in high school and in our early twenties, we don't know what we want. We have been indoctrinated with suggestions our entire lives that we need to decide what we want to do for a career, where we want to go to school and which major we would like to study. We think we decide on something, work ourselves to the bone and mortgage our futures for it. There was never really an option given - it was, "Either become a career woman or you're a disgrace to your gender."

Then we grow up. Some of us like our decisions, others of us realize that maybe everything we thought we wanted, isn't what we wanted at all. We'd give anything to be able to have children (something we swore we would never do back in our early twenties) and stay at home to watch them grow. I, for one, don't see the reasoning in giving my entire paycheck to a daycare, just so someone else can raise my kid.

We suddenly realize that we don't have the option to be effective mothers. It's either daycare or no kids at all. Daycare is too expensive, and we don't want strangers to raise our children. Our ability to decide what to do with our lives and our bodies after our mid twenties has suddenly been robbed from us. Forget babies, forget posterity and family. We owe our souls to an insurmountable debt.

It is difficult for men when they can't have kids, either. I get that. But they have always known they'd grow up and work. They've always known they'd never be able to bear children and at least consistent with traditional trends, they most likely wouldn't be staying at home with them if their companions did (although I realize there are more stay-at-home dads these days).

I never thought I'd say this, but I just want to be a stay-at-home mom. I chased what I though was my dream through graduate school and I'm miserable. My life is empty. I cry alone all the time. There will never be big family dinners for my husband and me. We'll never have grandkids. We're going to die alone in rest homes some day without family or a dime to our names.

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