Advocacy for Women - S1E11

 

Announcer: Welcome to The Voice of Counseling, presented by the American

Counseling Association. This program is hosted by Dr. S. Kent Butler. This week's

episode is advocacy for women and features Dr. Mary Hermann.

 

Dr. S. Kent Butler: Welcome to The Voice of Counseling. I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler and

we are here today with Dr. Mary A. Hermann. We're very proud to have her. She's

definitely a mainstay at the American Counseling Association and so with that, she's

an associate professor in the School of Education, Department of Counseling and

Special Education and she is the department chair, or she was the department chair

from August 2010 to June of 2015.

 

Dr. Butler: Over her career, Dr. Hermann's research has focused on legal and

ethical issues in counseling, women's studies, and social justice. She has served as

President of the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision,

SACES, we all know that, and co-chair of the SACES Women's Interest Network.

She has also served as chair of the American Counseling Association, ACA

Foundation Board of Directors, as a member of the ACA Ethics Committee, and as a

member of the ACA 2014 Ethics Revision Task Force. And this year, she's working

on a task force, and she's co-chairing that with Dr. Michael Chaney, on gender

equality. And so I'm looking forward to her being a part of that as well. So with that

being said, let's bring in Dr. Mary Hermann. How are you?

 

Dr. Mary A. Hermann: I am wonderful, thank you.

 

Dr. Butler: It's good to see you.

 

Dr. Hermann: It's great to see you.

 

Dr. Butler: So we just got back from having a very fun filled opportunity in Atlanta,

Georgia at the ACES convention. How are you feeling about that experience?

 

Dr. Hermann: It was so wonderful to be in-person again with colleagues. The

conference sessions were amazing. I constantly learn. That's one of my favorite

things about being a professor is that we get to be lifelong learners. I was so inspired

just from the very beginning, from the opening keynote that Anneliese Singh gave

where she just reminded me of how to do my work and how to do it better.

 

Dr. Butler: How to do it better, yes.

 

Dr. Hermann: So many things she said just really resonated with me as well as

other... I learned about things that are happening that will be very helpful as I'm

doing my teaching. And so it was just such an amazing experience.

 

Dr. Butler: Great, great, great. I was talking with individuals while there. ACES was

setting the mark on us coming back into the world, especially from the counseling

perspective. So it was really nice to see people. And the best part about it was

people were really taking care of themselves. They were walking around. They had

their masks on. They were only taking the mask off for maybe photo ops and things

along those lines. But I hope that most people watching on social media, seeing

people taking pictures, know that most people were staging those pictures. They

weren't pictures that people were just walking around willy-nilly without any

protection whatsoever. So it was a really good conference in that regard too. I'm

looking forward to how we can build upon that for the ACA conference.

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely.

 

Dr. Butler: So there's a lot that you've been doing. You are probably one of the

premier women educators out there on women issues. And so can you talk a little bit

about how you got there? What was so important in your life that made you take that

pathway when it comes to your counseling career?

 

Dr. Hermann: Yes. So I started my career as a counselor educator in 2001. I like to

say when we were young children. So I fell into teaching a course on gender issues

and counseling and ended up restructuring that course quite a bit. Found some

wonderful resources with the help of my ACA colleagues and just really got excited

about how we can really advocate for women and for everyone through our

counselor education curriculum. Yeah, so that started it. And one thing I realized too

is it kind of ended up being a lifespan development course and it... but it also was not

just lifespan development. We really have to look at culture and context. And so I

ended up teaching lifespan development through a gender lens which I thought I was

very excited about And then my students started saying, "You know, Dr. Hermann,

intersectionality really makes a difference." And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm adding that." And

they were pushing me to learn more.

 

Dr. Hermann: So I started going to conferences and learning more about

intersectionality. And one of my favorite things that I learned... I got to meet Gloria

Steinem once when she came to visit Mississippi State And one thing that I really

admired about her is, as she was talking to women in different fields, she would say,

"So what should I be reading?" And so I borrowed that and I walked around this

intersectional... this conference on intersectionality and said, "What should I be

reading?"

 

Dr. Butler: What should I be reading?

 

Dr. Hermann: Yes. And so I learned about Kimberlé Crenshaw and I learned about

Patricia Hill Collins and I started reading that and reading their work and started

putting those names and ideas into my PowerPoints. And that's when I realized

basically I was reading what was out there which is basically white feminist views of

what's happening in the world. And my students said, "You know, Dr. Hermann,

that's not our experience." And they felt comfortable. They told me they felt

comfortable saying that because I was citing Crenshaw, because I was citing Hill

Collins. And so once again, it's one of my favorite things about this job is I get to

continually grow.

 

Dr. Butler: Lifelong learning.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yes. And so now I'm really... I'm teaching the lifespan development

through an intersectional feminist lens. And going back to the conference, one of the

best things that's happening in the last few years is we're really seeing some books

coming out that help us frame counseling in this way, like one from a certain Dr.

Butler about intro to counseling and using that cultural context. And there's a lifespan

book that's going to be coming out that also focuses on culture and context and how

lifespan development theory that we know of can help but how it might not help. And

so I got really excited about that.

 

Dr. Hermann: Another thing that I kind of fell into and I'm finally doing this study. For

20 years, I've been wanting to do this study and it's... One thing I notice about

literature on women, like Daniel Levinson's work, that's about my mother's

generation of women. And my generation, which I like to call us the daughters of the

gender revolution, women in their 50s, we had different experiences.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah, so I just interviewed 23 women and beautiful diversity, both

racially, ethnicity. We're looking at women who are married to other women. Just a

beautiful range of diversity. Socioeconomic status diversity and listened to their

experiences.

 

Dr. Butler: Their experiences, yes.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah, how they develop their voice. So that's coming soon. Another

thing that I really noticed being in academia was watching my younger women

colleagues struggling to find any kind of balance and really manage work and life

when you're a mother. And so I've started working on this with some colleagues that

I met through ACA and so I've ended up writing a lot about mothers in this culture

and what that experience is like because I just wrote an article for Arianna

Huffington's Thrive Global on why it's harder to be a mother today than it was 30

years ago when I was a mother. What I see my daughter experiencing because I

have a soon to be... He'll be four in two days, my four-year-old grandson. So I've

seen what she's gone through and it's a very different experience and so, yeah,

giving voice to that. Because as counselors, if we don't know, if we just make

assumptions about what's happening, we're not going to be particularly effective.

 

Dr. Butler: Yeah, I totally agree with that. Mary, I'm going to take you back to

something you said really early on in this conversation. You talked about when you

first started teaching, you took the course and you made some changes. Can you

talk about what that was like in terms of what was the overriding theme back then

and why was it necessary for you to change that narrative?

 

Dr. Hermann: So you know how when you're a young professor, you inherit the

curriculum that... and that's what you do the first semester. And the books were fine.

They were just about the differences between men and women and I really wanted

to get more into... I think lifespan development really impacts what's happening. And

so I took a little bit more of a lifespan development change and then slowly but surely

added that intersectionality piece because once again, what was happening in the

beginning... and it sounded good is like, "Okay, I'm going to teach about gender and

then we're going to start layering the various pieces of intersectionality." And I've

since learned, recently learned, "No, we can really start from a place of complexity

and of intersectional complexity and just scaffold, support the students as they're

working towards grappling with that," and that's what the students want as well. So

that was probably the major changes I made.

 

Dr. Butler: How do you now integrate into that the transgender community in your

work?

 

Dr. Hermann: And that's another piece that is... It's difficult because we're still

waiting for resources. And so Anneliese Singh, of course, has a wonderful workbook

on that. So slowly but surely, we're getting more information. And I just encourage

students to think about what must this be like if you are experiencing that and so

we're always thinking about socioeconomic status. We're always thinking about race,

ethnicity. Religion, something that is kind of a new part of my horizon, in terms of

what impact does that have on development? And so those are the kinds of things

that I'm doing.

 

Dr. Butler: Okay. Yeah because, especially in 2021, you think about what those

differences have been. Sometimes we have some colleagues that are still back in

2000 in how they teach or maybe even earlier than that. How do you think we can

help them kind of move forward in their thinking and in how they also teach their

courses, especially when it comes to gender?

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah, absolutely. We need to be helping them recognize that things

have changed. And that supporting students... and I've certainly have had students

who have talked about the experience of being trans in their life and so I feel very

honored when students do share with me these identities and I do try to create that

environment and I think that's what we need to help other faculty do as well is

continue to create an environment where people can talk about what kind of

challenges? How does this impact your development? And I look forward to seeing

more research. The research that I've seen so far has been fascinating about... and I

have students watch videos, YouTube videos, about how my life is different than

when I identified as a woman or how my life was different before identified as a man.

And so those kinds of resources, I love those human stories because I think they pull

us in. So getting more of that out there.

 

Dr. Butler: Yes. I think that's a really interesting point to make. I think a lot of times,

people don't want to touch things that are different or maybe things that they might

be curious about but they don't want to go there because they think they're going to

offend someone or that it's going to come across as them have some type of -ism

with regards to that. But how do we kind of coax them along? As a faculty member,

as a counselor educator, how do you engage students to think outside the box or to

step outside of their comfort zone?

 

Dr. Hermann: I think using that media, again, is super helpful. And just bringing up

the conversations and usually there are several students that will start to lead and

then that brings along... just having that space of this is a conversation we're going to

have and this whole idea of the binary. You have to identify as a man or a woman.

Well, not really. And I'm constantly talking about the box that we put people in and

what happens when you're outside of the box. And so just continuing to have these

conversations, continuing to have sessions on these topics for counselors and

counselor educators, there's still just so much that we can learn.

 

Dr. Butler: We can learn. A lot of people always say that counselors are the ones

who are going to set the tone or help the communities change, that we need to be

social justice advocates and things along those lines to kind of help make that a

reality. Is that your line of thought? I see you shaking your head. How does

counseling become such an important or integral part of the change that we see in

the world, from your perspective?

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely and I train our students that we're not only learning to be

counselors, we're learning to be advocates. So we have this idea of we're going to

work with individuals, groups, do programs, and then we're going to look for

opportunities to support, to change the world. And they get excited about that. They

get excited about... I showed them examples. The other day, I was showing Kid

President, a video on that from... and it's the updated version of what happened to

Kid President. And so I showed that to the students and I'm like, "Look at this one

young person whose voice became..." I mean, he was meeting the President. He got

a kiss from Beyoncé. So really showing, once again, being able to use that media to

help students see how they can affect change and how they can encourage

students, the counseling students, to affect change as well.

 

Dr. Butler: Yeah. One of the things I remember going through my schooling

experience K-12, there wasn't a lot of social justice activism in the school, the school

that I went to anyways. I don't know that this was the case across the United States

but I do know that we went to school and we went home. We hung out. We did

things. We had fun. But we didn't necessarily push ourselves to go beyond that. And

then I'd look at somebody, the next generations that have come along after me, and I

see that there's such a push towards individuals doing community service, being out

to do things other than just to have fun. They really are taking on some serious

advocacy in the way that they're viewing the world. And I see that generation, I see

our students, especially those who are close to that generation, more apt to go out

and do the right thing than those of us who are still kicking and screaming that the

world is changing. Is that something that you see affect that or what are some of

your thoughts?

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. The two things that I've noticed about students in the last

decade, I would say, is one, that social justice piece and we just help them realize

they really can make a difference and one voice makes a difference. So there's that

piece. And I see what the standard high stakes testing has done to students. I don't

know about in your classes but you mention test and anxiety goes through the roof.

And I've learned very different ways to assess if you have learned because... and I

talk about those to my students who are going to be school counselors that we need

to be advocates for recognizing what high stakes testing has done to education.

 

Dr. Butler: Thank you for saying that. I just talked to them about that at ACES this

weekend. Social learning theory and just the fact that... Here's the scenario,

especially in the black community, where we have a young person who knows the

material. They've gone through. They've done the homework. They showed up. They

were in the classroom talking, doing all the things that were necessary in the

classroom space, bringing in their homework on time, getting it graded, seeing that it

was okay, get to the test. It's a multiple choice exam or something along those lines

and they bomb it and they end up getting an F in the class or something like that.

The teacher saw them throughout that whole classroom experience, but yet only is

going to assess them on that one exam knowing that they were intelligent, knowing

that they understood the material. It's like, what can you do to change that narrative

so that you just don't go by these testing sources that we have that put students at a

disadvantage, especially those who have disparities?

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. We just need to continue to show people... and I'm hoping

the pandemic is helping with that. I've even seen law school was like that. It was all

about one exam. It didn't matter if you showed up, didn't matter if you gave brilliant

answers in class. Your grade was the one exam.

 

Dr. Butler: Exactly.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah and that really didn't impact how I functioned as an attorney

when I practiced.

 

Dr. Butler: Right. So you know what was really interesting is that necessarily... that

one exam or that failing of a class, it has so many ripple effects. There are kids who

are like, "Well, I'm not intelligent then so I'm going to step away and I'm not going to

put any more effort into this. I'm going to drop out of school," or something along

those lines because they don't feel good about themselves. They don't have self[1]esteem that tells them that they are intelligent, that they are smart. They just look

and feel as though, "I can't express myself because if I do or when I do it in this

format, it doesn't do me any good." And so they drop out.

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. When I teach about lifespan development, and I talk about

Erikson stage when he talks about the six to twelve-year-old stage how important it

is that these children feel competent. And what do we do? We put them in a school

system. We label a third of them learning disability and so we have some work to do

on advocacy and I really am excited about the students that are going out, that we're

sending out, because they... One thing I'm hoping I'm doing is helping them feel

comfortable sharing their voice and making change.

 

Dr. Butler: So I know you're one person and I know it's your narrative and your

journey, but how does a person who went to law school become a counselor? And I

know that you could be a counselor as a lawyer, but anyway [inaudible]. How do you

become a mental health counselor?

 

Dr. Hermann: My very first career, I was a French teacher in New Orleans and loved

it and it was really hard. I was in an area that was not... underfunded and students...

I remember being held responsible as a teacher for the fact that a student was falling

asleep in my class one morning and it was unusual that that student was sleeping.

So I went up to him after my evaluation piece and I said, "What's up?" and he said,

"Oh, there was gunfire out my window last night, so I didn't sleep." But that was the

teacher's fault, right? The system was challenging.

 

Dr. Hermann: So my friends were going to law school. This is what happened. We

had no career counseling when I was going through school. So I'm like, "Well, I

guess maybe I'll go to law school. Maybe I can do good that way." And so I did go to

law school. And my last year in law school, I had gone back to teaching and going to

law school at night and met a wonderful human being who was the school counselor

at the school where I taught. And he said, "Mary, I think you'd be a great school

counselor." And I said, "Yeah, the student loan people aren't going to lend me any

more money. I don't know about this. Everybody says since I went through law

school, I really have to at least try to practice for a year or so and see if I like it." And

he's like, "No, you got to meet my mentor, Ted Remley. He's a lawyer and a

counselor."

 

Dr. Hermann: And so I kept running into... Bill Rosenbaum was his name and I kept

running into Bill for that year I practiced law and he would say... He would see I was

miserable being an attorney. And he would say, "Have you contacted Ted Remley

yet?" And so finally one day, I called and Ted was funny. He's like, "I don't know

about a counselor being a lawyer or a lawyer being a counselor." Humorous because

that's exactly what he is. But I did go study with him for my master's program. And

then he's one of those people that changes people's lives on a regular basis and

certainly changed mine because I was going to get my master's in school counseling

and go be a school counselor. And he said, "Why don't you stay and do your PhD

with me?" and mentored me all the way and is still a mentor to me today and totally...

 

Dr. Butler: Even just at ACES. He and I were in the Delta lounge on Sunday before

our flights.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yes. So that's how my trajectory... Once again, I think it's the

happenstance theory of career development. I learned about that at ACES.

 

Dr. Butler: Yeah. Well, that's good. That's good. So what's it like kind of standing on

the shoulders of such people especially like Ted Remley and others who have really

done so much for the field?

 

Dr. Hermann: I had amazing mentors, Ted Remley, Barbara Herlihy, Diana Halls,

and I didn't know they were famous until I went to a conference.

 

Dr. Butler: Right, because they were humble, right?

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah.

 

Dr. Butler: I was just hanging out with Barbara at the ACES conference as well.

Yes, they're very humble individuals.

 

Dr. Hermann: So it was wonderful because I got the legal and ethical piece and

Barbara also was a mom and so I was so supported as a graduate student mom to a

point where one day, I was in a supervision session as a doctoral student and I just

brought my daughter everywhere because she was about 12 or 13 and I come back

to my office where she was coloring or reading or something and there was a note

and Ted had taken her to dinner. And she must have been hungry and he's like,

"Well, let's go eat." So I had that kind of support and that's the kind of support that I

try to give people and I tell them too, "Look, I went through law school and through

my master's and PhD program as a single mom and I slept nine hours a night. You

got to take care of yourself because I know if I don't do that, I don't function. And so

was everything perfect? Did I always have the right answer in school? Nope." But all

the papers got in on time because I learned and I tell the students, "Look, if I got all

my papers in on time," because I had them done three days before, because you

never know. You have a little person.

 

Dr. Butler: Yes.

 

Dr. Hermann: You never know what's going to come up. So you get it done early.

 

Dr. Butler: Never know what's going to come up. But that's also about taking pride

and ownership in what you're doing. I always tell students, "I didn't come to your door

and knock on it and say, 'Hey, come to my counselor education program.' You came

here. So if you're going to be in it to win it, then you're going to do the things that are

necessary. So when you look at a syllabus and you say, 'Oh my God, they got me

doing all this stuff,' you should actually be grateful because you asked for this and it's

going to help you become the counselor that you're going to become. And so if

you're upset because you have to do some reading or you have to do an assignment

or an immersion or something along those lines, then you're mad at yourself

because you've made the conscious decision to apply to the program that is asking

you to do these things. And a good program, especially one that's got a social justice

agenda, is going to push you." And most students who have been pushed come

back so much more appreciative of the experience than those who thought that they

can just skate through. And this is not undergraduate work. This is actually soul

searching work to become a counselor because you have to do the work that's

necessary so that you don't do any harm.

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. And I actually have our students... This was the lawyer in

me. I have our students, the first day of class of the intro class, I have them sign a

document stating that they agree to abide by the ACA Code of Ethics including C5

which talks about diversity so that I want them to know what they're getting into. I

said, "You don't have to know how to do everything right now, but you need to be

willing to learn."

 

Dr. Butler: Yes. So much comes out of that too. And I can't give it to you. I can't

make you want this. You have to want this. And so I laugh when students get

together and they're upset about something and they are like, "He or she or

whomever is pushing me too much and I don't like it," and then they get that

groupthink. And then they start to dislike the professor or the program or something

along those lines. It's like, it has never been about that. There's not a hazing that

goes on for you to become a counselor. The only thing that most people want who

are teaching you is for you to be your best self so that your clients can benefit from

what you bring to the table.

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely.

 

Dr. Butler: So we're gonna take a bit of a break right now and come back and talk

more with Dr. Mary A. Hermann. So sit tight. This is The Voice of Counseling and

we'll be right back.

 

Narrator: Counselors help positively impact lives by providing support, wellness,

treatment. We're working to change lives. We are creating a world where every

person has access to the quality, professional counseling and mental health services

needed to thrive.

 

Dr. Butler: Welcome back to The Voice of Counseling from the American

Counseling Association. Today, we are talking with Dr. Mary A. Hermann from

Virginia Commonwealth University and so we're going to get an opportunity to talk

more. We want to change the script a little bit and talk more about motherhood and

how it has really been a part of the research and the work that she has been doing in

the counseling community. So Mary, let's jump into it a little bit more.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah. So one thing I really noticed, like I mentioned before,

motherhood has changed a great deal from 30 years ago when I had my daughter.

One thing that's really changed is, first of all, the workload for women and for anyone

who works. We're working 20 to 30 hours more a week than we used to in the 1990s.

And we see it in academia all the time. We're doing a lot more with a lot less support.

And so that trajectory has gone up. Then you have... and I love this. It's from a book

called The Mommy Myths and they talk about the Martha Stewartization of America.

Now, yeah, it's like the second shift has exploded with how we're expected to be.

When Martha Stewart came on the scene in about 1990 or so, I was in law school

and I was like, "Well, that's nice that she's baking things from scratch and if I had

time, maybe I'd attempt that." Now, it seems like that's a mandate. Everybody's

expected to have... Some of my participants talk about having a house full of

Pinterest projects and not only is everything supposed to be just clean, but

everything's supposed to be just on overdrive and decorated.

 

Dr. Butler: That's a lot of pressure.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yes. So you have rising work expectations and technology informed

that a lot. When I was a mom, if somebody wanted to reach me after work, they had

to call me on a phone that was plugged into a wall. And if I wasn't home, we didn't

have an answering machine so they would just have to call back. Technology has

totally changed that and totally changed that scene. So we have higher working

hours that are what we call extreme hours. We have the Martha Stewartization of

America. And then you have the expectations for mothers. When I was growing up, I

was one of those latchkey children. My mom was working, I'd come home, my

brother and I would come home from school, let us in, let ourselves into the house.

That I think would be child abuse today.

 

Dr. Butler: Could you explain a little bit for... because we know that we have some

viewers who may not know what latchkey is. So can you explain a little bit about

what latchkey is?

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. So back in the day, we literally would... The parents were

not home when we got home so we would have to come home from school to an

empty house. And I think the latchkey probably came from the idea that I had a key

that I could get into my home at like... I was eight, nine, ten years old or whatever.

And that was perfectly fine. And my brother was younger. And so these expectations

for motherhood were... Motherhood's never been easy, but I've read recently and

repeatedly that mothers today spend more time with their children than they didn't...

than mothers did in the 1960s.

 

Dr. Butler: Those who were outside of the home anyway during that time. And so

you had a routine. You would come home and there was a routine that you were

expected to do as a child before your parents got home.

 

Dr. Hermann: Right. And that was just the norm and now everything is we have to

protect children and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just much more... There's

much more judgment on parents than there used to be. And there's a lot of pressure

on parents to make sure the kids are involved in all kinds of activities and you're

bringing them everywhere. And back in my day, we got to choose like one, pick

something. I took dance lessons. My little brother took karate. And that was it. That

was the boundary my parents set and now it's... you're doing something every day of

the week and it's exhausting for women.

 

Dr. Butler: Exhausting. And that on top of doing all the work and I wonder what the

pandemic will have done to this because people have slowed down just a little bit.

And now people are seeing that they can work out of the home or they can do other

things. So now, what is the dynamic coming out of this going to look like for mothers

and fathers or single parents, any caregiver, who is taking care of children in that

regards? And I think you said it would be, perhaps, child abuse these days. Times

have changed, right? People don't feel safe anymore with leaving their kids at home

because there have been... I'm not gonna say over time. It's always been people

who have been bad.

 

Dr. Hermann: Right.

 

Dr. Butler: But something has changed the narrative and that, along with maybe

more social media and other things, has made it that much more apparent that you

might want to have more of a little bit of an eye on your children more than has been

in the past.

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. And I actually wrote a recent article about mothers during

the pandemic, a qualitative article, and hearing their voices was inspiring and I think

things have changed because of the pandemic. And I think one thing people noticed

is, "Okay, it was really hard to try to do all of these things before and now it's

impossible because the infrastructure collapsed." From having children, having the

schools... You couldn't even send your child to school and then you became kind of

a surrogate teacher and that was a huge impact, especially for the little people who

couldn't navigate Zoom school by themselves.

 

Dr. Butler: Right. And we don't think about the fact that they're not developmentally

ready for some of the challenges that they have gone through and so now we're

seeing a lot of the young people who are experiencing anxiety or experiencing other

things but they're hearing these messages about things going horribly wrong in the

world, yet they're still expected to be a kid and to get along and do the things that are

necessary. One of the things I hate for my daughter are the red school drills. I don't

know what they call them anymore. I think that's what they call them. The red drills or

whatever they have at school. And it's not necessarily something that has been

something that they've embraced because you got these kids huddled up

somewhere because somebody might be an active shooter in their school one day,

might be.

 

Dr. Hermann: Right and I can't imagine how frightening that is for someone,

especially... It would be frightening for me. And for someone at that developmental

level... Yeah, I think we really need to...

 

Dr. Butler: It's not an easy task, I'll tell you. My daughter is nine and it's not a fun

task but we still have to get through it. We'll move away from that. That's not a topic

for today. So you're doing this work with women, womanhood, and now you're going

to be taking on the co-chair of the task force. Can you talk a little bit about what that

looks like and how do you see that transitioning into some of the work that you're

doing right now?

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. And I'm so delighted. I appreciate the invitation to be part

of the task force. What we've done is we've really identified... We're still in our

infancy, but we've really identified the three major areas that we want to provide

resources for or we're going to do an ACA presentation. And those three areas are

men and boys, women and girls, and then the queer community and expansiveness

of gender. I actually learned a new term yesterday, Women plus.

 

Dr. Butler: Women plus?

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah, I had never seen that before and it's basically... It gives support

for that huge continuum of gender. It's not just women. It's not just people who

identify as women. It's beyond that. So those kinds of topics and then we're going to,

throughout each of... Those are our subgroups and throughout each of those

subgroups, we're going to have, always looking at intersectionality, always looking at

how does our work inform K-12 education? How does our work inform university

curriculum? And so those pieces kind of transcend each of those different

committees. So I am hoping that we can do things like post some of the articles that

I've written that I actually own the copyright to, like my Thrive Global articles, just so

people can understand what women are going through, at least some women. And

once again, we teach students that every person sitting in front of you is a unique

individual, but it's helpful to have some ideas of what may or may not they might be

experiencing.

 

Dr. Butler: Right, right. So the task force is coming together somewhat. It was kind

of put together but it's becoming more organic in its nature in terms of where it's kind

of growing. What are some of your hopes to come out of the task force? Do you

have any idea of maybe some of the end game or the products that you hope that

will come from it?

 

Dr. Hermann: What I'm thinking now is what I'm seeing people talk about guides,

best practice, guidelines, just pieces that... I love anything that's tangible. Here's

what you can do as a counselor educator. Here's what you can do as a counselor.

And just having those pieces of, 'Hey, let's put this in the curriculum. Here are

textbooks that support this intersectional approach to teaching." Those kinds of

things, that's what I'm really hoping that we can establish and ACA will put those

kinds of things on their website and so they'll be accessible to people.

 

Dr. Butler: Good, good. Good. So is there anything that you want to share with the

viewers today, the listeners today, about what Mary Hermann is doing other than the

task force, the things that you are putting your mind and body to, in order to kind of

change the narrative or the journeys of maybe even just women, not just in

counseling, but across the board?

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah and this is always tricky in academia because service work is, a

lot of times, devalued or often what I call invisible work and so I'm doing actually

doing a workshop on Friday on making invisible work visible in academia. One thing,

we have to pace ourselves because there's a lot of work out there to do and I have to

remind myself, I have to pace myself. But I'm currently working with a National

Science Foundation Advance IT grant and the IT is institutional transformation that

VCU has.

 

Dr. Hermann: And while there's not a formal... In most schools and colleges, there's

not a formal family leave. Family leave is happening but we're trying to make a

formalized effort. We're trying to support the dual career efforts. I think we've had

some success in stopping the tenure clock for men and women and because I really

do believe... and this is Margaret Sallee's work. She talked about how if we don't

give family leave to men, we are re-emphasizing that it's women's work. So we've

got to have... and I'm not going to say that we shouldn't pay attention to the physical

demands of motherhood on mothers and I think we need to navigate that some kind

of way, but also... and that's going to be one of my next research projects is faculty

fathers because I think we need to... The younger man, they want to be involved.

 

Dr. Butler: And so you're looking at the full picture of parenting and how everybody's

narrative is important or journey is important in terms of doing that because, again,

that goes back to the agenda piece, right? We are... the term would be genderizing

people. This is your job function, this is your job function, and you should never ever

stray from that.

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. So that's keeping me busy.

 

Dr. Butler: It sounds like it's keeping you busy keeping you busy. It's keeping you

busy. So in your footsteps, did your daughter follow what happened this year in the

counseling realm? I talked with so many people whose children and/or they've had

their career pathways altered because of what their parents or what they're doing

and what the children from what they are actually doing.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm actually second generation faculty, though

my dad was a physics professor and I was a liberal arts major. So I do have that

privilege which has been very helpful to help me navigate. I had a conversation with

him yesterday, about, "Okay, how do I do this?" And so I do like to give back,

especially mentoring. I love to mentor and I think that's so important. And my

daughter, it's funny you say that, she does toy with the idea of becoming a school

counselor. At the moment, she's teaching and working in the preschool at a school

where I used to teach so it's coming full circle and I love[1]Dr. Butler: Full circle, yes.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yes and it's the oldest, all girls Catholic school in the country. It's

Ursuline Academy in New Orleans and I love that since the preschool is just starting,

my little grandson is able to go to the preschool, even though he's a boy and

something about that just tickles me that he's at an all girls school.

 

Dr. Butler: All right. Okay. Excellent, excellent, excellent. So Mary, thank you so

much for taking the opportunity to kind of be with us today and to talk about all those

things that are necessary. You talked about research on women but is there

something about women in the academy that you want, perhaps, to kind of touch

base on before we cut it out today?

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. We need to be aware that the system that's in place right

now, the tenure system, our systems are very much designed for my father's

generation of faculty and he started as faculty in 1968. So very little has changed.

And if we want to recruit and retain diverse faculty, we need to be providing family

friendly structures. Family should not be invisible. We need to invite the whole

person into our academic communities. I even read once, maybe we should have the

childcare centers, if we're lucky enough to have a childcare center on campus which

we do, in the center of campus because sometimes it really will show how important

that is. So we need to continue to advocate for paid leave. I've heard of people going

back... In fact, 25% of women go back to work after having a baby after two weeks.

That is unacceptable. And we need to be really using our voices and whatever power

and privilege we have to make some of those changes and that's the work that I'm

living right now.

 

Dr. Butler: Right. And when you brought that up just now it made me think because

of the wage disparities, there are sometimes women being single parents and things

along those lines that have to make ends meet, that no one should have to take two

weeks off only.

 

Dr. Hermann: Yes, absolutely.

 

Dr. Butler: It's a major undertaking to bring a child into the world.

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely and for fathers too.

 

Dr. Butler: Right but we show those individuals that what they've gone through is not

significant. Go back to work. And our lives shouldn't be about work. It should be

about being and being able to enjoy what the world is. We have gotten so caught up

in having to do the day to day work things, like you said. I think you said earlier that

you spent most of your time doing stuff to make sure your work day gets taken care

of that you don't have the time to devote to your children. You were talking about

what your parents did when you were latchkey but shouldn't there be time when we

should be able to experience and enjoy being with our parents and our family and

not just on vacation?

 

Dr. Hermann: Absolutely. And I see an opportunity. I think COVID has really had...

People are re-assessing what their life is looking like and so I see having this

opportunity and I see having a voice as counselor educators because we know

about wellness, because we know about advocacy. I think we can change the world.

 

Dr. Butler: Wow, that's a great place for us to end our podcast, vodcast today. Dr.

Mary A. Hermann, thank you. Thank you for your service to the [inaudible]

profession. Thank you for everything that you're doing to advance the voices of

women. It is so necessary. And thank you for being inclusive because it's not just

about women. It's about the transgender community. It's about nonbinary

communities. It's about all of us embracing who we are moving forward in this world.

And so I really, truly thank you for taking the time to be with us and sharing your

words of wisdom. This is The Voice of Counseling from the American Counseling

Association. I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler. Today's guest, Dr. Mary A. Hermann. We're out

but we thank you for being a part of today's [inaudible]. Be well.

 

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