R: I have graduated from (School1), I studied for a turner. After that I had to start working, three years, then there were three years you had to work for sure, after you have graduated from (School1), and they told you where to work.
R: A lot of stereotypes, but one of the key, which is in fact has a valid base is that girls are much dutiful, especially in terms of education. To say it straightforwardly, girls use to learn everything by heart. This stereotype is really true (...).
I: I wanted to ask you to tell me about such situations in your life, in which the fact that you are a man played a role.
R: Well, when you are studying at (name university) then you do work a lot in groups. If you are in a boy's group there is always competition to get one or two girls in. And then in the second term we got two girls in the group, all together we were five persons.
R: I suppose when I was thinking about it, Ireland has changed a lot and there aren't the stereotypes that there were maybe for my parents’ generation.
R: Well in fact, I still suffer from being prepared to something: ‘Yes, go ahead and do it, you can go to the gymnasium!’ And you take extra lessons with a small group of friends, extra French lessons (two weeks, two days, I forgot about that), and then they tell you: ‘You’re not allowed to do this
R: Before I started teaching, one evening I was at my fathers house, having dinner. My father, his wife, my stepbrother and his friend were there, and we were talking about school, and memories of school.
R: (...) It turns out that I work in an area that is quite feminine – human resources. It's pretty funny because when you look at the reality of things, basically up to a certain level it's still feminine and when you go up the hierarchy, well, it becomes very masculine.
R: My brother wanted to study, and the two girls and I couldn’t. That's all... I: Why your brother could study and not the grils? R: Because at that time it wasn’t thought necessary for girls to study as much as boys. That's all... I: Why not as much as boys?
“Yes, the first story touches on the areas of education and professional life. I have, that is, I grew up in a relatively equality oriented and emancipated family in a big city and therefore never thought about this subject.
R: (...) Well, as I said, I grew up in [town e], together with my sister, who was two years older...<br />[…]
R: I was hoping to find something serious, but I was raised in a rather emancipated …. I had very much the impression that my sex did not matter. Surely when I was a child. It was only much later that I thought… That I could imagine that there were advantages to being a women. Or that it mattered.