Thank You, PhD Wives

Written: 25 October 2006
Updated: 13 November 2006

I will start this writing with some facts that I observed about the wife of the PhD/Researchers who accompany their husband in attending conferences in foreign country like UIST 2006. This section is then continued with me and my friends’ hypothesis of the facts, and closed with an acknowledgement to the sacrifices done by these PhD wives for their husbands:

Facts:
1. I didn’t see the wives during the conference but I saw them during the social event (banquet)…
2. The attendance of this scientific conference is 90% male, 10% female…
3. I didn’t see children during the conference, but I saw some of them appearing during the banquet. However, most PhD/Researcher and his wife sit around the table without their children, so their children are not with them during the conference.
4. The wives don’t talk too much to other researchers other than her husband or her husband’s students, mostly using their mother tongue language.
5. The conference is usually packed with many events from morning till night.

Some hypothesis on fact no 1:
1. The cost for attending a conference is quite high, even though (if I’m not mistaken) for some conference, there is a reduced fee for the spouse of a presenter… Her husband is attending/presenting anyway, so why do double registration…
2. The topic discussed in the conference is not interesting for them?? (A note here is that if their husband is attending that conference, it means that the conference topic is somehow related to her husband’s research topic, which should be quite “familiar” with her as most likely her husband will talk about his research somehow…)
3. During day time, they are traveling alone/with other PhD wives touring the new city or stay in the hotel room. And then when their husband returned at night, they will tell the story about the new city to her husband??

Some hypothesis on fact no 2:
1. Maybe it is because God designed different roles for man and woman. Even though I know that there are several special cases here (there exists a woman who can do better job in the predominantly male environment…)

Some hypothesis on fact no 3:
1. They don’t have children yet…
2. They left their children with their parents/someone else at home…

Some hypothesis on fact no 4:
1. Especially those who come from non English speaking countries, they don’t speak English well (not their mother tongue), so due to this language barrier, they chose to remain silent. Imagine that you are an Indonesian (mother tongue: Indonesian language) and then you sit in a table with a group of Korean people (mother tongue: Korean language) and you don’t understand Korean/only know a little bit… Most probably you will speak less…
2. The conversations that took place on the dining table are mostly scientific (more specifically, computer science related)... There is a knowledge gap especially if they were not a computer science graduates themselves??

Some hypothesis on fact no 5:
1. Actually there is not many time the wives to be together with their husbands except during the social events like banquet. Only after the conference, if they choose to spend 1-2 days more before returning back to their country, then it is holiday for them… Other than that… These wives are mostly alone/without their husbands by their side in foreign country for 3-4 days…

So, a point here is that I would like to express my acknowledgement to these PhD wives… who has sacrificed their own feelings/needs so that they can accompany their husband to foreign countries, allowing themselves to be partially “left behind” for the duration of the conference, to explore the new city by themselves and then be the tour guide for her husband later on, to be a strong figure beside her husband even though she probably doesn’t really understand what is being discussed on top of the dining table, etc… This is just a part of few other sacrifices that you all (PhD wives) have made for the advance of science/humanity (this is my quote hehe).

PS:
1. This is my personal point of view… If any wife of a PhD read this (or in fact, any woman who want to respond on this issue), and you want to share with me your experience/your view about this interesting issue, please email me at stevenhalim at gmail.com. I’m very interested to find out more view points about this issue because it is quite likely that this issue will involve myself (and my future spouse --- don’t have one yet) too in the future :p…
2. This issue is actually experienced by not only PhD wives, but also other wives who have to accompany their husband, e.g. for their husband’s company event, etc. However, I guess this issue is more “serious” for PhD wives as there are at least three barriers for them: different language, new country, and possibly alien topic of discussion…