I recently returned from a journey to Zurich and Lausanne where I worked with seventy-five women scientists during three days of workshops.\u00a0 People usually return from Switzerland raving about the landscapes, the languages, and, of course, the delicious chocolate, but these aren\u2019t what stood out for me.<\/p>\n
The Swiss manage the logistics of daily life with ease and energy savings.\u00a0 Take public transit, for example.\u00a0 Trams, buses, funicular rails, and trains traverse Zurich.\u00a0 There is a station every few blocks, so you never have to walk far to catch some mode of transport.\u00a0 All the trams run punctually, and every station has an electronic sign with the number and arrival time of the various lines, never more than two or three or three minutes apart.<\/p>\n
In order to ride local transit, you purchase a ticket, which you then time stamp at a machine, available at every stop.\u00a0 The ticket is then good for twenty-four hours on any line within the specified zone.\u00a0 There are no turnstiles, no ticket takers, no guards or gates.\u00a0 You simply get on and ride.\u00a0 Everyone seems to adhere to this honor system. The cost savings in personnel and infrastructure must be enormous.<\/p>\n
Once your tram arrives, you push a green button on the door you wish to enter.\u00a0 Only that door opens, and a step lowers for you to get on.\u00a0 Again, a savings in energy.\u00a0 An overhead screen shows the next several stops as well as the expected travel time between each stop and total travel time to the end of the line.\u00a0 Other than a perfectly articulated recorded female voice telling you when you are nearing each stop, the ride is smooth and quiet.\u00a0 When you disembark, you again push the green button and only your door opens.<\/p>\n
One of my hosts told me the philosophy behind this efficiency. It is a priority because losing time waiting for a train isn\u2019t only a frustration, it\u2019s an actual cost to the economy.\u00a0 \u201cIt costs less,\u201d she said, \u201cto fix a train, than it would if all the passengers were late to work.\u201d\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t help think of time I have wasted on the Red Lines in Boston and Washington, D.C..<\/p>\n
Everything was clean.\u00a0 The trains were clean.\u00a0 The city streets spotless.\u00a0 Public parks immaculate.\u00a0 Even public restrooms sparkled.\u00a0 The flushing mechanism on the toilets themselves were water efficient with two kinds of flush choices.\u00a0 (Oregon has instituted this in the Portland airport.) Most had a toilet brush next to the bowl, and antiseptic wipes for the seat.\u00a0 Just as personal responsibility was in force on the trams, so was it also in the toilets.\u00a0 Imagine the difference when we traveled through Penn Station in New York.<\/p>\n
Energy efficient architecture was the norm.\u00a0 In the university buildings where my workshops were held, the lights were all motion activated.\u00a0 Room lights, hall lights, and bathroom lights stayed off until someone entered. In our hotel in Lausanne, the hallways were dark until you walked into them. In order to activate the lights in your room, you put your key into a pad at the doorway. When you left the room, you removed your key and all the lights went off, a system I\u2019ve only encountered in one U.S. hotel. What a difference between this and the profligate energy expense of Times Square twenty four hours a day.<\/p>\n
The Lausanne hotel had another green feature.\u00a0 As morning sunlight streamed in from the east, the shades automatically lowered.\u00a0\u00a0 It was possible to override this feature to still see the view, but think of the energy savings of all the rooms where no one was there.<\/p>\n
The Swiss approach to college education is efficient as well.\u00a0 Anyone can go to any Swiss university they choose \u2014 for free. There are no admission limitations or tuition payments.\u00a0 I asked my host where students choose to attend. Her response was very practical: the university closest to home.\u00a0 Because of the high cost of living in Switzerland, most students live with their parents while they are in school.<\/p>\n
The catch is this.\u00a0 At the end of the first year of university classes, every student takes a series of comprehensive exams.\u00a0 If you pass, you continue at the university.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t, you switch to a vocational school.<\/p>\n
The Swiss sense of shared civic responsibility, not only in the basic honesty of transit and toilets, continues in military service.\u00a0 Every young man must perform two years of military duty.\u00a0 (It would be even more advanced if women were included in this requirement.) In one of my many conversations about Swiss culture, a host told me that every Swiss family has a gun.\u00a0 Hunting is a common pastime. Yet, there are no mass shootings like the current epidemic in the U.S.\u00a0 \u201cWhy?\u201d I asked. \u201cBecause every man has had training with weapons,\u201d she said. \u201cThey understand the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Addiction is viewed as an illness.\u00a0 Clean needles are sold in vending machines.\u00a0 I saw no homeless people sleeping or begging on the streets.\u00a0 Voices are quiet.\u00a0 People say hello and ask you how you are.\u00a0 Traffic stops when you enter a cross walk.\u00a0 The population is well dressed.\u00a0 No one seems overweight.<\/p>\n
What is the price of this perfection?<\/p>\n
I began to understand during my workshops.\u00a0 How many times did I hear the words, \u201cI could never say that.\u201d I had to convince the women I worked with that having a point of view, or expressing a disagreement, or asking for what you need, is not only acceptable, but necessary.\u00a0 The status quo of the male hierarchy seemed more important than the ability to successfully negotiate advancement.<\/p>\n
I heard that the newly empowered political movement in Switzerland is against spending public money on day care.\u00a0 The rationale is this: taking care of children is the role of women in the family, so why should the government pay for it?\u00a0 Although the universities currently do provide day care for their employees, there is fear that it will be suspended.<\/p>\n
The women I worked with also typically had very quiet voices.\u00a0 It\u2019s true that the Swiss in general speak more quietly than Americans.\u00a0 It was difficult, though, to bring out a confident present voice in many of the participants.\u00a0 I had to encourage them over and over to bring their voices forward and clearly land their points.<\/p>\n
This vocal diminishing went hand in hand with a tendency to take up less space.\u00a0 To many, it seemed unnatural to claim the area around themselves.\u00a0 Although they acknowledged that men in their science teams felt much more comfortable doing this, the actual physical experience of expanding spacial ownership was challenging.<\/p>\n
I hope that I return to Switzerland soon.\u00a0 I hope that I can work with more women there.\u00a0 It\u2019s a culture that thrives on obedience and maintaining the norms.\u00a0 The best parts of this make life run smoothly, easily and efficiently.\u00a0 The price, though, is a deference to the old rules.\u00a0 It\u2019s time for all of us to change them, one small step at a time, without losing the best of the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently returned from a journey to Zurich and Lausanne where I worked with seventy-five women scientists during three days of workshops.\u00a0 People usually return from Switzerland raving about the landscapes, the languages, and, of course, the delicious chocolate, but these aren\u2019t what stood out for me. The Swiss manage the logistics of daily life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}