The male and female participants in her room nodded in agreement before contributing their personal stories that illustrated her basic principles. I have been trying to make sense of that. You have helped me. Brunner, who began studying superintendents, male and female, for her dissertation in 1992, has been specially intrigued by women holding this position. Women are not socialized to be men.
Women have to move in an undefined space.
She stumbled fortuitously onto the remarkable similarity between Castenada s description of the training of Yaqui Indian warriors while she was compiling data on female superintendents. Both the warriors and the female administrators she studied were willing to take risks, maintain a simple, focused agenda on what is important, make morally correct decisions and act with courage. Both have an insatiable need for a challenge because they cannot tolerate boredom, Brunner said. Female superintendents are not afraid to sail around a cliff. Successful female superintendents also have found a way to overcome the stresses of the position, which can have a devastating impact on marriage, friendships and privacy.