A Talking To

Ack. Insomnia. Except, now I have to get up early to go to the gym....

I attended Dane's dry-run job talk (he gives the real one at the U of South Florida next Tuesday) and was quite frankly withered. I am so proud of him: how hard he works, how brilliant he is.... I saw the original seed of this paper back in 2002, when we were both in the same seminar. I was the respondent on his mock panel, and I was pleased today to see that some of the suggestions I made back then stuck with him and he has, in turn, used those things in his paper's current incarnation. But watching a colleague (and I have to switch gears here because he is also one of my best friends) give a paper where the research is so similar to one's own is pretty uncanny. I cannot help but think that he says so much of what I say, but so much better. And so I cheered him on, clapped my hands, and succumbed to my crippling inferiority complex.

After his talk, Erika and I were accosted by one of our professors and as she pointed at us, wild-eyed, she demanded to know why her "two favorite girls in the department" sat silently during the Q&A. "Where were your voices?" she yelled. "Don't let me ever catch you two letting the boys run the show!" Her point, and it's something I've thought a lot about lately, is that the boys in our department are certainly the stars. Girls like Erika and I, who do consistently good work, are dark horses. It is not our names that line the "recent publications" shelf in the department library. We are quietly pushed by professors, but we compromise too much of our own work (in the form of time spent helping them with their work) for the men around us. I'm not sure why we do this. I suppose it would be easy to chalk it up to cultural values, our mothers and fathers, etc. but I think it is something a bit harder to identify and, therefore, kick. She spoke of her ex, who was also a grad student. While he panicked about his academic voracity, she would soothe him and then write much of his work for him. He received accolades for his brilliant work, but never once gave her the kudos she deserved (for her support, her time spent, her own direct contribution to his work, etc.). She warned us to never let ourselves feel dwarfed by the boys around us, never to offer ourselves or our work up as sacrifices to them. Yet, even if we are not directly involved in a boy's work, the sheer fact that we often sacrifice our time (and, therefore, sacrifice our work) in order to soothe the neuroses of the boys we love, attests to her assertion. It is not their fault--I surround myself with neurotic and inconstant boys simply because these are traits with which I identify and respond to, as often in anger as in inspiration. But how to negotiate the many facets and pitfalls of this peculiar profession?

What I do know is that this is a self-immolating process for all involved. But, the degrees and types of anxieties attendant to academia are distinctly gendered.

I once read that a 19th century cure for hysteria was toast topped with caraway seeds and rose extract. I found this incredibly interesting since the "cure" for my anxiety attacks often (and rather oddly) take the form of cinnamon toast and tea.