#professoring

Yesterday, my friend BW and I were talking about the difficulties of being ‘perky’, friendly women in academia. This is an issue I’ve been thinking about a lot because of the following encounters: 

a.     A female graduate student who is probably my age or older, during our conversation, observed that she always wanted to talk to me because I had a “warm and open face.” Now, this is clearly intended to be a compliment. She thinks that I am approachable and friendly, and therefore feels comfortable talking to me. These are all good things. But the flipside to this, of course, is that I am getting approached because of my “warm and open face,” and not because of the intellectual contributions I could bring to her project. Also, imagine telling the warmest and most open male professor you know that you’ve been wanting to talk to him because of his “warm and open face”? Does that scenario make you wrinkle your nose?  It does, doesn’t it? Why? Because you simply do not comment on men’s appearances in the same way. 

b.     In my other department, I initially was not given a mailbox even though I am a full-time faculty member there. (This is another story altogether. I was also not given access to a printing code until I asked for it). This meant that everytime I have mail, I have to go to the front desk. The front desk staff, without fail, even after the fifth time we’ve spoken, will look up, give me a quick once over, and inquire whether I was a student or a TA when I give my name to ask for my mail. Why would I give my name to ask for someone else’s mail? That doesn’t make sense. 

c.     Last week, I was at a panel with four female scholars, all of whom were presenting groundbreaking research on migrant activism and migrant detainments. All of them were young (looking), women of colour of Asian descent. The discussant – a man in his early 40s – saw fit to start his comments by saying how privileged he was to be in a panel with “beautiful women,” then proceeded to make a joke about how Beauty and the Beast was out in theatres, and that he was the beast amidst all of these beauties. Would he have said the same thing to a panel of men? Imagine if I, as the sole female discussant, said the same thing to a panel full of men? “I am so fortunate to be in this panel of hunks. Wow. I really am so lucky to be the ravenous Beast surrounded by these male beauties.”

And there are many more encounters: undergraduate students who I feel don’t respect me because they see me as young, female, racialized, and therefore not worthy of the common courtesy extend to white male professors (e.g., so many of my emails from my students start with my first name, even though I sign my emails as “Professor”); administrators who are really nice but give me well-meaning advice on my diet post-partum because I am friendly and like chit-chat; etc etc etc. In many ways, being approachable can work to my advantage: I can navigate my way around bureaucratic hurdles by being – you know – a polite human being and issuing requests nicely; I don’t think networking events are that hard (though man oh man, can they be stressful, particularly when you’re talking to folks who do not understand the concept of polite conversation); and, finally, I have been able to forge close working relationships and friendships with some of my colleagues.

 But the perils of being perky mean that my work, in some contexts, is not taken as seriously. Because of my affect, which naturally gravitates towards being peppy and enthusiastic, I oftentimes feel that I am the pink flamingo in a room full of dour buffalos who seem mildly bemused when I talk to them about my research. And because my research is decidedly non-mainstream and because I tend to use methods and methodologies that are rare in my discipline, which is full of positivists who prioritize experimental methods, me being a perky, young (looking), woc adds up to me being “cute” but not taken seriously.

This, obviously, kills me because if there is anything I take seriously, it is my work. Lately, I’ve started to own the amount of work I do. I work hard. I’ve undertaken numerous interviews for my research, have done immense ethnographic work with various communities, have written for academic and non-academic audiences, and am trying really hard to climb up the ladder towards tenure. Because I am now a parent, the amount of time I can spend in the office is limited; because of my caregiving responsibilities, I’ve had to truncate my work time, waiting until SP is asleep before writing until the wee hours of the morning, before sleeping again and going to the university to teach/do service/write/research. But because I do not work conventionally in that I cannot spend 24/7 tied to my desk, nor can I respond to emails within the hour – particularly in the timeslot between 4:30 pm and 8:30 pm during weekdays, when I am consumed by parental responsibilities and also during weekends, when I have to spend time with MOTL and SP (and this is something I want to do for the sake of work-life balance) – I oftentimes fear that I am being slotted as being unproductive.

I have this student who is smart, funny, engaged, and probably on the spectrum, but I never got a notice, so let's just go with atypical. He likes to pop in my office for very brief, sometimes funny, sometimes brutally honest discussions. In the last three days:

Student Z: Can I hug you?

Me, startled because whoa, didn't see him there: No, sorry. My illnesses make hugging painful. Not a hugger.

Student Z: You don't look like a hugger. I should have known. [Immediately walks away]

Me: Wait, Z. You okay?

Student Z: I just need hugs today. It's Monday.

-----

Student Z: [head pops in only, grinning] I BELIEVE IN YOU, DR LEX!

Me: I BELIEVE IN YOU, Z!

Student Z: Wait, like really? Really seriously?

----

Student Z: Have you, Dr. Lex, ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Me: I'm usually in bed before moonrise, so our dances tend to be more sunlit.

Student Z: That was a movie reference. Did you get it?

Me: Batman, yep!

Student Z: [in Batman voice] I am Batman

Me: You should try that voice during peer workshopping today

Student Z: [in Batman voice] This paper needs a lot of work.

----

Student Z: Are those acne scars on your face?

Me: Some. My set of illnesses makes breakouts last longer, heal slower, and my skin periodically tries to eat itself (psoriasis related to ankylosing spondylitis)

Student Z: I have some. Can they heal? I want to look normal. How do you cope?

Me: Oh, Z. It's been a long time since that's bothered me. The world is huge and beautiful.

Student Z: It is. That reminds me. I forgot to do the make up homework.

-----

Student Z: You're wearing makeup! It looks so pretty!

Me: I'm not feeling great, so I thought I'd try to look alive. You wouldn't want your prof to be an animated corpse, right?

Student Z: I don't know. The Walking Dead is a cool show. Do you think it's dystopian?

Me: Class starts in 20 minutes. I'll need three hours to answer that question.

...............

Those tabs are all for work. Those fics are for the project I’m finishing this week (oh, look. @copperbadge fic gets cited in an academic journal). The spreadsheets are course grades, due in T-minus 9 days. Blackboard, two email accounts, youtube vids I’m citing, the remaining two articles to write before December 15 mocking me from GDocs, and the facebook chat I’m using to ask former students for tenure letter recs.

This is insane.

In the last three months, I’ve taught three classes of mostly freshmen, tutored 40 hours, written 15k words of theory for three different projects, managed a committee while being a member of three others, managed a website, and took over tech support for our floor of the building.  I haven’t called my mom in weeks. 

I miss Tumblr.

I miss my bed.

I miss talking to people. 

The tenure folder is due six weeks from tomorrow.